Wesley, a defence

[spoonunseptium]

Just to throw in the token teenage girl answer, I think he's cute.

I haven't seen enough episodes to really know his character, but he's the only thing remotely close to eye candy a poor girl like me has on Trek. :-(

Plus, I'm really interested(in a scholarly way) in child prodigies, geniuses, mind freaks of that sort-- so I find any kid with a semblance of advanced smarts to be fascinating, even if they are annoying.

Having said that, I liked him in Encounter at Farpoint, but I did think he was slightly random and nauseating.

And yes, horrible sweaters.

 

[CaptainStoner]

The character idea itself was fine. There just wasn't much realism in the writing for Wesley in the early show. No, he didn't have to be a cliche "problem child". But, realistically, he would have been having social problems due to his "golden boy" status. He would have had some hard lessons where his intelligence came up short, instead of saving the ship all the time. It was unrealistic to have him at helm as early as he was. Maybe around the Sol system a bit, that kind of thing. But the idea of having this kid, acting Ensign, flying the ship, while there were probably a dozen or so Starfleet grads who had devoted their lives to one day doing just that - the character was mishandled.

 

[Tachyon]

Oh Wesley... not among my favorite characters. He was rather annoying at times. Though, I quite liked the episode where he, Picard and the third dude were stranded on the desert-like moon. So he had his moments, without a doubt. But once he became the Traveller, it was too much for me to take.

 

[Praetor]

The character idea itself was fine. There just wasn't much realism in the writing for Wesley in the early show. No, he didn't have to be a cliche "problem child". But, realistically, he would have been having social problems due to his "golden boy" status. He would have had some hard lessons where his intelligence came up short, instead of saving the ship all the time. It was unrealistic to have him at helm as early as he was. Maybe around the Sol system a bit, that kind of thing. But the idea of having this kid, acting Ensign, flying the ship, while there were probably a dozen or so Starfleet grads who had devoted their lives to one day doing just that - the character was mishandled.

Perfectly put.

 

[Cephas]

Wesley was the victim of bad writing and a lousy wardrobe the first couple seasons. I've always liked Wil Wheaton, but I didn't start to like Wesley until they put him in a real uniform.

 

[Gojirob]

The character idea itself was fine. There just wasn't much realism in the writing for Wesley in the early show. No, he didn't have to be a cliche "problem child". But, realistically, he would have been having social problems due to his "golden boy" status. He would have had some hard lessons where his intelligence came up short, instead of saving the ship all the time. It was unrealistic to have him at helm as early as he was. Maybe around the Sol system a bit, that kind of thing. But the idea of having this kid, acting Ensign, flying the ship, while there were probably a dozen or so Starfleet grads who had devoted their lives to one day doing just that - the character was mishandled.

Perfectly put.

I think that if his breakthrough save had been in 'When The Bough Breaks' and then built from there, it might have gone better for him. In that, he was forced to be the adult, both to the actual children and to the selfishly driven Aldeans, whose overall behavior reminded me of the worst in children. A slow build to the Bridge, maybe in BOBW as an emergency measure, would have also helped, maybe with him being reluctant to do so, and Riker saying he had no choice for whatever reason. I'd still have him do his thing in 'Naked Now', with the excuse of being drunken. But GR had to make him his surrogate, and so all was dust---and a load of groups dedicated to hating this character.

 

[trekkerguy]

Just to throw in the token teenage girl answer, I think he's cute.

I haven't seen enough episodes to really know his character, but he's the only thing remotely close to eye candy a poor girl like me has on Trek. :-(

Hmmm... most the younger female fans I've known have liked either Spock or Picard.

 

[Praetor]

The character idea itself was fine. There just wasn't much realism in the writing for Wesley in the early show. No, he didn't have to be a cliche "problem child". But, realistically, he would have been having social problems due to his "golden boy" status. He would have had some hard lessons where his intelligence came up short, instead of saving the ship all the time. It was unrealistic to have him at helm as early as he was. Maybe around the Sol system a bit, that kind of thing. But the idea of having this kid, acting Ensign, flying the ship, while there were probably a dozen or so Starfleet grads who had devoted their lives to one day doing just that - the character was mishandled.

Perfectly put.

I think that if his breakthrough save had been in 'When The Bough Breaks' and then built from there, it might have gone better for him. In that, he was forced to be the adult, both to the actual children and to the selfishly driven Aldeans, whose overall behavior reminded me of the worst in children. A slow build to the Bridge, maybe in BOBW as an emergency measure, would have also helped, maybe with him being reluctant to do so, and Riker saying he had no choice for whatever reason. I'd still have him do his thing in 'Naked Now', with the excuse of being drunken. But GR had to make him his surrogate, and so all was dust---and a load of groups dedicated to hating this character.

I guess that really is the crux of it-- he was a Mary Sue who, because it was based on GR, no one really had the cajones to put through hell or even treat realistically after GR's passing.

 

[24thcenstfan]

I liked the character as well, and wasn't particularly bothered by the minor annoyance he could be to some of the crew. IMO, this was mainly his exuberance for life and learning coming through. The people around him (Riker, his mother, Data, Geordi) particularly understood and accepted that.

In general I liked that this coming of age type character was added into the mix on this series. I can think of a couple of other characters on DS9 that were about a thousand times more annoying than Wesley ever was.

 

[Lynx]

I like Wesley and think that he's a good character.

OK, I must admit that I did find him a bit annoying (and still find him a bit annoying), being that wonder boy who solved problems better than the more experienced crewmembers. But so what? There are wonderkids here and there in the world.

I must also admit that the rude and tasteless campaign against Wesley which was going on many forums some years ago had the opposite effect on me. I actually started to like him better because of that!

 

[Lt.Cmdr.LaForge]

Just to throw in the token teenage girl answer, I think he's cute.

I haven't seen enough episodes to really know his character, but he's the only thing remotely close to eye candy a poor girl like me has on Trek. :-(

Hmmm... most the younger female fans I've known have liked either Spock or Picard.

I was under the impression that Riker was supposed to be some sort of heart throb... or 'Eye candy' as you put it...

On another note, I’m in complete agreement that Wesley's wardrobe was in dire need of an update. That grey and rainbow patter jumper was awful!

 

[CaptainStoner]

On another note, I’m in complete agreement that Wesley's wardrobe was in dire need of an update. That grey and rainbow patter jumper was awful!

8 out of 10 boy geniuses prefer WesleyWear(tm).