[B'atL'eth's Blood]

There was an episode where she and Jean Luc would have breakfast. It turns out Jean luc just wanted Coffee and a Croissant. But for the entire episode Beverly kept trying (without much success) to pronounce it "Quassoin" like she could actually speak French. The whole damn episode she would butcher the French language, it was more annoying than her wunderkind offspring. Q was right. She DID get more shrill as time went on....ok, sorry for the rant...Now back to your regularly scheduled programming..

[ticktrek]

Gates McFadden speaks fluent French....well, according to her. She owns a farm and has established a theater in France.

[Shlomi of Vulcan]

more shrill and more beautiful with each episode -

[JulesLuvsShinzon]

The episode was Attached.

And if you thought her French was bad, you should hear Picard speaking his alleged native tongue!

[mlaz]

Well she does speak french ... for an american she speaks it realy good and she does have this nice place in france and she told that does play's there.

[Madame President]

I started replying to this yesterday, but then I dont even know what happened and it didn't get posted. This goes back to my theory of Star Trek having a hard time with female characters with episodes about them. A lot of Beverly Crusher episodes are awful, and in my opinion, very annoying. Like that crappy "Sub Rosa" where she gets seduced by the ghost guy... or something that doesn't make hardly any sense.... I mean, what on earth. In TOS there aren't really any episodes about Uhura or Nurse Chapel, except the fiance(I, do not speak french and therefore am not sure if that's really how you spell that) robot one which I'm not going to go into detail on because you know it if you've seen it. In TNG basically all episodes about Dr. Crusher or Troi are horrible, even though as characters there not bad. I haven't watched hardly any Voyager or DS9, but I hate Bellana Torres, so bad. The only prominent female character in Enterprise was T'pol, who was sometimes okay, but sometimes just kind of a skank. Well, I guess this thread is where you come to rant, especially if you're B'atLe'th's Blood or Madame President. So, yeah. Guess I'm done. =)

[ticktrek]

Sub Rosa was as bad, if not worse, than any first season episode and they pretty much all sucked compared to the rest of the series.

[ensign edwards]

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A lot of Beverly Crusher episodes are awful, and in my opinion, very annoying. Like that crappy "Sub Rosa" where she gets seduced by the ghost guy... or something that doesn't make hardly any sense.... I mean, what on earth.

That one competes with duets, shades of grey and the one where the kids mother is killed and an alien takes her place for worst TNG episode ever.(OMG I'm turning into the comic book guy!)

[Terilynn]

I am bringing this thread back to life in order for Jules and I to have a conversation about this poorly (IMHO) character without having to bother the STXI threads.

I've read through these old posts and have found myself laughing that there were people who feel the same way I did about how Crusher's character was so poorly served by the writers in this series that her character became my least favorite - and unlike Troi - she was never able to redeem herself.

Was it really so difficult for the writers to give Beverly a true sense of consistency with her character or were they so wrapped up in their episodic tendencies that they didn't know how to use here except as anything but the verbalization of the contradictory opinions of the moral of the show?

She's rarely right about her decisions and she moralizes to a degree of - to use Q's term - shrillness.

Jules - when it came to Attached...I still have a hard time believing that Crusher would pine for Picard after her husband died under his command - But I never saw these two as a potential couple and wished that they could have just written a female character who didn't been to be defined by her desire for her crewmate.

We learned in the first episode that Troi and Riker had already been an item and had left that relationship hanging...and that was okay. So why did we have to have the only other female character pout over Picard?

Why did they have to create Crusher to be as weak in the knees for Picard? She just needed to be a regular crewmember...

What was it about Attached that you liked so much? I could buy them as friends...just not as lovers.

[maneth]

Oh dear. Beverly was only redeemed IMO by being away for season 2. When she came back she at least proved herself 1000 times better than Pulaski. At least Crusher mostly hid her crush from Picard and even from herself. Crushes aren't necessarily rational but it's a bit hard to reconcile her crush with the fact that her husband died under his command... But yeah, TNG definitely suffers from the fact that most men have problems when they attempt to write believable female characters. DS9 didn't do too badly, even if both Kira and Jadzia could as easily have been written as men (presumably excepting Jadzia's relationship with Worf...).

[Radardog]

Terilynn, on Feb 1 2009, 02:07 PM, said:

She's rarely right about her decisions and she moralizes to a degree of - to use Q's term - shrillness.

I'm not sure I understand this. I need more explanation. Morally speaking, Crusher's decisions always seemed OK to me. Now, to a medical professional that may vary. But to me, I never really saw her act truly immorally. Sometimes she was required to be bold about medical treatment to solve a problem. But that's just to provide dramatic tension. If all medical shows were realistic, then ER, House and Grey's Anatomy wouldn't have any viewers.

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Jules - when it came to Attached...I still have a hard time believing that Crusher would pine for Picard after her husband died under his command - But I never saw these two as a potential couple and wished that they could have just written a female character who didn't been to be defined by her desire for her crewmate.

We learned in the first episode that Troi and Riker had already been an item and had left that relationship hanging...and that was okay. So why did we have to have the only other female character pout over Picard?

Why did they have to create Crusher to be as weak in the knees for Picard? She just needed to be a regular crewmember...

I'm going to take the role of television producer for a moment here. You don't create characters who are "regular crewmembers" unless you want them to stand in the background. How interesting was Worf for most of the first season? Not very. He was just a "regular crewmember" with a bumpy forehead. He was painfully dull. Season two comes along and guess what? Worf's got a past now. Not a "first Klingon serving in Starfleet" past, but a past involving a half human, half Klingon female who discusses interesting that Worf wants to be a traditional Klingon but really isn't. Anyway, as we move into the third season, we suddenly get a glimpse into Worf's past that makes him not only interesting, but one of the most interesting TNG characters.

Now, let's discuss Crusher for a moment. Crusher wasn't written as a piece of scenery that was eventually moved into the forefront. She was written as a confidant of Picard's who had a past with him. In other words, one of her original intents was to serve as a possible love interest to Picard. Why? Because people find that stuff interesting. Developing romantic relationships are fascinating to people. That's why Kirk had a new girl every week. Not because he a philandering jerk, but because people tuned in to see him fall in love with a girl. And he almost always did. Now, Picard wasn't written like Kirk. He was more reserved. So, they couldn't write a new love interest for him each week, which is why Riker was there anyway. Riker satisfied that part usually. But Picard needed someone to occasionally flirt with or he was never going to come across as anything but a celibate father figure whose loins had dried up. Beverly was an attractive older woman who knew and respected Picard. And adding to that the fact that they kind of had a crush on each other helped keep their characters interesting when interacting.

But in the end, I don't see what all the fuss is about her being written that way. Despite the occasional episode that hinted that they liked each other in a more than friends kind of way, they never really hooked up. There was the final episode that suggested that they married, but later divorced, so maybe it really wasn't meant to be. For the most part, they just remained friends, and I don't see anything wrong with any of that.

I think that being a working single mother who is considered a respected professional is a pretty strong feminine character.

[ensign edwards]

Okay, TL, I was just reading some of your comments in the ST:XI section, and I found something I wanted to reply to.

I never really liked Crusher, so I can't believe I'm doing this, but I'm going to defend one thing. You said you didn't like her pressuring Worf into giving the transfusion to that Romulan? That it wasn't consistent with her character? I disagree. Crusher always struck me as a character with a very strong but very simplistic moral compass. To me, she seemed to represent an almost stereotypical belief in the medical ethic of "save the patient, do no harm." She had a very strong belief in saving lives and such, which may have led to her disregard for the feelings of Worf and the Romulan. I think her actions in that episode (the name escapes me at the moment) are perfectly consistent with who she is.

[Terilynn]

ensign edwards, on Feb 2 2009, 09:38 AM, said:

Okay, TL, I was just reading some of your comments in the ST:XI section, and I found something I wanted to reply to.

I never really liked Crusher, so I can't believe I'm doing this, but I'm going to defend one thing. You said you didn't like her pressuring Worf into giving the transfusion to that Romulan? That it wasn't consistent with her character? I disagree. Crusher always struck me as a character with a very strong but very simplistic moral compass. To me, she seemed to represent an almost stereotypical belief in the medical ethic of "save the patient, do no harm." She had a very strong belief in saving lives and such, which may have led to her disregard for the feelings of Worf and the Romulan. I think her actions in that episode (the name escapes me at the moment) are perfectly consistent with who she is.

NO - I think you may have misunderstood my anger with that. It's not that she was pressuring Worf - hell they needed the angsty yakkity yak in the episode....and you're right - it was TOTALLY in her character - same as it would have been if it were McCoy. It's the idea that if Worf would have said yes - she would have used it to save the patient - KNOWING that he would deny the treatment.

Ask any medical professional - Jehovah's Witnesses don't want transfusions...it's their right to deny treatment and you DON'T simply dishonor those wishes because they're unconscious. You acknowledge the patient's wishes even they don't vocalize it. She knew he was Romulan and he said NO. She ignored him - I found her actions to continue seeking the treatment reprehensible.

It was the fact that she knew her patient wishes and instead of just sitting back and letting nature take its course - she sought to obtain the blood anyway. It was simply horrific writing.

The writers simply manipulated her character to the point of being so inconsistent and pliable that she lost any respect on a professional level.

Her mothering skills are not what I have ever taken issue with (that was for aklaus). Wesley was a good kid and dammit - I liked his character.

Her character was always defined by those around her - rarely if ever - the other way around.

Ethics is a perfect show to represent her hypocrasy. Worf is injured and she all of a sudden wants to take the "safe route?" Since when? She was always the one who pushed for the latest and greatest and - once her patient was fully informed - let them make the call. I watched this again two weeks ago and found myself really feeling for Beverly and her inability to see that she might have been entirely wrong about her stance on the experimental treatment. Worf knew the risks and so did his family. Beverly accepted them - but not without getting all preachy? WTF? I found that episode another switch-back on her character...

AND that's my REAL beef. The writers never allowed consistency of character with her...it drove me nuts. And because of it she comes off as insincere and whiny.

This post has been edited by Terilynn: 02 February 2009 - 12:33 PM

[ensign edwards]

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NO - I think you may have misunderstood my anger with that. It's not that she was pressuring Worf - hell they needed the angsty yakkity yak in the episode....and you're right - it was TOTALLY in her character - same as it would have been if it were McCoy. It's the idea that if Worf would have said yes - she would have used it to save the patient - KNOWING that he would deny the treatment.

Ask any medical professional - Jehovah's Witnesses don't want transfusions...it's their right to deny treatment and you DON'T simply dishonor those wishes because they're unconscious. You acknowledge the patient's wishes even they don't vocalize it. She knew he was Romulan and he said NO. She ignored him - I found her actions to continue seeking the treatment reprehensible.

It was the fact that she knew her patient wishes and instead of just sitting back and letting nature take its course - she sought to obtain the blood anyway. It was simply horrific writing.

I was addressing that too. As I said, she has a very simplistic worldview, and I think this action fits with it. She views the Romulan's prejudice as foolish, so she's not inclined to care about it. She views his life as more important than his beliefs. (I never said I agreed with her.)

Anyway, I think it was consistent.

[Terilynn]

ensign edwards, on Feb 2 2009, 11:14 AM, said:

I was addressing that too. As I said, she has a very simplistic worldview, and I think this action fits with it. She views the Romulan's prejudice as foolish, so she's not inclined to care about it. She views his life as more important than his beliefs. (I never said I agreed with her.)

Anyway, I think it was consistent.

Oh - okay. Great - now she's twice as annoying.

[fastillion]

Yeah...I always found Crusher to be sort of a way to throw a woman at Picard when he needed a gilly....Overall, I think that her and Troi both could have had ALOT of revamping done on their writing, so that instead of being...well, when I think of Troi, I think 'Hey, Riker's girlfriend and wife' and not 'Hey, that one awesome Betazoid who saved their asses more then a few times', which is what I would rather be thinking. Same goes for Crusher, I think that while the two were fleshed out pretty good, that fleshing out should have been a bit less along the lines of chatting over men while doing aerobic excersizes.... /facepalm.

[Terilynn]

fastillion, on Feb 2 2009, 12:28 PM, said:

Yeah...I always found Crusher to be sort of a way to throw a woman at Picard when he needed a gilly....Overall, I think that her and Troi both could have had ALOT of revamping done on their writing, so that instead of being...well, when I think of Troi, I think 'Hey, Riker's girlfriend and wife' and not 'Hey, that one awesome Betazoid who saved their asses more then a few times', which is what I would rather be thinking. Same goes for Crusher, I think that while the two were fleshed out pretty good, that fleshing out should have been a bit less along the lines of chatting over men while doing aerobic excersizes.... /facepalm.

*giggle* *facepalm*

[bitmap]

What was that episode where she got caught in her own universe, that was insane. I don't know if that developed her character or not, it just sort of reinforced the prejudice we all had anyway. Shrill, flustered and befuddled. But her and Picard appeared to be the only ones who didn't actually age and her and Worf who got more and more beautiful.

[ensign edwards]

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Oh - okay. Great - now she's twice as annoying.

I never said she wasn't annoying.

[trekkin']

meh...I always liked Beverly over Troi. I try not to think about TNG in terms of later shows, because it would wreck a lot of it for me. I agree that Jadzia was a better female role. (But she was also an "Old Ma