Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Beverly Crusher

Doctor Crusher's live-aboard, decidedly precocious 'genius' son was a character particularly dear to Gene Roddenberry's heart. Wesley was Roddenberry's middle name. In the Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion, Roddenberry is quoted as saying, "I identify probably more so with Wesley because he is me at seventeen".

During the development of Next Gen, this affiliation meant that Beverly barely got a look-in, only mentioned when in reference to Wesley until the final edition of the writers' guide where Beverly finally got her own page of notes. Doctor Crusher's entry in the first casting call for TNG from 10 December 1986 also began with the line "leslie's [sic] 35 year old mother". Producer Robert Justman had argued for the child genius to be daughter 'Leslie,' but Roddenberry changed the character (back) to Wesley.

On Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum, Gates McFadden pointed out that Doctor Crusher was a brilliant scientist in her own right and had raised the 'child genius'. Clearly, she had had something to do with his success, yet throughout season one, Beverly was reduced to the mothering role of "Oh, Wesley… why did you do that?" All of the serious discussions with Wesley went to the male characters. McFadden wasn't "buying it".

It really took until Star Trek: Picard for all this to change. In that, Beverly wasn't an addendum to son Jack: she had her own agency. As for Wesley, his Mum quite literally had the last word (chronologically speaking).