Dwight Schultz played recurring engineer Reginald Barclay on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Barclay first appeared in the third-season episode “Hollow Pursuits,” which originally aired in 1990. He was a talented but deeply anxious Starfleet engineer whose holodeck addiction and social insecurity made him an unusual contrast to the usually confident Enterprise-D crew. The character’s full name is Reginald Endicott Barclay III.
Schultz was already known for playing “Howling Mad” Murdock on The A-Team. Although Barclay was initially conceived as a possible one-off role, Schultz’s performance made the character memorable. He ultimately appeared in five TNG episodes and the film Star Trek: First Contact, then reprised Barclay in Star Trek: Voyager.
A common mix-up is confusing the actor with Barclay’s colleagues. LeVar Burton played chief engineer Geordi La Forge, while Dwight Schultz played Barclay, a recurring lieutenant whose technical skill was often obscured by his lack of confidence.