#startrek

Re-watching TNG Coming of Age. Is there any decent in-universe explanation for how getting into the academy can be this hard? First there's the hard-to-swallow idea that every officer walking around the Enterprise had to be the single best candidate out of a stellar group like this in order to even get in. (Hmmm, Worf, Yar, the lowest ensign in security, they all had to do better than Wesley is doing to get in?) But second, if Starfleet Academy was that exclusive, how would they ever get enough people to staff more than about one or two starships? I get that the writers at this point probably just didn't think that far ahead and that it's useful to show Wesley failing at something. But is there any reasonable explanation in-universe? (To be clear, I like Wesley, this is not a matter of complaining about the character.) #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG

I never understand why people give Janeway such a hard time for supposed prime directive violations. I'm re-watching TNG Home Soil, and Picard flat out says that life or no life, intelligence or no intelligence, the safety of his ship and crew comes first. He winds up finding a different solution, but at that moment if he could phaser the new lifeform, it sounds like he would. So why is Janeway the problem? This is the sort of thing that often makes me think the complaint is about seeing a woman in a position of authority, not about Trek's variable interpretation of the prime directive. #StarTrek #StarTrekVoy #StarTrekTNG