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In fact, one of the reasons Wesley got such a bad rep back in the day was because fans considered him to be a genderswapped Mary Sue, introduced to appeal to th

In fact, one of the reasons Wesley got such a bad rep back in the day was because fans considered him to be a genderswapped Mary Sue, introduced to appeal to the younger audience. Ten years later, people would probably have considered him to be a highly-competent Jar Jar Binks. That caused the character to be abused on-screen, first as a cheap vehicle for audience representation, later as your favorite whipping boy when it became clear he didn't appeal as much as originally intended. And eventually, he was written out of the show. I'm glad Wheaton still managed to get out of there not completely jaded.

Beltalowda 4y ago
In the first 2 series Wesley was an especially badly written character in an already badly written show, the only reason it survived long enough to become a good show is because it's Star Trek. There are some good moments in the first 2 series, but not many. Wesley is much better in later episodes as the writing on the show improved a lot, and also because Wheaton's acting improved a bit. "Young cadet struggling with being young" would have been a good regular, not to dissimilar to Nog in DS9, and Wheaton would have been a good actor for it, but I guess by this time the damage had been done.
EFreethought 4y ago
My guess is that Roddenberry had plans for the character, but as his health declined and his involvement in the show was reduced, the remaining producers did not have the heart to get rid of Wesley. It seemed like Wesley was mostly written out and sent off to Starfleet Academy almost immediately after Roddenberry died.
- krapp 4y ago
  IIRC (from somewhere/when I don't recall) Wesley was Gene's ideal of what the perfect Federation citizen would be - the template for how humanity had evolved beyond basically everything that made for good drama. The end result came off as an insufferable know-it-all. It's unfortunate that so much of the hatred for Wesley transferred to Wil Wheaton for so long. He's come out from under it since, but a lot of trekkies hated Wil just because of the role he played.
pflenker 4y ago
Fun fact: Originally, Wesley was intended to be female: Leslie Crusher. So the original idea was to not even bother with gender-swapping.
p_l 4y ago
My understanding was that Wesley was supposed to have much less screen time, but due to how syndicated series were run combined with a writer strike what was a bunch of unpolished early drafts (that normally would end up condensed into fewer episodes after a lot of editing and polish) ended going straight to screen due to lack of finished scripts. Have no proper confirmation of this, though.

Beltalowda 4y ago

In the first 2 series Wesley was an especially badly written character in an already badly written show, the only reason it survived long enough to become a good show is because it's Star Trek. There are some good moments in the first 2 series, but not many. Wesley is much better in later episodes as the writing on the show improved a lot, and also because Wheaton's acting improved a bit. "Young cadet struggling with being young" would have been a good regular, not to dissimilar to Nog in DS9, and Wheaton would have been a good actor for it, but I guess by this time the damage had been done.

EFreethought 4y ago

My guess is that Roddenberry had plans for the character, but as his health declined and his involvement in the show was reduced, the remaining producers did not have the heart to get rid of Wesley. It seemed like Wesley was mostly written out and sent off to Starfleet Academy almost immediately after Roddenberry died.

krapp 4y ago
IIRC (from somewhere/when I don't recall) Wesley was Gene's ideal of what the perfect Federation citizen would be - the template for how humanity had evolved beyond basically everything that made for good drama. The end result came off as an insufferable know-it-all. It's unfortunate that so much of the hatred for Wesley transferred to Wil Wheaton for so long. He's come out from under it since, but a lot of trekkies hated Wil just because of the role he played.

pflenker 4y ago

Fun fact: Originally, Wesley was intended to be female: Leslie Crusher. So the original idea was to not even bother with gender-swapping.

p_l 4y ago

My understanding was that Wesley was supposed to have much less screen time, but due to how syndicated series were run combined with a writer strike what was a bunch of unpolished early drafts (that normally would end up condensed into fewer episodes after a lot of editing and polish) ended going straight to screen due to lack of finished scripts. Have no proper confirmation of this, though.