I don’t understand hate for Wesley Crusher
Posted by s1lv3r_lak3@reddit | TNG | View on Reddit | 213 comments
So I'm watching TNG for the first time. I made a similar post here back when I was on season 2 about how I don't understand some of the hatred I see from some of the fandom for his character. And people commented stuff like "Just wait". I'm now almost done with season 5 and I still think Wesley is a great character. I thought The First Duty was a really good episode.
Arientum@reddit
I'm a 39 y.o. woman watching TNG foe the first time. Binging on Netflix. I love Wesley. And I miss him on season 5. Not enough Wesley.
Octofriend@reddit
Came here looking for this. I'm pretty much in the same position as you. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop and it just never happens.
I feel like a lot of the arguments for why he sucks are either conflicting or generalizations that could be made about the franchise as whole, and aren't problems specific to him.
StJimmy_815@reddit
Honestly, I think it’s just a meme that got out of control
jimmery@reddit
Wesley was always a bit of a Mary Sue.
I was a kid when it first aired, and I liked having a kid on the Enterprise - but as I got a bit older, yeah, I can see where some of the hate comes from - mostly because the character was poorly written.
However I will always be a fan of Wil Wheton - and Wesley was the main character in some of my favourite episodes - The Game spings to mind.
redditisfacist3@reddit
This. He's basically performing as a bridge officer on the flagship of the federation and exceeding expectations comapred to academy graduates. Its one thing to be exceptional in an area or 2 but Wesley is basically perfect from the bat. Where as someone like night goes from illiterate degenerate to a valuable/ top lvl starfleet officer but still shows that he struggles and overcomes issues
Specialist-Leek-6927@reddit
He was Gene Wesley Roddenberry's self insert. Even the full name was self serving Wesley Crusher. Lol
Game_Knight_DnD@reddit
Came here to say this when I think of a male Mary Sue character Wesley is always the first to spring to mind.
Minablo@reddit
That would be a Gary Sue. Also, when some producer read the early scripts for TNG, he said to Gene Roddenberry, “Wesley? What kind of a stupid name is it?”
Which actually angered quite a bit Eugene Wesley Roddenberry.
ArcherNX1701@reddit
Same here, I also think most of our generation who watched TNG was slightly jealous of Wil and superimposed it to his character. Come on, who wouldn't want to pilot the flagship?
times_zero@reddit
Pretty much.
People have done counts, and the amount of times Wes actually saves the ship is often exaggerated.
Plus, while I think early Wes can sometimes be annoying many fans can forget early TNG generally had uneven/poor writing for its characters across the board. In particular, it wasn't just Wes by any means who suffered from this as I think early Picard who could come across as cold, and arrogant.
bmyst70@reddit
To be fair, after "The Inner Light" Picard changed because he got to walk down the Road Not Travelled.
ChiGrandeOso@reddit
His first meeting with the Borg helped.
GenosseAbfuck@reddit
And let's not ignore the out of universe development. Picard relaxed alongside Patrick Steward. In S1 Patrick hated Science Fiction, wanted nothing to do with the rest of the cast, couldn't stand even a second of break from seriousness. By the end he was the worst goofball of the lot.
Fwiw I take great inspiration from this. I'm in my mid 30s now, barely can stand myself but feel I was too old to change much anymore. Patrick was 15 years older in early TNG and left the show as an entirely different person. It's never too late to become likeable.
StJimmy_815@reddit
Yeah, season 1 is my least favorite season lol. Def a weird thing for a show to start off mid and become one of the greatest shows to ever exist
Commando_NL@reddit
Still at the time, it was mindblowing. I watched it after school.
But some things haven't ages well i agree.
robotatomica@reddit
I personally really enjoyed the fact that Wesley was presented as a sort of genius, it was a fun element to some of those scripts. Having watched TNG for the first time not until my 20s, I didn’t even identify with him, I just enjoyed the character.
And I was totally detached from other Star Trek fans in watching my first few series (TOS, then VOY, then DS9, then TNG), and so I think it makes a difference to not be hearing others’ takes and grievances. From my point of view in watching the show, he hardly ever was the only one saving the day or outsmarting everyone else. There just happened to be this one kid who provided some outside the box thinking, and had advanced technical skills.
Which, now that I’m in my 40s..that tracks, ya know? It’s the teenagers and youngest adults who are generally leagues ahead of the rest of us when it comes to the newest tech.
RocketDog2001@reddit
I was a fairly smart kid and seeing Wesley shine amongst Starfleet's best and brightest seemed... natural, plus there was some wish fulfillment and vicarious living.
robotatomica@reddit
Ya know another thing I can’t help wonder, which may account for a portion of the hate - there’s this thing where if a young man or teenaged boy is considered a “heart throb,” that other young men will have disproportionate contempt for him. (Think, Timothy Chalamet)
I mean, no, his dialogue and scripts weren’t always perfect, but watching Stand By Me, there’s no question Wil Wheaton could act. And he has a lot of really great moments in TNG.
So when I hear people say that they just hate him or can’t stand him for some reason, and they’re overstating things (like the idea that he’s somehow a Mary Sue), it’s hard to not imagine that a % of that is informed by this weird sort of parasocial jealousy/competition adjacent thing that happens occasionally.
And then whenever there’s a disproportionate amount of hate spewed towards one person, even if for dubious reasons, that enters the ether into almost meme form (even pre memes as we know them), and everyone is extra scrutinous of superficial complaints, such that, say, whenever Wesley does save the ship, you’re like “Oh yeah, they were right, he IS doing that all the time!” lol but it’s just confirmation bias, you’re hyper attentive to the occasional instances of that happening bc it was openly criticized so much.
Urlachamalu@reddit
No no. The hate is real. I am about his age. So I watched this as a kid and thought it was total bs that this damn kid was running around Picards ship. My feelings haven't changed in 30 years. The show peaked when he left.
StJimmy_815@reddit
Damn, every opinion about Wesley hating is usually just “I was his age and I didn’t get to walk around the enterprise so why should he?” lol get the fuck over it buddy
TheWhiteWolf1970@reddit
He was hated from the start. Long before memes. Mostly it was because he seemed like a Mary Sue and the acting for most of the characters in the first season was very clunky.
Responsible-Eye6788@reddit
It isn’t, I was a kid at the time and a lot is hated Wesley because of the “chosen one” bullshit. And don’t get me started on the traveler and the Warp from 40K.
As kids, we all wanted to be on the enterprise; and watching Wesley crusher fail upwards as well as being capable of doing ANYTHING the plot required, felt empty and cheap. Like having to watch the rich kid in class get everything handed to him while you were overlooked.
He didn’t earn anything, he was just magically smart enough to do whatever the plot required when it was needed
Durosity@reddit
And jealousy. 12 year old me was jealous of him getting to FLY THE FRIKKIN ENTERPRISE.
ferretinmypants@reddit
I have never had a problem with Wesley.
tekk1337@reddit
Justcallmebev@reddit
Me neither!
DifficultSea4540@reddit
Great human being (Will Wheaton). Awful character.
disdkatster@reddit
Same here. It is the same for Chakotay. I don't get it. I sometimes wonder if it comes from the same type who hate diversity in games. They want macho men who are 'alpha' characters and the 'apex predator'. They don't know how to respond to the quiet man who is not domineering.
it777777@reddit
Jealousy about smart kids.
newoldm@reddit
I always enjoyed the character. I missed him when Wheaton left the series as a regular cast member.
PhilinBrazil@reddit
i got into TNG partly because of him. we were the same age and i would imagine myself in his place. when i watch him back as an adult, he doesn't bother me much. he acts like a typical teenager. i think the way he is treated is a bit more iffy, tbh.
HauntingEngine5568@reddit
He was Gene Roddenberry's Mary Sue character.
Mary Sue characters are effing stupid as hell.
It certainly wasn't Wil Wheaton's fault he was saddled with a poorly conceived and poorly written character.
Fa_Cough69@reddit
"I always get it in the A"
BuvantduPotatoSpirit@reddit
Wesley generally gets better, and peaks with The First Duty.
The first season, when Wesley is a Mary Sue named after the showrunner, a 15 year old who every episode outsmarts everyone else on the flagship of a Federation of hundreds of worlds, turns out to be a magic being the Universe was creates to serve, bangs Ashley Judd, etc., is really when he's the most hateable.
"Man, it's a good thing this fifteen year old was here, or all the smartest, most capable people in the Galaxy would've died, let's rinse and repeat" doesn't make for good TV.
And overall he's also an inverse Riker's beard. The worst seasons are the ones that most heavily feature Wesley, even in those episodes that don't centre on how he's the greatest human ever.
Kinetic_Symphony@reddit
I don't see the hatred for this.
Wesley is born as an advanced prodigy. Demonstrated to surpass conventional classifications of genius in "Where no one has gone before".
You could say he didn't earn that intellect and instinct, true, but that's life. Everyone's different at base level. Doesn't make me hate them nor find them to be a subpar character as a result.
The only time it frustrated me was in Datalore, when the core cast behave like total morons to make Wesley stand out. But usually the crew behave normally, it's just Wesley, the prodigy, shining.
BuvantduPotatoSpirit@reddit
Datalore particularly blatant, but "Wesley is smarter than everyone else in the universe put together" is also in The Naked Now, Where No One Has Gone Before, Peak Performance, The Game, and probably a couple others I'm forgetting.
And while there's nothing wrong with a genius character per se, "They're such a genius that every previous genius has been dumber than a sack of dogs" isn't good storytelling, it's masterbatory wish fufillment, especially coupled with their only flaw being that nobody recognises their genius.
"He was born such a grand, important being that when he sees a genociding happening in front of his face, he shouldn't feel like he should trouble himself with such petty matters" isn't a bad character, but when he's also a protagonist with no flaws, it's bad writing. Dr Manhattan in Watchmen could be like that in a story that works because the writer is aware it makes him into a semi (villain/antagonist), ditto Q.
EmergencyEntrance28@reddit
I don't recall every episode on that list well enough to dispute, but The Game is a particularly bad example.
Wesley avoids being drawn in almost purely by fluke (he's distracted by the excitement of being back on the Enterprise and by Ensign Lefler) and his meaningful contribution to saving the day is that he manages to wake up Data - who comes up with the actual technical solution and instructs Wesley to act as a distraction until he can implement it.
UncuriousCrouton@reddit
I really liked The Game as a Wesley episode. It depicted him as smart, but not so smart as to be annoying. Some of his smarts was presented as guile, not as being smugly superior. And I appreciated that Wesley did not save the ship, but instead bought time for DATA to save the ship with a magical strobe flashlight.
EmergencyEntrance28@reddit
Exactly. I sympathise with some of the criticism of the character in early seasons, but by this point, he just gets a "special guest" episode where he behaves competently. Hence me arguing for it as a poor example of the trope.
BuvantduPotatoSpirit@reddit
Not by fluke, but because he's the only one smart enough to realise maybe he should investigate this thing that's turning everyone into zombies before he tries it. Everyone else on the flagship of the Federation is too dumb to realise it, they need the boy genius to do it.
EmergencyEntrance28@reddit
Nah. There's a specific scene where his mother pushes him to try it and the reason he declines isn't because he's smart, it's because he's horny and too focused on that. The realisation that it's suspicious comes from conversation in his date with Lefler, and events of the episode spiral from there.
But if not for that date occupying his thoughts and allowing uptake of the game to get to a point where it is obviously suspicious with him conveniently sequestered away from people who would otherwise have pushed him to play (as is implied to be the case for any holdouts in the rest of the crew), he almost certainly just plays it when his mum tells him to and then becomes part of the hoard.
BuvantduPotatoSpirit@reddit
There's no support in the episode for the idea he would have otherwise tried it, and you'd still need one thousand other people to not have any other distractions or priorities, which is also not plausible.
EmergencyEntrance28@reddit
Wesley is the exception in this episode by virtue of a series of coincidences and lucky moments. 1) He happens to be lucky enough to be distracted when the game first is presented, 2) he then happens to isolate himself along with one other person who has also not taken an early opportunity to play 3) he then happens to be someone with enough Starfleet engineering background to work out what's going on and 4) with the ability to further isolate himself in an engineering lab. At which point, he works out what the game is doing.
1000+ people on the ship sure, but up until this point, he's done nothing exceptional other than getting lucky that his date has kept him isolated long enough to get curious, and then used standard Starfleet knowledge and equipment to work out what the game is.
Everyone else on the ship tries it, or we can reasonably assume is made to try it by the third act of the episode. It's absolutely supported that he would have given it a go if not for the distractions in place - it's only your preconceptions of the character that make you assume he wouldn't.
BuvantduPotatoSpirit@reddit
So Wesley's preternaturally smart, preternaturally important, and preternaturally lucky, in each case the most extreme such example in human history? Yeah, that sounds like it'd make for good TV and not be at all annoying.
EmergencyEntrance28@reddit
The alternative is an episode where the Enterprise is simply taken over by the game and then the Federation falls? TV requires coincidence to set up the drama sometimes, so I will give you that the episode chooses to make him lucky as part of the setup.
Regardless - prenaturally smart? No, he does nothing in this episode beyond the capability of any Starfleet engineer, including relying on Lefler at times. Important? Sure, this is a Wesley episode, in the same way we get Picard, Worf, Data etc episodes throughout the show. Nothing unusual about that.
factionssharpy@reddit
What also frustrates me is that he's supposed to be a genius that defies comparison, and everyone decides (kind of for him, with a lot of social pressure to follow in his father's footsteps) that his ambition should be to become a military officer?
Star Trek likes to protest that Starfleet isn't a military organization (absurd) and that it is full of engineers and scientists (ok), but you don't drastically expand the bounds of knowledge and understanding by getting on a ship that will probably blow up in five years because it ran into a special space rock.
Wesley should have been encouraged to go into theory, in academia. Taking orders in Starfleet, and simply applying other people's research into adjusting equipment other people designed, is small potatoes. You don't put Einstein in a box.
slipnipper@reddit
We all know Wesley’s real father is Picard.
Kinetic_Symphony@reddit
I do agree with that or at least join Starfleet in aspirations to become a science officer.
factionssharpy@reddit
I don't think science officer is a suitable destination for his talents either. If he was really that special, he should have a nice office filled with 24th century whiteboards to play with math.
I do like how they had him leave Starfleet, and I would have liked to explore that a little bit more. Once Wesley puts on a real uniform, I find he's a fine character, in part because he got pushed to the background a bit, but the overly focused early writing did him a disservice.
CaptainIncredible@reddit
That I give him props for. That was about the time I started to respect the character.
BTW... Wil Wheaton and Wesley are two different things. I've always had respect for Wil.
BuvantduPotatoSpirit@reddit
Oh, for sure Wheaton didn't deserve the hate he got for Wesley - the problems with Wesley weren't his fault, and there's little he could have done.
Aggravating_Mix8959@reddit
Wil's online motto is "Don't be a dick" and I think he's earned that.
Ralph--Hinkley@reddit
He has a series of books called Tales From the Future where he writes about making each episode. I've only bought the first three, but they're entertaining and it's wild how much he remembers from so long ago.
Aggravating_Mix8959@reddit
Ok I need to find this.
I love how he becomes a cool Internet personality. Cool dude. 😎
Ralph--Hinkley@reddit
I don;t even think he finished the series. I think he might have only done up to about half of season three.
borisvonboris@reddit
Shut up, Wesley
jack_begin@reddit
Whoa whoa whoa, dating Erin Lefler conclusively proves that Wesley is a genius.
zer0saber@reddit
Lefler is a great character, in the expanded universe. Lefler's Laws is a great running bit.
BitcoinMD@reddit
Robin
kaaskugg@reddit
Ashley Judd's career might not have survived Weinstein but she sure helped the federation's flagship from falling into the hands of a Ktarian trickster.
mikesmithhome@reddit
"i glanced in the direction of the problem you were having and figured it out for you, mom"
KptKreampie@reddit
Nice try Will Wheaton!
wanttobeacop@reddit
Will wheaton what?
Chaparral2E@reddit
Will Wheaton, or won’t Wheaton?
wanttobeacop@reddit
Wheaton will!
SirStocksAlott@reddit
Wiloff Wheaton
jicken00@reddit
Wil
Justcallmebev@reddit
Whil Wheaton
w3lbow@reddit
Would you like some Coo Hwip?
Bacontoad@reddit
Why are you putting so much emphasis on the 'h'?
GeneralLeia-SAOS@reddit
It’s because when TNG was made, Orphaned Boy Genius was unbelievably overused in sci-fi. Poor Will Wheaton was walking into an audience that was already sick to death of “The Kid.” How tired were we (sci-fi fans) of that trope?
Star Wars. Seaquest. Time Bandits. Voyagers. Battlestar Galactica. Last Starfighter. Neverending Story. And almost every other sci-fi movie and tv show.
If The Kid wasn’t a main character, then he was a regular guest character. When he walked into the scene, or even if you saw a boy child actor in the opening credits, you groaned and rolled your eyes because you knew what this movie/episode would be: previously competent adults who just went full retard with an obvious problem and The Kid is the only one who sees it and saves everything. That was the majority of the Wesley Crusher episodes.
So long rant short, bad timing. If Wesley hadn’t been introduced in a completely over saturated market, it would have gone much better.
Grandfeatherix@reddit
you enjoy eating kale too don't you?
breadleecarter@reddit
Shut up, Wesley (sympathizer)!
Tedfufu@reddit
OP, do you notice how for Wesley to shine, every other character gets dumber and don't solve problems they should be able to?
s1lv3r_lak3@reddit (OP)
No honestly. There’s already multiple comments on this thread about Wesley outshining/being smarter than the rest of the crew in certain circumstances. I don’t ever remember feeling that was the case.
mglyptostroboides@reddit
Did.... did you watch the same show I did?
ShadoWolf@reddit
No, I think they're right.. Wesley only did that a couple of times in season 1 .. there are a few episodes later on that he acts as a more pov character. But that basically happened with each of the man cast.
Wesley hate is very much a meme.
Frederica-Bimmel@reddit
I recently finished TNG and also didn't understand the Westley hate. In fact, this is the second time I tried watching the series because I hated how Picard treated him.
w3lbow@reddit
As you wish.
Rickshmitt@reddit
Shut up, Wesley!
Frederica-Bimmel@reddit
NinjaBluefyre10001@reddit
Datalore is the obvious one to me. You'd have to be an idiot to trust what is obviously Lore pretending to be Data, and yet the whole senior staff do. The only one who doesn't is Wesley, because...he just knows.
happyclam94@reddit
Then you weren't paying attention or have trouble making basic connections.
rockadoodoo01@reddit
Aw c’mon don’t be mean.
happyclam94@reddit
I mean, I'm hoping it's the former!
StickOnReddit@reddit
By this logic everyone should hate Kirk at least as much as Wesley
Bacontoad@reddit
If that was the case with Kirk, someone probably would have parodied him at some point...
TexanGoblin@reddit
Kirk isn't 10-20 younger than everyone around him. Plus he's not an acting ensign.
kasetti@reddit
Except in the JJ flicks
soothsayer2377@reddit
Yeah, JJ's problem is all his leads are Wesley Crushers. Rey, for instance, is in the Millennium Falcon for five minutes and knows more about it than Han Solo.
ArmThePhotonicCannon@reddit
Wesley didn’t bang every chick in the quadrant. Dudes could still watch Kirk and be like “hell yeah!”
Trismesjistus@reddit
Wesley didn’t bang every chick in the quadrant.
Kirk didn't either, not nearly. The notion of him being a womanizer is mostly a meme. unfortunately propped up by the reboot movies.
Tedfufu@reddit
Kirk has a career of experience to fall back on and does often defers to others when he needs their expertise and his crew represents the best of the best as well as being highly intelligent himself. Wesley doesn't have that.
Kinetic_Symphony@reddit
Correct, Wesley is a natural prodigy.
Which do exist.
alurimperium@reddit
It doesn't make for a fun character, though, when they're making career professionals look like barely functional morons
Kinetic_Symphony@reddit
I don't mind it here and there. People act like it happens every single episode.
Dave_A480@reddit
The CO is supposed to be smart/right-alot...
Doc's teenage kid not so much.....
Thomanson@reddit
Shut up, Wesley.
Significant-Age-1238@reddit
Shut up, Wesley.
These-Bedroom-5694@reddit
The best and brightest of starfleet, being passed up by the captains/chief medical officer's love child.
UncuriousCrouton@reddit
Hatred for Wesley goes back a long, long time. In the mid 1990s, Usenet had a newsgroup called alt.ensign.wesley.die.die.die.
Looking back, I think Wesley hatred go ensconced partly because the character was written poorly in the first season or two. Among other things, as I recall, Wesley was also Roddenberry's favorite character, but audiences were not nearly so enamored of him.
We also run into ... reruns. Meaning tbr same episode would air several times. I recall that at the show's height, my local independent station. Would air each "new" episode twice in the same weekend, and reruns from old seasons would air every night during the week.
And that is on top of the usual schedule, where you would get a block of episodes for a couple months, then a couple months of reruns, and the cycle would repeat until summer ... and summer was all reruns.
So, let's say you have one episode where Wesley is annoying. He is annoying when the episode airs (twice). Then he is annoying at least twice more during the reruns, then at least once more over the summer. And then when you are later in season 5, the annoying Wesley episode comes back during the week.
That will reinforce the image.
Twisted-Mentat-@reddit
I was a teen that had grown up watching TOS in syndication.
I really didn't like Wesley and still don't.
The child genius trope has been overdone for ages. Even as a teen I would prefer not to see it again.
Maybe a younger fan might have felt some affinity for him.
ProfessionalCoat8512@reddit
Jealousy is a horrible thing.
Everyone wanted to be him and get to hang out with our hero’s
pseudolawgiver@reddit
No and fuck you
pseudolawgiver@reddit
I watched TNG when it first came out. Me and all my friends hated Wesley, still do
Why? Because we wanted serious adult scifi. Not kitschy crap where a boy genius exists to appeal to childish viewers. I was 16 at the premiere of TNG and I felt Wesley was an insult to those of us who take ST seriously. Still do
RenderSlaver@reddit
Shut up Wesley.
OneOldNerd@reddit
My opinion?
I think most people have a subconscious dislike for individuals who are perceived to be much more intelligent than what is considered to be "normal", and that dislike partially fuels the hate for Wesley.
ChristopherLove@reddit
Shut up, Wesley!
Kaurifish@reddit
I don’t think it’s possible to be that annoyed with him after finding out how Shatner treated him.
decent_tame_iguana@reddit
I think a lot of viewers got tired of him rescuing the crew/ship so many times. I know it made my eyes roll - especially in the eps where he was the one who caused the problem to begin with.
xxnoxynoxxnoxy@reddit
Wesley rules.
Prestigious_Fella_21@reddit
Egghead to the nth degree.
Dweller201@reddit
When the show first came on I thought it was corny to have a child doing important things on a military ship.
It reminded me of 70s adventure cartoons where there was always a funny dog or something like that.
There were also scenes where he deals with being a kid which is more corniness.
I didn't hate the character but had an "Oh geez!" types of reaction.
Zorpfield@reddit
Shut up Westley! Shut up Meg!
I think at the time when the episodes came out his character was just really annoying. I didn't feel that way in the 80s because I had seen "stand by me"
To me the annoying one was Alexander and very surprised warrior worf let any child of his go to class in a leotard.
TetsuoMachinma@reddit
It makes people uncomfortable to see themselves in a character
Refuelcore@reddit
I had no problem with Wesley early on. It's the sporadic later season episodes with Wesley that are cringe worthy for me. The lying at the academy episode with Paris/lorcano and the native American vision quest episode with the obligatory sweat lodge just bug me to no end. In the first mentioned episode I kept wanting wes to do the right thing and admit his lie. The. In the subsequent episode he's this big SJW and has taken it too far. Wes never got a good sendoff and that Picard camei was garbage.
Visible_Voice_4738@reddit
He was kind of a presumptions know it all and could come off a bit whiney sometimes, as I recall.
Independent-File-519@reddit
i would answer that question, but this is the internet so keyboard warriors would go insane. i will leave it at that he is liked by far fewer than his fans think
klerganaught@reddit
Personally, I just don't like how there was like a 2 year period where Will Wheaton seemed to be everywhere in the nerd space. Didn't help how it seemed like so many people seemed to be suddenly into the things I was bullied for, and bam, he jumps on the band wagon.
I know he got shit for his role in star trek, and he had a lot of bad experiences. He just became the face of my bullies suddenly barging into my stuff and saying they were the real fans. And I just can't move past it. So everything with him is tainted by association.
FlexDB@reddit
My wife tells me he was her first celebrity crush, during TNG 😂
FloosWorld@reddit
I think the issue was making Wesley an extremely smart kid, something the authors then later didn't repeat with Jake Sisko on DS9.
talondigital@reddit
I was a kid when the show came out. I had been raised on TOS. I remember that my dad and I watched reruns every week. Then TNG came out and Wesley was a kid. In today's language, I had representation in this show. So I always liked him and I wished back then he hadn't left the show.
I would love a limited run season or two exploring what he has become.
Waffleweaveisbest@reddit
Season 2 of Prodigy does this
AshlarKorith@reddit
He features pretty heavily in season 2 of prodigy.
mikesmithhome@reddit
this was me, i was the exact same age as Wesley when TNG first aired and was also too smart for my own good so felt like he spoke to that
jkdjeff@reddit
Shut up, Wesley.
LezardValeth3@reddit
There is nothing to understand. You either find kid characters annoying like most people or not. Nothing wrong with either opinion.
Tristan_Booth@reddit
Actually, I don’t much care for kid characters in most series, but I like Wesley. He’s more of a smart teenager, not a little kid.
nynikai@reddit
It's jealousy mostly. Here's a kid who interacts with our heroes, he's in a world where you want for nothing, have adventure on your doorstep and is in an environment where intelligence is valued. Sure he makes mistakes and is a bit up his own arse, but what kid isn't. Aside from the meme outgrowing itself, the root is simple jealousy and envy.
robotatomica@reddit
Ya know another thing I can’t help wonder, which may account for a portion of the hate - there’s this thing where if a young man or teenaged boy is considered a “heart throb,” that other young men will have disproportionate contempt for him. (Think, Timothy Chalamet)
I mean, no, his dialogue and scripts weren’t always perfect, but watching Stand By Me, there’s no question Wil Wheaton could act. And he has a lot of really great moments in TNG.
So when I hear people say that they just hate him or can’t stand him for some reason, and they’re overstating things (like the idea that he’s somehow a Mary Sue), it’s hard to not imagine that a % of that is informed by this weird sort of parasocial jealousy/competition adjacent thing that happens occasionally.
And then whenever there’s a disproportionate amount of hate spewed towards one person, even if for dubious reasons, that enters the ether into almost meme form (even pre memes as we know them), and everyone is extra scrutinous of superficial complaints, such that, say, whenever Wesley does save the ship, you’re like “Oh yeah, they were right, he IS doing that all the time!” lol but it’s just confirmation bias, you’re hyper attentive to the occasional instances of that happening bc it was openly criticized so much.
Sechzehn6861@reddit
It was a joke that no one can really remember why it got so out of hand.
TransitionReady9408@reddit
Shut up Wesley!
CanadianExiled@reddit
As an old man, I can say I hated Wesley with a passion when I was a kid. My dad would often point to him and Doogie Howser M.D. and try to motivate me to be a better student. As a dumb kid I felt the bar was too high and I developed a deep-seated hatred for these characters. Today, if I could meet Wil Wheaton and NPH I'd apologize for taking part in the hate they got as young actors. I genuinely enjoy Wesley's character and I wish they had used him as a traveler on Voyager for a guest spot.
Fakyutsu@reddit
Me neither, and I was his age when the show was going on. Oh god, did people not like me either???
pazdemy@reddit
cBurger4Life@reddit
Well that’s just wholesome!
pazdemy@reddit
Makes me think, who would be the most wholesome character in all of Trek?
SomethingAboutUsers@reddit
You were probably like me and saw what you wanted to be in him.
Nowadays I can see why people didn't like him; there's a few good threads on how and why "shut up Wesley" was a major inflection point for the character, the actor, and even the rest of the crew, and how that one line completely fucked up any possibility of redemption for him and condemned him to be somewhat hated.
WhatYouLeaveBehind@reddit
Because Wesley is exactly what most Trekies would be like if they starred on Trek, and they don't want to admit it.
ScrogClemente@reddit
My God, do I hate Wesley Crusher.
DoRatsHaveHands@reddit
The first duty was a good episode but Wesley f'd up big time. Still gotta wait till season 7, they absolutely demolish the character. It seems like they didn't really plan out the end goal with Wesley and it shows.
Also, boy genius who's too smart for a normal life and destined for great things if lame AF. The writers fixed this in DS9 and gave the children realistic goals and stories.
Hungry-Magician5583@reddit
I think a lot of us are just cynical and found Wesley too innocent and earnest.
mabhatter@reddit
The Bergman era was a different time of 1970s and 1980s episodic TV writing. Originally Episodic TV was supposed to be written so you can just watch any episode out of order and still be entertained. Nothing was supposed to change... like a comic strip in the newspaper. Syndication and reruns were a big motivating factor.
Trying to write a teenager that grows into an adult and has an arc of change was just something those old guys couldn't grasp. So they didn't know what to do with him because he was "the kid" so they just wrote bad stories for him constantly. He was still acting like a 14 year old 5 season in... nobody liked it.
mglyptostroboides@reddit
Look, if God hadn't intended for us to bully Wil Wheaton, he would not have made him be Wil Wheaton.
Okay, bad joke Don't actually do that.
But seriously, what the other commenters said. He's a Mary Sue, etc. is your answer.
However, he does grow up over the course of the show. And his character development seems to be completely missed by his hardcore haters (see also: Dr. Pulaski, whose arc is just completely invisible to everyone...) but then at the very end, just when he was starting to become a, like, human being... they make him ascend to a higher plane of being and just sorta ruin all the work they did making him more likable. I think that was a huuuuuge misstep. Frankly, if I had my way, I would have had MORE Wesley, rather than getting rid of him entirely. Better Wesley. Wesley 2.0
Bacontoad@reddit
https://i.redd.it/su7qhzyekq7f1.gif
MoonHits@reddit
Yeah I actually didn't mind Wesley until they made him a weird demi-god thing. That kind of made me retroactively not like his character anymore
Life_Membership7167@reddit
He’s an insufferable little shit sometimes, and his dad is kind of a hero. Combined with an enabling doctor mother, oh and falls ass backwards into being a universal entity because he’s smart for a human basically. And Ashley Judd. There’s plenty here.
PhilReotardos@reddit
He's crap in the first and maybe second seasons, but honestly, I like him a lot in the later seasons when he actually develops some flaws.
s1lv3r_lak3@reddit (OP)
People keep reiterating this about the first season, the first season just isn’t great in general so I guess that’s why he didn’t stand out as being particularly bad. Then I guess he got better as the show got better so I never had a problem.
Heretic525@reddit
NERDS!... NERDS! NERRRDS!
HuttVader@reddit
You weren't a kid during the 80s were you.
moaningsalmon@reddit
My problem with the character is that he is unnecessarily great at everything. The crew of the Ent D is the best of the best, and Starfleet in general is made up of very competent people. To portray Wesley as gifted, it would have been perfectly fine to just have him perform on the level of other crew in one or two areas. But instead, he is portrayed as perfect at everything he does. It's obnoxious, and it kind of undermines the competence of others.
Wil himself is a cool dude, and the character certainly isn't his fault. He didn't write it. So I don't hold anything against HIM. But that doesn't change my dislike of the character. There's just no need for a Gary Sue on competence-porn star trek.
gillyrosh@reddit
I don't either. But then there are a lot of opinions in this fandom that I don't get.
ronhenry@reddit
I was in my late 20s when the show originally aired and the improbability of a teenager being smarter and more competent than the seasoned crew of a flagship vessel led me to see him as pandering to younger viewers, and I wasn't interested in TNG becoming yet another "kiddie" sci-fi show, and that was the direction it felt like the writers were feeling out with the boy-genius character who got to do improbable things. (Fortunately they didn't expand on this.) And no offense to the actor, who seems like a fine person, but the Wesley character was (to me) really whiny and irritating for the first couple seasons he was on (he got better over time).
Not to mention that the romantic overtones between Picard and Dr. Crusher gave the whole thing a "Picard is indulging the kid because of his feelings for Beverly," which felt icky.
AshlandPone@reddit
It's mostly group think.
It's cool to do because everyone's doing it kinda thing.
At least, that's best i can come up with. I never understood the hate either.
michaelaaronblank@reddit
Wesley might make sense as a super genius outshining the crew on a different ship, but this is the flagship of the fleet with the best of the best staffing it. Additionally, having Wesley as an acting Ensign serving a shift on, again, the flagship of the fleet, means that some actual Ensign who has put in the time and career commitment isn't getting the experience that they have earned.
kasetti@reddit
I mean Mozart is the goto example of a person who is super talented from a very young age.
michaelaaronblank@reddit
Mozart was extremely talented in a specific field that doesn't require years of foundational knowledge to understand. Wesley was brilliant at anything that hit the tangent with "science". Vastly different, but not really relevant to my points.
My points are that the crew of the flagship of the fleet should have had people at least as talented and as smart as him with years of experience and no leader should have allowed Wesley to take a spot that belonged to someone who has put in the work already.
kasetti@reddit
Wesley was 15 when he joined the Enterprise. Joseph-Armand Bombardier created the first snowmpbile when he was 15: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/joseph-armand-bombardier
michaelaaronblank@reddit
And that is very similar to warp mechanics and was surrounded by and outshined the cream of the crop in the field, I am sure.
A-Druid-Life@reddit
When you're a kid and you get to helm the flagship of the federation..........
Those haters could only wish they could.
Wesley deserves every right to yell " NANNY NANNY BOO BOO!"......." LOOK AT WHAT I GET TO DO!!!!!!"
And I'll be behind my boy, backing him up.
MountainBrilliant643@reddit
People hate him? That's news to me. I never hated him. Never heard of a single person that does. Wesley was a solid character, and HWhill HWheaton is a great actor. "Shut up Wesley" is just a funny line. It was supposed to indicate disdain for the character.
Chaparral2E@reddit
I still think it’s possible that Jean-Luc could have been Wesley’s real father.
That would have been an interesting story line.
Didn’t hate the character, but I feel he was kind of a one-truck pony with his acting. Always the same expression.
Trismesjistus@reddit
I never hated him. I was always a little jealous of him. And a few years later I decided I wanted to bang his mom
KingOfConsciousness@reddit
Don’t make me say it…
Suitable-Egg7685@reddit
A lot of it is how he was used as a Deus ex.
SignificantPop4188@reddit
Until I started going on the internet, I never realized the hate for Wesley. I thought he was fine, and I was an adult when I watched TNG for the first time so it's not like I was a kid identifying with another kid.
Sufficient_Button_60@reddit
Hatred is such a strong term. Personally I discovered TNG as a kid and like many others in my position we appreciated having a kid on board. I think that the issue with Wesley is that in the first season there was a whole string of episodes where pretty much every major issue that happened on the ship wasn't solved by a crew that was supposed to be the best of the best but rather by Wesley Crusher. You could see where some people might find that off putting. Fortunately as the show progressed things leveled off and he was relied on less and the rest of the crew more
MerlinsMama13@reddit
I didn’t get it either. So bizarre. Now Alexander, HE annoyed me…
FunkyTown313@reddit
Never hated Wesley as a character. But I was his target demographic when the show released. He was a good character for me, a child to relate to. Much in the same way the doctor has a companion that's our link to the show's world. If I've ever found Wil annoying it's been more during this current era of trek where they have him doing an insipid talking dead type show. But that's because I want cool behind the scenes stuff which basically doesn't exist anymore. It's all been taken over by a bunch of animators pounding red bulls sitting at a computer.
greatteachermichael@reddit
The problem is that he is genius boy who solves problems that people who are the best of the best of the best on the fleet's flagship. He just magically understands things. That's not how knowledge at that level works, you have to be specialized when you get to something that advanced.
I also just think a lot of teens are written poorly in any show, not always, but even as a teen I tended to like more mature shows because the characters seemed more interesting.
justme9974@reddit
Best of the best? Let me introduce you to Barclay.
justme9974@reddit
I found him extremely annoying in the beginning, but they improved his character. Not Wheatons fault though.
bobj33@reddit
I had friends in the 90's that used to post on this Usenet group. I didn't get it. He was sometimes annoying in season 1 or 2 but I always related to Wesley far more than the other characters.
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.wesley.crusher.die.die.die
ChunkBluntly@reddit
I like his character, I like a lot of the storylines he's in, I like how writers used his character to help develop other characters. But what always bothered me -and this is no reflection on Wil Wheaton- is that the character is essentially a Make-a-Wish foundation dream come true.
Wesley borders Tom Bombadil status. He's introduced into the series as a budding interdimensional genius with engineering knowledge on par with Data and Geordie, and by the time everything is said and done he's essentially a god with powers second to the Q.
I dig most of the episodes he's in, but he's the only main character in the series where what makes him unique is...well, he's special. He's not an alien or new life form or subject of crazy experiments. He's not studied and determined to be the next evolution of humans. He's just a guy who who can do stuff. How? Because he can.
Anyway, that's what annoys me about the character.
Valkyrie1S@reddit
First you need yo to know that Wesley is a Gene Roddenberry self insert.
Now you go and watch the 1st season again. Specially the first 5 episodes where the whole crew you know and have love for 5 season is incredibly inept and can't see, analize, understand or solve anythinf until 15 year old Roddenberry comes and saves the day.
You also see that the show heavily implies that Gene, I mean, Wesley is meant to become some sort of God or humanities next evolution.
But behind the scenes, scheduling conflict, disagreement with Roddenberry and producer being overall dicks to Whil Weaton led to him leaving the show and they show eventually and only appearing once in a while to finiah his planned traveller arc in a more toned down way.
And Dr. Crusher quickly moves on by banging a ghost.
s1lv3r_lak3@reddit (OP)
People keep bringing up him being a self insert for Roddenberry. That doesn’t affect how I feel about the character in any way.
Planatus666@reddit
I've never had a problem with Wesley either, there are more popular characters who I find more annoying (La Forge and Troi for example).
CrispinCain@reddit
Crusher is essentially 2 characters smashed into one: a young Cadet who just joined the academy, and a younger brother who is a wunderkind of the 24th century.
Unfortunately, rather than cast a real child actor, they wrote scenes where a young man acts like a preteen.
Gorbachev86@reddit
Me neither
CMDR_ACE209@reddit
Second favorite character after Data for me.
Was just a too perfect self insert because I was at the same age when I watched TNG.
Retinoid634@reddit
I love Wesley.
Beautiful_Ad2618@reddit
It's because he is annoying. I kinda liked him when I first watched it through. On subsequent viewings I started to realise how annoying he is. Wesley the boy wonder who has all the answers and is smarter than 98% of the Enterprise crew. Plus that annoying smile of his.
Having said that I did really like the episode 'first duty'.
Cassandra_Canmore2@reddit
There's no payoff to his character arc.
He's billed as this Wūnderkind that's so special he can solve problems that stump La Forge and Data.
When all he amounts to is a college dropout. That can't actually hack it in Starfleet.
rockadoodoo01@reddit
True that. However, welcome to the real world in the case of do many of us.
kasetti@reddit
I think Wesley, Riker and Picard for a neat triangle of men in their different stages of life and having gone with different choices. All had a massive amount of potential and all made choices with drawbacks. Wesleys college run went bad, Riker became contempt with the ease life and Picard focused on the job over his personal life.
caclexis@reddit
I agree. Wesley doesn’t deserve the hate. He’s a part of some great episodes. I love The First Duty!
rockadoodoo01@reddit
I see the meaning in those arguments, but I still liked him. It was cool to have a very young, inexperienced, but smart person in the show. It gave me another chance to see things through a different perspective, which I think is in tune with the original ideal that Roddenberry strived toward.
TremorintheForce@reddit
Its not Wesley we hate, its wil wheaton.
Carlos_Spicy_Weiner6@reddit
https://i.redd.it/fm4ya5d40m7f1.gif
TexanGoblin@reddit
He gets better after season 1, but I echo want everyone else says. Everyone else around him acts dumber so he can solve the problem.
Hopeful_Giraffe946@reddit
Shut up Wesley
txmjornir@reddit
Halfway through season 1 I stopped watching because of Wesley, started watching again once he left. He couldn't be a normal 15 year old kid. Nope, he's the next great leap forward in human evolution. He's the navigator of the Federation flagship when any other kid that age is still in high school.
BuddenceLembeck@reddit
I'm solidly team Wesley. But not for Wesley and/or Data, everyone on the Enterprise would have been doomed a hundred times over. The kid was way more essential that he gets credit for.
rainbowkey@reddit
His arc in season 2 of Prodigy is pretty awesome. Do watch Prodigy
Dr-Builderbeck@reddit
Yeah I agree. I like his character because he seems real. He is very exceptional and he struggles with how to project that in the rest of his world. He, in my opinion is humble and has many masters. Then he becomes some sort of Q lol. Excellent arc what more could you want.
picturepages@reddit
Nice try Wheaton.
quigongingerbreadman@reddit
Nice try Will Wheaton.
SoybeanArson@reddit
I don't either, but I was also the perfect age young boy when I started watching TNG for Wesley to be my stand-in/hero. I also agree, he gets better as time goes on so I'm really confused at the people that told you "just wait".
Ariahna5@reddit
I loved him as a character, always have.
fatal-nuisance@reddit
Shut up, Wesley.
Eldernerdhub@reddit
I just finished my first watch and had the same question. Westley seemed like a classic "too smart for his own good" character. I thought Picard was overly harsh. It was nice seeing him soften as Wesley aged.
The1Ylrebmik@reddit
I don't hate Wesley, but I think he was a poorly conceived character. Ostensibly he was supposed to be a boy genius, but from the second episode something weird happens. The chief engineer says it would take weeks to solves a problem. Wesley does it off the top of his head in five seconds. Okay that is not boy genius intelligence, that is god-like intelligence. Then they kept up this idea that there was something spooky about Wesley, almost like he was far beyond a normal human with the Traveller stuff. But what do you do with that character on a starship? Nothing, so you turn him back to the boy genius.
But then as the boy genius I don't think they had any idea about him either. I mean this is supposed to be a character that as barely a teen apparently taught himself the entire workings of a star ship. Why was his genius never recognized? Why didn't he start college as an eight year old? Why is he trying to get into Star Fleet academy when he is apparently already capable of "acting" as a fully functional crew member(no Data pun intended)?
And then at the very end of the show they bring it around to Wesley really was a god-being in waiting. Why? What was so special about this kid born to two humans that he would turn into Franklin Richards?
jasonite@reddit
I've never hated him either. He saved the ship too many times in season 1 I guess so they barely used him in season 2, and he was an occasional blip on the radar in seasons 3 and 4.
crayclaye@reddit
Same, I like watching episodes that feature him with my kids, I think he is a great character and role model.
techm00@reddit
Wesley is great. My only sadness is he didn't decide to stay.
asomek@reddit
He's just a terrible actor, at least in this role. Maybe it's the writers fault, or the directors, he just comes across like a damp cloth.
marcus_lepricus@reddit
In general I usually find the child genius trope kind of annoying and usually poorly done.
ThoughtNPrayer@reddit
The First Duty is an excellent episode! Season 1 has many issues, and Wesley is far from the worst of them. They hadn’t really found their groove yet, for ANY of the characters. People go overboard in their hatred of Wesley. And picking on child actors for writing decisions has always been ridiculous.
One of the producers was well-known for being overbearing and creating a hostile work environment. Following Roddenberry’s death, that producer held all the power. It’s no surprise that Wil Wheaton didn’t want to stay.
Davenport1980@reddit
I found Wesley cool. However, I was younger than Wesley when I first watched TNG, so that probably played some part in my opinion of him. Wesley was at his worst, writing wise, in Season 1. Of course, so was everyone else. He had three major issues:
1) Wesley is a very clearly created Creator's Pet.
2) He is a teenager surrounded by adults.
3) He left the show during Season 4, everyone else was on the show for twice as long.
AdamBergeron@reddit
Relevant: You Are Wrong About Wesley Crusher
Used-Gas-6525@reddit
Honestly, if you liked S1 Wesley, that's the worst he was. I never cared much for the character, but I think he was overhated. It doesn't help that Wil delivered every line like it was made of wood. If you got through the first couple of seasons without disliking him, chances are you never will.
ExplanationFit6177@reddit
For me personally, he’s just a bit annoying and I dislike kids/teens on shows for grownups. I certainly don’t hate him but I’m slightly below neutral.