Wil Wheaton IS Star Trek
TNG co-star embodies the best of the franchise
Fans are cheering the return of Wil Wheaton to Star Trek lore, with the role his character is playing in the second season of Star Trek: Prodigy which is currently streaming on Netflix.
It might be a bit unexpected for Wheaton or Wesley to be celebrated at this point, but the fact that they are demonstrates Star Trek’s powers of personal development and redemption — both on- and offscreen.
The Wesley character, who was introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation at creator Gene Roddenberry’s insistence, was a constant source of derision for many fans.
A boy genius, Wesley not only very quickly would serve on the bridge of the USS Enterprise-D with the senior officers, it often was Wesley saving the ship while the adults struggled.
Scenes from the series in which Wesley’s slapped by his mother, Dr Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) and where Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) snaps, “Shut up, Wesley!” later would become memes well-understood even beyond Star Trek fandom.
Wheaton, himself, actually was one of the most famous actors among the TNG cast, having co-starred in the Academy Award-nominated film, Stand By Me.
While Wheaton was turning in solid work as an actor, TNG’s writers just didn’t know how to effectively write his character. And, horribly, dislike for Wesley unfairly often bled over into scorn for the actor. People, Wheaton would say, who’d never met him were so cruel and hateful to him as a person:
It felt so unfair that people who had never met me were so cruel and hateful toward me as a person because they didn’t like a character I played on a TV show, I wanted to put Star Trek behind me and forget that it was ever part of my life.
To make matters worse, the teenaged actor said he was being horribly abused and exploited at home.
So it should be little surprise that Wheaton would really come to resent Star Trek.
But his break with the series came when he was up for a movie part which only would require Wesley being written out of a single Next Generation episode.
Rick Berman told Wheaton, “No,” and the actor left the series:
“I left Star Trek: The Next Generation when I was 18 years old, and initially I thought it was a really smart business career move," he explained. "In some ways it was, and in more ways it wasn't. What I wasn't prepared for was how much I was going to miss [my cast mates] and how much I was going to miss the spacesuit that I hated wearing and the helmet hair, that I couldn't stand putting on. After I left the show... I just sort of [said], 'I'm going to go out into the world and do my own thing,' and I didn't see anybody. That went on for awhile.
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Wheaton would, for a long time, keep his distance from Star Trek. He took a break from acting, discovered a penchant for writing — including two published memoirs — got married and eventually got back to acting.
But more importantly, he reconnected with Star Trek, dealt with the shame he felt after his departure from Next Generation and reconciled with his former castmates:
"After that ended, I just felt really ashamed of myself. I felt like I just couldn't go to the set — I felt like I couldn't look them in the eye, and that I couldn't invite them to my wedding. Years after that, I sort of saw them at a few conventions and I just, you know, I just sort of [said], 'I apologize for being a kid'... [and] everyone said, 'Yeah, you were just a kid, you were always welcome, you're always part of us.'"
Wheaton had come full circle and gone from resenting Star Trek, to embracing it.
More than that. He came to embody what makes Star Trek great: its ethos, and its cultural relevance and importance.
Nowhere has that been more evident but his gig the last few years as host of Paramount’s after-show, The Ready Room.
For several weeks each year, Wheaton holds forth, interviewing a variety of Star Trek actors and other creatives.
And The Ready Room could have been just a paycheck for the actor, all glib and jaded celebrity.
But no.
For every Ready Room segment, he is prepared, attentive and very interested.
Wheaton enthuses over episodes, stories and performances. He welcomes new actors and other new folks just like newcomers to a family — his family.
Jonathan Frakes just gushes over Wheaton’s work on The Ready Room, as Wheaton has interviewed his friend and former co-star several times over the years.
“He makes us very comfortable, and he’s very present — which is essential in this job. And he really loves Star Trek!” Frakes said during an appearance on actor Michael Rosenbaum’s Inside of You podcast.
When Wil Wheaton is talking about — or appearing in — Star Trek, it’s easy to see that he’s just very much at home.
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