How Voyager Killed Star Trek’s Most Annoying Character Trope
During the run of Star Trek: Voyager, the franchise's most annoying character trope was finally put to rest. Beginning with Wesley Crusher, Star Trek: The Next Generation started a trend of including young prodigy characters in the main cast of every show. The trope that should have ended with Wesley lasted until the finale of Voyager in 2001 and makes the existence of children in Star Trek more vexing than it should be.
Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) was the first minor in the main cast of a Star Trek show but quickly got a lot of backlash for how he was portrayed as overly intelligent. He leaves the Enterprise as a season regular in TNG season 4 to enroll in Starfleet Academy. In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, there are a couple of younger characters who regularly appear. Jake Sisko is an aspiring writer and the son of Captain Benjamin Sisko. He becomes friends with a Ferengi near to his age named Nog who trains to become Starfleet Academy's first Ferengi enrolled. Naomi Wildman came next in the franchise, a recurring character that appears inStar Trek: Voyager and grows at an accelerated rate. Neelix and Seven of Nine eventually became parental figures to her.
Related: Star Trek: Why Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher) Quit TNG
The issue with children in Star Trek didn't die with Wesley. In smaller ways, the trope continued to affect Deep Space Nine and Voyager. Wesley's status as a prodigy, affirmed by the Traveler in season 1 of The Next Generation, makes his scenes annoying since he often outsmarts even the most intelligent higher-ranking officers. If Wesley was the only academically or mentally enhanced child in Star Trek, his character's attributes could have been forgiven. However, so many of the younger characters in the
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