And a Child Shall Save Their Collective Asses

So I'm still suffering through season one of Star Trek: The Next Generation at work, and this afternoon "The Big Goodbye" was on. If memory serves, that's the first Dixon Hill/Holodeck Crisis episode of the series.

At one point I just had to stare at the screen in puzzlement when I realized that Geordi LaForge was standing idly by, watching over Wesley Crusher's shoulder as the "acting" ensign worked to fix the ever-malfunctioning Holodeck and save Picard, Data, and Dr. Crusher from existence cessation.

I love the fact that a Galaxy-Class Starship is the 24th century equivalent of a VCR... it takes a kid to figure out how the thing works. It's a good thing that Wes was on board for the Enterprise-D's maiden voyage. Otherwise, all of the ship's computer screens might have been flashing "12:00" for the duration of its mission, and that would have been especially embarrassing when aliens like the Q dropped by to rub their superior intellect in the humans' faces.

I think this also explains why Picard spent so much of his free time reading the classics. He was too proud to ask Wesley to program his TiVo for him.