Although he ultimately recovered, Wesley Crusher had a disastrous introduction in Star Trek: The Next Generation. The Enterprise-D’s resident wunderkind was presented as a thinly veiled stand-in for Gene Roddenberry, and the show’s writers had little idea how to integrate a super-genius teenager into the freshly minted dynamics of the crew. As a result, he came across as intrusive and naïve when he was intended to be innocent and full of wonder. And whether intentional or not, the writers of Star Trek: Discovery took the lessons learned from Wesley to heart when it came time to present their own teenage genius.

Adira Tal, the human Trill host who beamed onboard the show in Season 3, hits all the notes that Wesley missed when it comes to young characters in such a setting. Both figures are presented as extraordinarily gifted and capable, even by the standards of Star Trek’s utopian future. Wesley was an engineering genius who often solved some of the ship’s most dire problems, while Adira belonged to the United Earth Defense Force as an inspector at age 16.

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Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: TNG

Right away, however, the differences in writing translate into the characters’ onscreen appearance. Wesley’s advanced intelligence is ill-defined, consisting largely of test scores and classroom projects before resolving crises onboard the Enterprise. Adira already holds a position in the adult world when fans meet them, and they demonstrate acuity and fitness in the job. The distinction comes down to the old writers’ adage “show, don’t tell;” The Next Generation told its viewers that Wesley was special, while Discovery showed Adira performing complicated adult duties at a young age.

And unlike Wesley, Adira has suffered real loss. Wesley lost his father, of course, but those circumstances were distant, and he himself wasn’t present for the trauma. Adira, on the other hand, lost the love of their life, who died in their arms while they were helpless to prevent it. That tinges their brilliance with sadness -- an understanding that not everything can be fixed no matter how brilliant they are.

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Adria also carries Gray Tal’s symbiote -- another practical example of their extraordinary qualities -- which requires them to keep secrets. These are heavy burdens, the kind adults carry, and they tinge Adira’s hyper-competence with an understanding of their limitations and the pain of real loss. This brings depth and humbleness to the character that Wesley lacked for the first part of his development.

Wesley was without those important traits, at least initially, and it left his brilliance feeling unearned and his subsequent heroics a gift from the screenplay rather than a challenge legitimately overcome. Things changed for Wesley with strong entries like Season 4, Episode 9, “Final Mission” and Season 5, Episode 19, “The First Duty,” but Adira came out of the gates swinging. Discovery avoided the trap The Next Generation fell into, and the Trill-joined character benefitted as a result.

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