Trek Central is beaming down with a Star Trek legend! Wil Wheaton Talks Star Trek Prodigy, his fond memories of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and his brand new podcast adventure. If you’re a fan of thrilling Sci-Fi stories from emerging talent, then you don’t want to miss “It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton“. This brand new podcast series is a big passion project from Wheaton. It also aims to shine a light on new talent.
The podcast series is OUT NOW on all good platforms, but we, of course, had to ask Wil about his time in the Star Trek Universe. Wheaton has recently appeared in both the animated series of Star Trek: Prodigy and the live-action Star Trek: Picard Season 2.
Listen to It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton here!
Wil Wheaton Talks New Podcast
Jack: I was wondering if you could talk to us about your podcast. What’s it about? And where can Trekkies and anyone else find it?
Wil: A couple of years ago, a friend of mine, one of my longest friends, a friend who I’ve known since I was a freshman in high school, one of my longtime gamer buddies. He’s always been a writer. He has always written just the most amazing, wonderful stories, and all of us were like Someday, he’s going to get published, and it’s going to be great. He says like dude, it happened. I’m in this magazine and I was so excited for him. I went to their website, I bought the magazine right away. It came to my house and I was reading his story. I fell in love. I thought I was going to record this for him.
I’m just going to do an audiobook of his story for him, and I’m going to give it to him because his birthday was coming up or something like that. When I sat down to do that, it was as if the part of me that has ideas, the same part that created Tabletop, jumped out of me and went dude, what you got to do is a podcast where you read and narrate short stories with a focus on emerging writers, people who haven’t yet had their break, and I thought that’s an excellent idea I just had. So I immediately wrote up an email to my creative and business teams, and I was like What do you think? Everybody thought it was a great idea.
LeVar Burton and I were at the airport – when Reading Rainbow came to our set, I was so excited. When he wrapped up his podcast. I was sad because I love hearing LeVar read to me, and I didn’t know how I would get that after his podcast was finished. I asked him if it was okay for with him, if I did this, would I be stepping on your toes? Is this stealing your idea? And like, practically as I was getting the words out of my mouth, LeVar was like I would love for you to do this, and I’m so excited for you to do this, and you have my blessing!
Jack: That is a fantastic story, where can Trekkies find this online, or anyone for that matter?
Wil Wheaton: One of the things I really love about the whole idea of podcasting is we put it in one place and then it gets picked up and distributed everywhere that it is convenient for all of the people who might want to hear it. So the usual kind of big places, you know, Apple & Spotify. Places like that will have it. We’re also in the very early stages of working on Patreon.
Jack: The podcast explores stories from emerging writers and creators, I believe you said. Could you give us a hint, without spoiling anything, of course?
Wil Wheaton: I was fortunate to hire Lynne and Michael Thomas. They’re the editors of Uncanny Magazine, and they read a ton of speculative fiction, and I told them that for the first season, which is kind of our proof of concept, test season right, we need to see if the audience is there. This is such a weird experience because I’m so proud of what we made. I had an enjoyable time doing all of this. The work has been really satisfying to me and I am very, very hopeful that the authors we were able to get to work with us for this first block of episodes.
I asked Lynn and Michael to choose wonderful, wonderful speculative fiction stories for me that really lent themselves to narration. Our first story is about love, and it’s about in my introduction I talk about how there is that old saying about how we will move heaven and earth for the people that we love, and in this story, these two people love each other so much that they actually move time, and I thought that that theme was wonderful.
Star Trek: Prodigy
Jack: Let’s talk about the animated series of Prodigy, the lovely young person’s animated series. I say young people, I think that series is for everybody. They say it was a kid’s series. Everybody enjoyed it. I enjoyed it.
Wil Wheaton: I cannot tell you the number of people who have said, “I don’t know; it just looks like a kid’s show,” and I’ve just said, “Oh my, would you call a Pixar movie a kid’s movie?” This is an amazing Star Trek series that tells the most incredible Star Trek stories you’ve ever heard and it you know I love. The focus of the narrative characters in the first season of Prodigy is so different from anything ever seen in Star Trek. It was so fascinating to me to see.
I’ve always wondered what life looks like for people who aren’t in the federation. What does life look like for people who have heard of the federation and are curious about it but maybe don’t trust it or maybe don’t want to be involved in it? It never occurred to me to take a group of kids and throw them into something like the Protostar and then watch them go through discovering Starfleet, discovering Starfleet values.
The Old Days of Star Trek
Jack: We’d love to know your all-time favorite scene to film. Obviously, this can be animated in live action.
Wil Wheaton: It has to be when Wesley and Picard are in the cave, and Picard is dying, and Wesley is keeping him alive. One of the best works I did on Star Trek was when I worked with Patrick Stewart. It was more important to me than otherwise, and I’m embarrassed to admit this. It’s because I was young and didn’t know any better. An actor should show up the way I showed up to work with Patrick for everyone all the time, no matter what. That is the level of effort, commitment, and focus we must bring to the work.
That’s my most memorable and favorite bit as an actor on The Next Generation. My favorite episode to work on, just as an experience, was when we did The First Duty.
Live Long and Prosper!
Once again, a big thank you to Wil Wheaton for taking the time to talk with us. Don’t forget that you can check out his brand new podcast via all good podcast platforms. However, you can use THIS LINK to access “It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton” on iTunes. Let us know your thoughts on the podcast by connecting with Trek Central on social media through the links below.
This Interview has been edited for clarity; view the full interview via YouTube above.
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