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Dwight Schultz's shaky engineer Reg Barclay has only appeared in a handful of episodes as Lieutenant La Forge's stuttering assistant, but he remains one of the most memorable recurring characters and even earned a scene in the feature-film spinoff
Star Trek: First Contact. In this appearance, he lets slip a secret: he's deathly afraid of the transporter. It turns out to be a fairly common malady of the future (who wants to be disassembled?), if understandably rare in Starfleet, so Barclay vows to beat it. Then he starts seeing monsters during his transports. He's convinced that he's going mad until one of the wormlike creatures bites him, leaving him with a microbial infection that may hold the key to a mysteriously abandoned Starfleet vessel nearby. Schultz has nicely transformed Barclay, in a few episodes, from a fumbling social misfit (he was nicknamed "Broccoli" in his first appearance) to a nervous but brainy junior officer with a gift for understatement. He finally gets to play the hero, fighting his fears and facing his demons with a dash of comic flair.
--Sean Axmaker
From the Back Cover
When the
Enterprise encounters the
U.S.S. Yosemite trapped in a plasma stream, Lt. Barclay (Dwight Schultz) comes up with a plan to free the vessel. After a session with Troi (Marina Sirtis), he is able to overcome his fear of the transporter and make the trip to the stricken ship. But while transporting back, a mysterious creature appears in the matter stream and touches Barclay's arm.
Back on the Enterprise, fear turns to terror when his arm begins to radiate light. Meanwhile, an autopsy on a Yosemite crew member reveals that his body was invaded by high energy plasma life forms. It appears Barclay's body is being invaded by the same creatures. To survive, he must conquer his fears and re-enter the realm of the matter stream.
