Nov 17 | Originally hired as co-executive producer to help with the second half of the show's first season, Kevin Murphy has now taken the reins of Caprica, the Battlestar Galactica prequel on Syfy, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He now serves as an executive producer along with Ronald D. Moore, David Eick and Jane Espenson and oversees the day-to-day functions of the show.
Nov 12 | Star Trek star Zachary Quinto is loosely attached to star in the romantic dramedy Whirligig, reports Risky Business.Quinto would play the lead role in the independent Canadian film, which is aiming to shoot early next year. The movie centers on a man who, in a misguided attempt to woo an older woman, befriends the woman's adopted son.Chaz Thorne is directing the pic, based on a screenplay by Michael Amo, creator of the Canadian supernatural series "The Listener."
Nov 11 | The CNS Foundation, is hosting an on-line charity auction at www.charitybuzz.com. One of the items they are auctioning is a signed movie poster of the new Star Trek movie which has all the cast members and writers. The president of our organization is Carol Abrams, JJ's mother, and she arranged for the donation from Bad Robot Production Company. J.J. Abrams is also a major donor to their organization. The funds raised will go to help find a cure to neurological disorders in children. The auction link is here.
Nov 10 | Candice Bergen, Charles Lisanby, Don Pardo, Gene Roddenberry, Tom and Dick Smothers and Bob Stewart have been selected as the next inductees into the Television Academy's Hall of Fame. They will be honored at a Jan. 20 ceremony at the Beverly Hills Hotel. "This year's inductees have challenged and shaped popular culture, changed television for the better and entertained us royally while doing so," TV Academy Chairman-CEO John Shaffner said. More info at the Hollywood Reporter
Nov 08 | Unreality-SF.net has interviewed Star Trerk author James Swallow about some of his upcoming projects. He talks about Titan: Synthesis and Seven Deadly Sins: The Slow Knife, as well as some forthcoming Doctor Who and Stargate stories.
When I first read Wil Wheaton’s excellent book DANCING BAREFOOT earlier this year, I saw the joys that he brought out from his web site WilWheaton.net, issues about life, love, loss, and the positive and negative brushes with the celebrity side of being seen only as Wesley Crusher from STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION. His web “blog”, visited by many people, became one of the most visited celebrity web sites in 2002 and 2003 because of his humor and insight into the ordinary and the famous. Clearly, Wheaton had become to the Internet age what Mark Twain and Lewis Grizzard were in their respective eras and mediums.
Now, Wheaton has once again put pen -- or in this case, computer -- to paper and brought forth his latest work, JUST A GEEK. More than just the standard entertainer’s autobiography, and more than just a reprinted collection of his “blog” entries, Wheaton brings forth his candid honesty and humor about the joys and the pitfalls of celebrity fame in general and STAR TREK in particular, while at the same time discovering what he had inside to overcome the pitfalls and build a life beyond the confines of Hollywood trappings, to become a successful “blogger”, web site designer, writer, humorist, husband, father, and man.
Wheaton expands upon his original “blog” entries with depth and insight, giving a clearer picture of being seen as more than just Wesley Crusher, the scorn to some STAR TREK fans’ ideal world. He shares with us the fruits of his success in seeing a complete sellout of DANCING BAREFOOT in 2003, along with an equally successful autograph session and promotion. Fans still cared about Wheaton and saw him more than just a fifth wheel on a science fiction series but as a popular humorist who could relate to the struggling Everyday man in the world. The bulk of JUST A GEEK is just that, more of Wheaton’s personal Everyday man struggle to become successful at anything he does, more than just acting, but in fact living, loving, and laughing all the way.
What some people may not know, particularly those who have not kept up with his “blog” site, is that Wheaton originally called his site WHERE’S MY BURRITO? Taken from an episode of THE SIMPSONS, it formed the basis of his initial web site in the summer of 2001 as well as the first chapter of JUST A GEEK. Wheaton shares the joys and the anxieties of putting himself out there and talking about what he was doing at the time of the site’s creation. Wheaton quickly eschews the standard autobiographical details that consume other books and instead goes for the main action of reinventing himself and fighting off his two worst demons, “Prove to Everyone That Quitting STAR TREK Wasn’t a Mistake” and “The Voice of Self-Doubt”. Who hasn’t fought similar demons like these in their lives? But what originally started out as hip and funny immediately became introspective and personal, as Wheaton started delving into the issues that mattered most to him: the near-death of his father, the relationship with his stepsons Ryan and Nolan and with his wife Anne, being attacked by the ignorant few who judged him harshly only because of his celebrity and his association with STAR TREK, and the daily struggles of searching for continuing acting work in Hollywood and escaping the STAR TREK ghost.
Only one tale from DANCING BAREFOOT is partly reprinted in JUST A GEEK, “The Saga of SpongeBob Vegas Pants”, relating Wheaton’s adventures at the 35th anniversary STAR TREK convention in Las Vegas of talking before a live audience and interacting with the fans and his former co-stars. But Wheaton changes the tone shortly afterwards, as he, like so many others in the world, expresses his shock, fear, and horror of the events of September 11th. Raw honesty is the dominant spirit here, and Wheaton is not afraid to show it. Whether in dealing with failed acting auditions, September 11th, or the untimely loss of his aunt Valerie, Wheaton speaks it all.
But in contrast to DANCING BAREFOOT, Wheaton relates the joys of not only reconnecting but also establishing a new friendship with William Shatner, who once looked down on Wheaton and his Wesley Crusher character because of his youth, as a result of their celebrity appearance on THE WEAKEST LINK. Where Wheaton virtually trashed Shatner the first time around, he recognizes the healing bond of new experiences over time with the iconic veteran actor, seeing a new friendship form in the process.
One of the major recurring themes Wheaton reveals in his “blogs” and in JUST A GEEK is his continuing struggle to seek regular work in Hollywood. Over the course of many chapters he shares his ups and his downs, as he sought encouragement from the Web community and beyond prior to going on acting jobs. Wheaton provides an extremely humorous, insightful, and rare candid look at the inner workings of Hollywood casting, revealing that in the minds of casting agents, second best is second rate, and without connections or edge you won’t make it, no matter how hard you try. Wheaton’s frustrations are put to the test, as he battles “Prove to Everyone” and “The Voice of Self-Doubt” by going to one audition after another and being rejected time and time again. He risked putting his acting dreams over his family for that one more shot at rejuvenating his career, eventually realizing what was more important to him.
Of course, eventually Wheaton brings JUST A GEEK back to his STAR TREK roots, as he candidly recounts his all-too-brief cameo stint on the set of STAR TREK: NEMESIS in November 2001. The feeling of coming home permeates both the chapter and the “blog” entries, as Wheaton takes readers on a rare behind-the-scenes look at shooting a big-screen film: the makeup sessions, the costume fittings, the various camera shots and takes, the entire process. But he also mixes the warm fuzzies with the feeling of seeing his cameo reduced to a “blink and you’ll miss it” non-speaking cameo in the final cut of the film, one of the downsides of making a big-budget film such as NEMESIS. Still, Wheaton accepts the fact that editing a film to a manageable running time is a necessary part of the filmmaking process, but the joy of coming home to his NEXT GENERATION castmates and friends, even for a couple of days, is impermeable.
He also relates many touching and hilarious moments in his acting and writing career, including the joy he had auditioning for his fellow TNG castmate-turned-director Jonathan Frakes for THE TWILIGHT ZONE, the exhilaration of seeing Patrick Stewart pass the torch to ENTERPRISE star Scott Bakula, and the fun he had pulling the wool over his mother’s eyes in an infamous April Fool’s “blog” in 2002. And he takes readers in an extremely in-depth look at how, through his “weblog” site, the fans learned of his ill-timed removal from Creation’s convention appearance celebrating the 15th anniversary of THE NEXT GENERATION in 2002 and convinced Creation of the error of its ways, that Wheaton was just as significant a part of TNG as the other cast members. Clearly, the fans proved that they still cared for Wil Wheaton as a man and as a human being.
Along with Wheaton’s writings are a series of illustrations by John Kovalic, each one of which brilliantly visualizes the various stages in Wheaton’s life. These insightful illustrations portray Wil Wheaton just as he is, experiencing the depression, combat, joy, and perseverance he has endured over the last few years, eventually prevailing and triumphing in the end. It’s rare to read autobiographies these days and have accompanying illustrations to mirror a writer’s words, and in this case Kovalic’s images fit perfectly with Wheaton’s tome.
While some in the Hollywood community may have judged him as second best, Wheaton is first rate and first class all the way, and his honest, humorous words are ones we can all relate to. JUST A GEEK shows us that Wil Wheaton has overcome the odds and become a successful husband, father, and man. He is this age’s Lewis Grizzard.
I have not had a chance to read "Barefoot," but the review for that book earlier this year and this review for "Just a Geek" will have me asking my wife to put them on my holiday list this year. (Heck, if there are audio versions, I'll just ask to download them from iTunes or someplace!) I'll also be visiting his blog site more often, I think.
I've reviewed books before and I have to say this was a very nice review, not only in its wonderful treatment of Wheaton as a person, but in its thoroughness of examples of why the book's a good read.
I have always thought Wheaton (and Wesley Crusher) got a raw deal from the fans initially. I think people have finally come to realize that he wasn't at fault for whatever their negative perceptions were of the character he portrayed. Personally, I always understood Wesley was Roddenberry's semi-autobiographical "through the eyes of wonder" character and felt if Wheaton had been more properly utilized, the fans would have connected with Wesley more. I even wrote a short story that I, unsuccessfully, submitted to one of the Strange New Worlds contest a bunch of years ago about his continued training with the Traveler. (Go to http://m2cahn.home.mindspring.com/scifi.html and, if you have Adobe's Acrobat Reader, click on Threads - the last story under Star Trek fiction.)
But I digress. All I really wanted to say was that I loved the review precisely because it made me want to check out the book.
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