WARP FIVE: Wil Wheaton on the Original Prodigy Returning to Star Trek

Welcome to Warp Five, StarTrek.com's five question post-mortem with your favorite featured talent from the latest Star Trek episodes.

When it came to Star Trek: Prodigy, series creators and executive producers Kevin and Dan Hageman were adamant that the series was not a sequel to Star Trek: Voyager, but instead a celebration and introduction to the entirety of Star Trek.

In Season 2, the six young outcasts who make up the Prodigy crew are assigned a new mission aboard the U.S.S. Voyager-A to rescue Captain Chakotay and bring peace to Gwyn's home world. However, when their plan goes astray, and the Protostar creates a temporal paradox that jeopardizes both their future and past as the universe tried to not unravel while trying to prop up two states of existence. This precarious situation leads to the Prodigy crew to receive a mysterious message from a "time traveler who ran out of time" — the original Star Trek prodigy, Wesley Crusher!

StarTrek.com had the opportunity to sit down with Wil Wheaton to talk about returning to the role of Wesley Crusher, the significance of Star Trek: Prodigy, connecting with a new generation, and more!

The Continuing Adventures of Wesley Crusher

The second season of Star Trek: Prodigy shows the first on-screen scope of Wesley Crusher's role as a Traveler, following his departure of Starfleet Academy and Star Trek: The Next Generation in "Journey's End."

Eight years later, Wheaton would make a brief appearance for Will Riker and Deanna Troi's nuptials in Star Trek Nemesis. Screenwriter John Logan ultimately decided to leave Wesley's presence open to the audience's interpretation, whether he was still a Traveler or back at Starfleet. Then 20 years later, Wil Wheaton would cameo again as Wesley Crusher in the second season of Star Trek: Picard with the episode "Farewell," revealing himself as a Traveler to Kore Soong, explaining their role in protecting the "grand tapestry" of history, and offering her a chance to join them.

While Wheaton didn't reunite with The Next Generation crew for the third season of Picard nor meet Wesley's half-brother Jack Crusher, the Prodigy creative team was thrilled to provide him with a full character arc in the all-ages animated series. However, he has been as much as part of the Star Trek DNA as anyone else, serving as the bridge between the Star Trek universe and the fan community as the host of The Ready Room.

How did Wheaton react when presented with the opportunity to return to the role of Wesley Crusher? "It's a dream come true," Wheaton enthusiastically states. "It feels so good. I'm so happy and I'm so grateful. I get overwhelmed with emotion when I think about it."

"I was so excited to bring this version of Wesley Crusher back around," continues Wheaton. "The version who's lived in my head for years as I've written fan fiction about Wesley as you know. There is a gorgeous closing of the circle. Kevin and Dan [Hageman] have said the original prodigy has returned to Prodigy."

"When I watched it, I had a thought that was also an emotion," says Wheaton. "It arrived like a bucket of water over me. It was like, 'Yo, Wesley Crusher is home.' He's been out for a long time, and he is home now."

Wesley Crusher, the Time Lord

In "The Devourer of All Things, Part I," the Prodigy crew learns the source of their messages when they take the Infinity to a set of coordinates. Once together, as if their Starfleet Academy studies weren't enough, they get the rundown on Travelers, Supervisors (field agents for Travelers), the proper flow of time, and the Travelers' stance on being hands-off when it comes to maintaining the cosmic balance.

The nod to Doctor Who is very clear when Wesley acknowledges himself as a "time traveler who ran out of time" and operating without the support of the other Travelers uninterested in saving a dying timeline.

"I had such a good time when we recorded this," Wheaton exclaims. "I loved the way the character developed; I'm a massive Doctor Who fan. When we figured that we were going to play him like a Time Lord, and we were going to homage a little bit of the Doctor's look and all of that. I was super excited because this is the closest I'm ever getting to be in Doctor Who."

As seen in the stills above, Wesley Crusher's Prodigy look marries both his orange knit sweater from The Next Generation with the Doctor's leather coat from Doctor Who.

On Connecting with Generations of Fans

While there have been the presence of young characters throughout the Star Trek universe, as seen in Wesley Crusher, Naomi Wildman, Jake Sisko, Nog, Adira Tal, etc., Star Trek: Prodigy did something special with its approach to the galaxy — having the kids front and center — allowing a new generation of fans to feel seen.

Over 35 years later, Wheaton is still connecting with new crops of fans who come across The Next Generation and Wesley Crusher, an experience he deems "incredibly rewarding," akin to "Christmas morning or a night of Hanukkah where we saw the gift and we didn't dare dream it was what we hoped was in that box. We wanted it for so long, and when we open it, it's exactly what I wanted. And not only is it exactly what I wanted, it is what I thought it would be and oh my god, it's even more. It's even better. That is what it feels like to me. That celebration I talked about, feels so good to me."

"I have spent the last 35 years meeting people my age," notes Wheaton. "I'm 52 next week and I have spent the last 35 years meeting people in my generation who have told me how much they love Wesley and how they didn't understand why people complained about him. All of their friends love Wesley. I did a whole bunch of semi-scientific research, just keeping track of things over the years, and I think the ratio is for every one person who wrote a nasty letter to Starlogger, posted some shitty thing on the internet in the early '90s, there's like 100 kids who were just loving Wesley and wanted to be him. And guess what? A lot of them grew up to work for NASA, or grew up to be doctors or scientists, and a whole lot of them write for and work on Star Trek. A lot of them are in the cast of various Star Treks. I just found out, I just found out this last season of The Ready Room what a huge fan of Wesley Crusher Wilson Cruz was. And I'm like, 'I'm a huge fan of Hugh Culber. What are you talking about?' We've been in collaboration all this time and we didn't even know or I didn't know."

The Power of Star Trek: Prodigy and Young Protagonists

"Prodigy is not a kid show," points out Wheaton. "Prodigy is a Star Trek show that is very accessible to kids, and tells wonderful stories that can engage their parents."

"A lot of kids are now getting into Voyager and they never even knew what Voyager was before," Wheaton notes. "Their parents can watch it together and now their parents are going to have to get them through Tuvix. That's going to be rough, but I know that they can do it."

"The fact that Wesley is now back as an adult doing for the kids in Prodigy what Wesley the character did for kids in our universe 30 years ago is an absolutely beautiful, perfect closing of a circle," Wheaton praises. "I know I would have loved a mentor like Wesley Crusher to look out for me and to see not just that fans like it and accept it and are excited about it, they're genuinely celebrating. Let's have a Wesley party. I still don't even know how to process that other than to just say, 'oh my god, you guys, thank you.' I'm just so grateful. It's so poetic and such a gift and such an honor, and I still just cannot believe that I got to be part of this, that I get to enjoy this now. What struck me so powerfully was that he is back doing the things that he did as a child, which was inspiring kids and representing the best of us. "This is the thing I love about Star Trek. Everyone in Star Trek is aspirationally the best of humanity."

Drawing on Wheaton's Personal Relationship with Gates McFadden

Wheaton recorded Wesley Crusher's reunion scene with his mother, Beverly Crusher, solo, as typically done when it comes to animated voice recordings. However, that doesn't mean his affectionately-nicknamed "space mom" wasn't too far from him during those sessions.

Detailing his process for the Crusher Family reunion, Wheaton shares, "What I drew on for that scene was my personal relationship with Gates [McFadden]. I cherish my Star Trek castmates. I love them so much. My personal life story's not great. I have a pretty awful family that really othered me and treated me really badly as a child. And my Star Trek family loved me unconditionally and embraced me and accepted me and supported me and was always there for me. I spent a lot of years in the wilderness, trying to put together the shattered pieces of a really difficult childhood. And they were there for me when I needed someone to hand me some glue, and they were there for me when I needed someone to just metaphorically and even sometimes actually physically hug me and let me know that it was going to be okay."

"When we went to record that scene, I just thought about how Wesley hadn't seen his mom in a millennium," explains Wheaton. "The way that I imagine things work for the Travelers is that when they are manipulating thought and space and time together, they're able to manipulate how time advances. We saw that in Next Generation, the Traveler can effectively stop time outside of a little bubble. We have no idea how long it's been. And I just thought about that. He loves his family; he loves his mom so much. He loves his universe so much that he's willing to risk everything to protect it, and then he gets to see his little brother [Jack Crusher]. I drew on all of that and I let that emotion live in me. My genuine affection and love for Gates, I let it come out and inform that performance."

"I did think about all the times Gates and I begged the producers of Next Generation to give us more scenes together," Wheaton adds. "Because we always thought Wesley's so smart and so remarkable. Wow, his mom must be amazing. She never really got to see that that much. So I'm thrilled that we got to have this moment in this show at this time, in this way, when I am so unburdened by baggage I carried for a really long time that was never mine to carry in the first place. I can just enjoy it and love it. And I hope so much that she and I get to do something like this again."