The Star Trek Episode That Made Wil Wheaton Leave

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 23 seconds ago

The fact that Wil Wheaton left Star Trek: The Next Generation often confused fans. While it’s certainly tiring to play the child genius character and take crap from fans, the fact is that most child stars don’t walk away from steady paychecks, especially for gigs that make them household names. Why, then, did a talented young actor leave the show 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 part in “The Ensigns of Command.”

Wil Wheaton Leaving Star Trek

The story of why Wil Wheaton left Star Trek: The Next Generation to be found in The Fifty Year Mission: The Next 25 YearsEdward Gross and Mark A. Altman’s must-read book for fans of the golden age of the franchise. In that text, the actor recounts how he was cast in the film Valmont and they had to negotiate shooting schedules. The film was going to be shot in Paris during the TNG production hiatus after Season 2, but the production of the film was going to spill over into the production of the third season of TNG.

However, Will Wheaton didn’t think this would be a problem because “The Ensigns of Command” was the first episode produced for season 3 of this Star Trek spin-off and Wesley Crusher didn’t have a very large part in it. So, he assumed it would be easy enough to write him out of whatever little scenes he might have written into him. He held that assumption until he contacted a Star Trek producer.

“One of the producers told my agent that they couldn’t write me out of that episode,” she says, “because it was a Wesley-centric episode, and I couldn’t go to work (in a film). He called my house and told me, ‘It’s Wesley’s episode, and I’m writing a scene with you and Gates that’s going to move your mother-son relationship forward, and it’s very important to the series. ‘”

That sounded all well and good, but according to Wheaton, the producer “just lied to me… a few days before we started production on that season of The Next GenerationThis producer wrote me out of the script completely, and it was appalling to me. The message was very clear – we own you – and it was a step to damage my career.”

End of Wesley’s presser

Looking back, Wil Wheaton remembers this as the event that prompted him to leave Star Trek: The Next Generation. However, there may be more to this story than meets the eye…while the actor remembers being written out of “Ensigns of Command” entirely, Wesley appears in a handful of scenes. Wheaton may be referring to a meatier role being cut down to size, which would fit right in with this episode being heavily rewritten (so much so that writer Melinda Snodgrass almost removing her name from the credits).

The other interesting thing is that Wil Wheaton remembers this Star Trek producer lying to him as some kind of power move. Although that is entirely possible (early TNG internal politics were reported ok toxic), it also seems possible that the unnamed producer the actor spoke to was confused episodes. The Wesley-centric episode that moved his relationship with his mother forward was “Evolution,” which actually served as the first episode of the third season even though “The Ensigns of Command” was produced first, so maybe the there has been a real mix up in terms of production.

Even if this was an honest mistake, though, I can understand Wil Wheaton’s annoyance with the producers of Star Trek. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, one producer managed to prevent the actor from starring in Miloš Forman’s steamy film that could have transformed 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” much less than the average Star Trek fan , making the film even more attractive to the talented actor. stuck playing sci-fi’s most annoying child genius.