From Chris Snellgrove
| Updated
The fact that Wil Wheaton is gone Star Trek: The Next Generation has often amazed fans. While it was certainly annoying to play the role of child genius and put up with crap from fans, the fact is that most child stars don’t give up steady paychecks, especially for gigs that make them household names. So why did a talented young actor leave the series that made him famous? As it turns out, Wil Wheaton decided to leave this Star Trek spinoff after an unnamed producer lied to him about Wesley’s involvement in The Ensigns of Command.
Wil Wheaton is leaving Star Trek
The story of why Wil Wheaton left Star Trek: The Next Generation can be found in The Fifty Year Mission: The Next 25 Yearsthe book by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman, which is a must-read for fans of the franchise’s golden era. In this text the actor tells how he was cast in the film Valmont and had to negotiate filming schedules. The film was scheduled to be filmed in Paris during TNG’s production break after the second season, but the film’s production would impact the production of TNG’s third season.
However, Wil Wheaton didn’t think this would be a problem since “The Ensigns of Command” was the first episode produced for the third season of this Star Trek spinoff and Wesley Crusher didn’t play a very big role in it. Therefore, he assumed that it would be easy enough to write him out of the smaller scenes in which he might have been inscribed. He held on to this belief until his agent was contacted by one Star Trek Producer.
“One of the producers told my agent that they couldn’t leave me out of that episode,” he said, “because it was a Wesley episode and I couldn’t work (in a film). He called me at home and told me, ‘It’s a Wesley episode and I’m writing a scene with you and Gates that will advance your mother-son relationship and it’s really important to the show.'”
That sounded all well and good, but according to Wheaton, the producer “just lied to me…a few days before we started production on this season Next generationthat producer cut me completely out of the script and it was horrific for me. The message was very clear: you belong to us – and it was a move to sabotage my career.”
The end of Wesley Crusher
Looking back, Wil Wheaton remembers that this was the incident that motivated him to leave Star Trek: The next generation. However, there may be more to this story than meets the eye… While the actor recalls being completely written out of Ensigns of Command, Wesley appears in a few scenes. It’s possible that Wheaton was referring to the role being cut for a meatier role, which would fit right in with this episode undergoing extensive rewrites (so many that writer Melinda Snodgrass almost left her name out of the credits).
The other interesting thing is that Wil Wheaton remembers this Star Trek producer lying to him as some kind of power move. While that’s certainly possible (the internal politics of early TNG were reportedly like this). very toxic), it also seems possible that the unnamed producer the actor spoke to confused the episodes. The Wesley-centric episode that furthered his relationship with his mother was “Evolution,” which served as the actual premiere episode of season three, although “The Ensigns of Command” was produced first, so there may have been a real production mix-up is.
While this was an honest mistake, we can understand Wil Wheaton’s irritation with the Star Trek producers. Intentionally or unintentionally, a producer prevented the actor from starring in a hot Miloš Forman film that could have changed his career. Plus, he would have starred alongside Hollywood heavyweights like Colin Firth and Annette Bening, and we somehow suspect they’d be shouting “Shut up, Wesley” a lot less often than the average Star Trek fan, which makes the film worth it makes talented actor even more attractive I’m stuck playing the most annoying child genius in science fiction.
