The New Generation’ Co-Stars Showed Him Parental Love

Wil Wheaton has been a part of the Star Trek family since Wesley Crusher made his debut on Star Trek: The Next Generation. The actor, who is estranged from his parents, has been incredibly vocal about his difficult childhood and, in particular, the fan reaction to Wesley. While he has come around to understand that fans did love Wesley, they just weren’t the adults writing mean letters about him, it took Wheaton years to feel love from Star Trek fans. But Wheaton also is opening about how finding his own sense of parental love outside of his own parents and shared that he found it within his Star Trek co-stars.

On a new episode of Michael Rosenbaum‘s Inside of You podcast, Wheaton shared that he still wanted to reach out to his parents about his success. Wheaton released a memoir in 2022 called Still Just a Geek and has a new podcast called Storytime With Wil Wheaton. And he shared that despite his desire to call his parents, he knows who he can call. “That is a supernatural impulse. Everyone has parents. Every child has a mom and a dad. And you want to share that with them. And I’ve just accepted that when I have that impulse, I text my Star Trek family.” Two people he specifically shouted out were LeVar Burton and Jonathan Frakes.

Wheaton shared that both Burton and Frakes shared separately with him how proud they were. He texted Burton a thank you because he says that his podcast would not exist without Burton. But he went on to say that it was one of two times in his life that he has felt like a parental figure was proud of him. “Twice in my life, I have felt what I imagine it is like when your parents love you and approve of you,” Wheaton said. “Once was when Frakes was on [my Star Trek aftershow] Ready Room and he told me how proud of me he was, and how much he loved the show, and just, I don’t know. He was curious about me and about what I did and how I did it. And then last night, I felt that way from LeVar.” He went on to say that it was a feeling of “joy and acceptance” that he hadn’t felt before.

Wil Wheaton Opened Up to Collider About His Childhood

Collider‘s Maggie Lovitt spoke with Wheaton when Wesley returned to the Star Trek universe in Star Trek: Prodigy. He spoke openly about how it felt to be a part of Star Trek as a kid and know that his work family “loved me and I loved being there” but shared that he saw how mean people were to him about the work he was doing. Fans were not kind to Wesley. He shared that fans would write “angry letters to Starlog and they were really mean to me. They were cruel to this child at conventions and stuff in ways that would never fly today.”

Wheaton said that he, and others, took that as nobody liking the character but understands that that’s not the case, that people do love Wesley, especially younger fans of Star Trek. “The truth is the kids who Wesley was meant to bring into Star Trek loved him!” He then shared that it took him 30 years to hear from fans and find those who loved his character. He told Lovitt that he understood that his character helped to inspire a generation of kids ad that he’s happy for his younger self now that he knows.

“There are people my age who grew up watching Wesley who love him as much as I do, who saw him in Prodigy and had the same reaction. ‘Oh my god, Wesley, you’re home! You’re doing for these kids what you did for me 30 years ago.’ That was just great.”

You can see Wheaton in older episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Release Date

1987 – 1994-00-00

Network

Syndication

Showrunner

Gene Roddenberry

Directors

Cliff Bole, Les Landau, Winrich Kolbe, Rob Bowman, Robert Scheerer, Jonathan Frakes, Robert Wiemer, Gabrielle Beaumont, Alexander Singer, David Carson, Paul Lynch, Corey Allen, Patrick Stewart, Chip Chalmers, Joseph L. Scanlan, James L. Conway, Robert Lederman, Tom Benko, Timothy Bond, Robert Legato, Adam Nimoy, Robert Becker, David Livingston, LeVar Burton

Writers

René Echevarria, Maurice Hurley, Richard Manning, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Tracy Tormé, Hannah Louise Shearer, Stuart Charno, Ira Steven Behr, Sara B. Cooper, Peter Allan Fields, Herbert Wright, Frank Abatemarco, Burton Armus, Hilary Bader, Morgan Gendel, David Kemper, Michael I. Wagner, Philip LaZebnik, Robert McCullough, Susan Sackett, Nick Sagan, Fred Bronson, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, Sam Rolfe