Oh, Star Trek.

You know, far be it from me to disrespect Miles O'Brian, The Only Working Class Man In Starfleet, but here's my problem: by its fourth season, The Next Generation had this problem where it consistently underused three members of its regular cast. Specifically, the two women and the (human*) man of colour.

So one really has to take a short moment to admire the sheer gall of the TNG writers in dedicating whole episodes to the personal life and motivations of Yet Another Straight White Guy. In the space of less than half a season, O'Brian goes from Hey It's That Guy to having more layers and revelations than Geordi got in three seasons. To be honest, other than laying groundwork for a spin-off that no one knew would exist at the time, I really can't see why "The Wounded" focused on O'Brian rather than Geordi. (Come on, Geordi as Unexpected Secret Tactical Genius is AT LEAST as convincing as O'Brian in the same role.)

* (Heavy make-up aliens, I've long felt, go into a special category, where they get a lot of attention from the writers, but not necessarily so much love from the fic-writing parts of fandom, but either way they kind of step outside of the usual privilege dynamics.)