Posted in: Paramount+, streaming, TV | Tagged: Picard, season 3, star trek, Terry Matalas, Wesley Crusher, wil wheaton

Star Trek: Picard Showrunner: Wil Wheaton's Wesley "Tricky Character"

Star Trek: Picard Showrunner Terry Matalas explains why Wil Wheaton's Wesley Crusher would've been a "tricky character" to bring back.

As we await word on whether or not Star Trek: Legacy will actually become a reality, fans of Paramount+'s Sir Patrick Stewart-starring Star Trek: Picard continue to dissect everything that went down during the final season and the series finale, "The Last Generation." One of the questions that showrunner & executive producer Terry Matalas tackled was the absence of Wil Wheaton's ("The Next Generation," The Ready Room podcast) Wesley Crusher. Specifically, did Wesley ever take a break from traveling across time, space & realities with the Travelers to check in with his mom, Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), and half-brother, Jack (Ed Speleers)? Wheaton shared his own thoughts on the matter in a Facebook post (see below), while Matalas seemed on the fence about whether it may have happened off camera or not (but that he would love to see it). But now, in a series post-mortem with TVLine, Matalas is also offering a very sensible reason why Wesley wouldn't show up – or if he did, it would have had to have been late in the season.

"We definitely would have loved nothing more for Wesley to return again," Matalas explained, with Wheaton being one of a number of other famous faces Matalas & the team would've liked to have back but couldn't because of costs and scheduling. But then there's also the "Travelers" factor, with Wheaton's Wesley possibly becoming a "deus ex machina" that could easily save the day based on the powers he has at play. "It's one of those things where he has a lot of omniscient power that would have helped them if he turned up too early," Matalas added. "So if he were to have turned up, we would have had him turn up very, very late. So a tricky character to drop in."

Star Trek: Picard – Wil Wheaton on Possible Crusher Family Reunion

"I have as close to an official answer as you're going to get. It's not officially canon, but it's in my headcanon, and I used it when I wrote the Wesley Story for the 400th Star Trek comic," Wheaton wrote in his Facebook post, in response to a recent article. "One of the fundamental rules of being in the Travelers is that, once you've joined, you must NEVER interact directly with the people, places, planets, etc., that were part of your previous life, because it can affect your judgment and break reality. Wesley would like nothing more than to visit his mom and meet his brother. But he knows that not seeing them is a sacrifice he has to make in service of something so much bigger than anything else in his reality." Here's a look at Wheaton's Facebook post addressing the matter, and make sure to check out the full post, where Wheaton describes how Wesley would handle a young Q looking to keep messing with Jack and the rest of his fam:

The Ready Room & "The Last Generation"

Wheaton was joined by Jeri Ryan (Seven Of Nine) and Matalas to break down all of the big takeaways from "The Last Generation." Plus, we get a behind-the-scenes look at the episode with the cast and crew of Star Trek: Picard, learn more about how the season's score came to life and more. Here's a look at the last episode of The Ready Room for the "Picard" era – but the podcast will be back this summer for the Anson Mount, Ethan Peck & Rebecca Romijn-starring Star Trek: Strange New Worlds:

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