With each new addition into the Star Trek franchise, there comes wa plethora of new characters. The Next Generation brought forth one of the most loved captains, where Voyager introduced a mixed-bag crew of potential war criminals. While the majority of recurring characters were a great hit with audiences, a lot of them fell short. In The Next Generation,problem boy Wesley Crusher was one of these people. His know-it-all attitude and ability to outsmart all the adults was meant to make him endearing, but instead ended up just annoying watchers. He got a lot more screen time that he probably should have in the first few seasons, and the writers kept pushing him into the limelight. The biggest example was how he, not yet a Starfleet officer and still a child, was allowed on the bridge.
The out of universe explanation was that when the show's creators wrote the character, they were trying to channel Will Robinson vibes from the hit 90s show Lost in Space. Unfortunately, that particular style of character, designed to bring in a younger audience, had gone out of fashion by the time TNG aired. Gene Roddenberry kept pushing his character, loving Wesley a lot more than audiences did. In order to get him in center stage, the majority of scenes give him a not-yet-deserved seat at the bridge.
Wesley's canon reason for being such an integral all part of the bridge crew, however, gets a little more complicated. This is often the way with many of the fictional reasons for out-of-universe decisions. Riker pointed out early on what many audiences already knew: getting into Starfleet was one thing, but being granted service aboard a flagship such as the iconic USS Enterprise D was exceptional. Individuals would have to work exceptionally hard for years, passing all their exams with flying colors. More importantly, they would have to get noticed along the way.
Wesley seems to have skipped this hard work stage. While things were rectified a bit later in own Starfleet story arc, Wesley's presence at the start must have annoyed many an officer who trained all those years, just to have an annoying kid skip the queue just because he was smart. Smart might be an understatement, though. Wesley was shown time and time again to possess knowledge far greater than any of the surrounding adults, as well as having the above average motor skills to be a master at the helm.
To give the show credit, it’s not as if Wesley was given the position out of nowhere. While his presence alone speaks of the Enterprise's deep-rooted civilian problem, his presence did have a considerable amount of set up. His role at first on the bridge was to observe, to learn from the example set by Starfleet’s best and brightest. Wesley being Wesley, however, it wasn't long before his genius started to show. This comes along with his interactions with the mysterious Traveler character, who tells Picard that his kid is born to do great things. Wesley's presence on the bridge become invaluable.
When he starts to show interest in joining Starfleet when he is old enough, Picard makes the decision to personally oversee his growth (almost like a father figure, one might say). He gives Wesley Crusher the role of acting Ensign, justifying his position on the bridge even if the logic behind it is somewhat flimsy. While it might seem that he is there all the time, this magic of storytelling. In reality, he’s not likely to be a big part of the bridge crew, only having one duty shift a week, and is by no means the only person who sits in the chair. The rest of his time is spent gaining the valuable experience he needs to fly through Starfleet academy, in various different parts of the ship. It seems Picard and the crew favor the practical experience method of teaching.
While Wesley appeared a lot on the bridge, and often played an important part in whatever space mystery dilemma the crew faced that episode, he was never privy to real senior staff moments. At this point he was not involved in senior staff briefings, being mainly glued to the controls. This all changed when he joined Starfleet and actually became an Ensign, but again, this was not a straightforward process. And once again, Wesley Crusher took massive liberties along the way. While he attended the academy, he never actually completed his studies there, having missed the oral examination that is required to officially become a red shirt-wearing Ensign. The excuse of him being an acting ensign was becoming less and less feasible, to both audiences and annoyed crew members. And so instead came one of the biggest examples of nepotism in Star Trek history: Picard just promoted him regardless. In the episode “Ménage a Troi”, the two have a typically awkward conversation, resulting in these words from the captain:
‘When I review your service to this ship, your crewmates, I cannot in all conscience make you wait for the Academy. You see, Wesley, in my eyes you're an acting ensign in title only. I hereby grant you field promotion to full Ensign, with all the commensurate responsibilities and privileges of that rank. Congratulations. You're dismissed.’
And that was that, Star Trek's poser child Wesley Crusher was now part of the majority of the senior staff briefings, his place on the bridge being even more concrete than it was before. His character was always somewhat out of pace, and analyzing how the show constantly tried to bend over backwards to explain his presence at times when he should not have been there, genius or not, highlights the struggles the writers went through behind the scenes.
