@ Phil W ; Many of those are down to the limitations of the self-contained episodic format most older American shows followed. I've since heard this called the "reset button", i.e. everything basically goes back to normal the next week so you don't have to have followed other episodes.
The one that stuck in my head with respect to ST:TNG was where (*spoiler*) Picard has his mind taken over by an alien probe that makes him think he's lived an entire lifetime- complete with family- on another planet, as part of their culture, only for it to be revealed as an illusion put there by a dead civilisation.
That's going to have an incredibly major effect on a person's character surely?
Next week... back to normal, never mentioned again.
There are plenty of other examples. ST:TNG was still a great series, and I don't hold these things against it too much, that's just the sort of show it was.
Never minded Wesley Crusher that much either (would have been about the same age as the character when I first watched it). That's not to say the character was perfect- some of the criticism *was* obviously legitimate, particularly upon rewatching- but even then you can't really blame those flaws on Wheaton. Was his acting okay? Yeah, as far as I remember, and that's as far as his responsibility went, he wasn't the writer.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
