Watching first season TNG

[Valdagast]

So I decided to look through the entire The Next Generation series, from season one and onwards.

God, season one is a wasteland devoid of entertainment. But I want to make two contentious observations:

1) Wil Wheaton is not a terrible actor.
2) Wesley is not a terrible character.

Wesley is not a great character, but compared to... say... certain other characters (Jar-Jar) he is a beacon of light. Yes, wunderchild is irritating but compared to the power of bad comedy... (and I'm not talking just Jar-Jar here - bad comedy is so much worse than anything else.)

[PerrySimm]

Bold first post!

There were some decent moments in Season 1 - like "The Arsenal of Freedom" - but nothing truly outstanding, particularly in the first half of the season. What's amusing is that if TNG had indeed been cancelled after 13 episodes, we'd all have to look back on "Datalore" as the campy end to a fairly terrible attempt to relaunch Star Trek.

Wesley was not that big of a problem in Season 1. The excuse for him to be there on Season 2 is pretty flimsy, though.

[sayla0079]

The problem with Wesley is he was portrayed as what is know in some writing circles as a Mary Sue (forgot the guy equivelent name).

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Wil Wheaton was one of the most experienced actors on set.

[Admiral X]

The problem with Wesley is he was portrayed as what is know in some writing circles as a Mary Sue (forgot the guy equivelent name).

Marty Sue or Gary Stu

[sayla0079]

Thx Admiral I forgot the name at the time.

[Independent George]

I would go so far as to say that Wil Wheton is actually quite a good actor - not just for his age at the time, but in general. And Wesley was certainly not the worst thing about early TNG (that would be Gene) - but he was the most recognizable and most persistent thing. Code of Honor and The Outrageous Okona were godawful, but it wasn't hard to suppress them from our memory and hope for the best next week (and, from what I understood, that's pretty much exactly what the cast & crew did). Wesley... was still Wesley. Yes, he only showed up for 5 minutes at a time to annoy us, but he was there every damned week, sucking up oxygen from an already bad show.

It's a standing joke in Hollywood that writers are the most expendible and lowest-status members of a production, but the dramatic change from S2 to S3 of TNG really hits home just how hard it is to salvage a terrible script. The cast & crew were the same, but they finally took the keys away from Gene and suddenly the switch got flipped from absolutely terrible to pretty damned awesome. There are more talented actors in Hollywood than there are roles; most of the time when you notice bad acting, what you're really seeing is bad writing.

[Valdagast]

The problem with Wesley is he was portrayed as what is know in some writing circles as a Mary Sue (forgot the guy equivalent name).

Absolutely. Now, a Wesley character - young, inexperienced, but brilliant - could work very well. I think the Wesley of "First Duty" could have been a boon rather than a drag on the show. But maybe he would step on Riker's toes too much; that's kind of his shtick as well.

And Wesley was certainly not the worst thing about early TNG (that would be Gene) - but he was the most recognizable and most persistent thing.

Yeah, Gene's influence in TNG was mostly bad as far as I can tell.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

The problem with Wesley is he was portrayed as what is know in some writing circles as a Mary Sue (forgot the guy equivelent name).

If the show centered on him like it does Michael in Discovery then I could see it being something to pick at. Like George said though, he only shows up a bit at a time, so he shows up more as a plot convenience and not a protagonist with developed attributes that the main story can follow.

[Yukaphile]

This should be in the sci-fi section.