I would say they did Wesley Crusher wrong–how they finished Wesley Crusher on TNG
Is that really the point where you’d feel the writer’s room let Wesley down? I can honestly only think of a few TNG episodes where he didn’t feel stilted and out of place. And that’s from day one of watching the show as it aired, when I was only a few years younger than the character.
With all respect to Wil W, who had done nice work as a child actor in roles where he would more or less be expected to play a regular kid — I never felt he had the chops to spew 24th century technobabble in a way that sold Wesley as a genius level prodigy. And at the same time, the writers rarely gave him relatable teenage stuff to work with, so he was sort of in a catch-22.
(I know of some of the BS that Wil has had to deal with through his adolescence and career, and I sympathise. I just don’t think his character was ever written to his fortes as an actor, which probably led to the unfortunate spread of the “Shut up Wesley” meme)
As for Prodigy, if you wanted to bring back a grating nothing character that has already had too much screentime, Neelix was right there…
Is that really the point where you’d feel the writer’s room let Wesley down? I can honestly only think of a few TNG episodes where he didn’t feel stilted and out of place. And that’s from day one of watching the show as it aired, when I was only a few years younger than the character.
With all respect to Wil W, who had done nice work as a child actor in roles where he would more or less be expected to play a regular kid — I never felt he had the chops to spew 24th century technobabble in a way that sold Wesley as a genius level prodigy. And at the same time, the writers rarely gave him relatable teenage stuff to work with, so he was sort of in a catch-22.
(I know of some of the BS that Wil has had to deal with through his adolescence and career, and I sympathise. I just don’t think his character was ever written to his fortes as an actor, which probably led to the unfortunate spread of the “Shut up Wesley” meme)
As for Prodigy, if you wanted to bring back a grating nothing character that has already had too much screentime, Neelix was right there…