The Wil Wheaton Project Axed
2 min read
In a bit of surprising news, Wil Wheaton announced that his show, The Wil Wheaton Project, was not being renewed for the next season.
The actor received the news in a phone call from a Syfy executive last week.
According to that executive, the bean counters in New York “just didn’t think we had enough viewers to justify more episodes.” The show itself was just fine, said the executive, and “he loved it,” and “wanted to find other things to do together.”
“I didn’t say anything about the total lack of promotion off the network, or point out that our ratings were on par with The Soup, or that ratings are always lower in summer than the fall,” said Wheaton. “I didn’t bother saying any of that, because I know he knows that. I was reasonably confident that he made those arguments with New York when he was trying to get the show renewed. I presume he fought hard for us, but ultimately couldn’t sway executives in New York who never seemed — in my opinion — to really understand what kind of show we were doing, who I was and why I was hosting it, and how to engage with and promote to the audience who would like it.”
But Wheaton was “grateful, though, to the people at Syfy who believed in us and gave us a chance to succeed. I’m grateful for the creative support we got, and I’m grateful that I got to spend my summer working with wonderful, talented, funny people. I grew a lot of levels in comedy writing over the last eighteen weeks or so, and I owe it all to the amazing people I got to work with.”
Now Syfy can go back to making sci-fi “classics” such as Sharknado part infinity and doomer films so bad that they have could provided Mystery Science Theater 3000 with comedy fodder for the next century or so.
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I tried to watch it, but, well… it was pretty bad. He was trying too hard to be like Joel McHale and “The Soup”, but lost in a sea of knock-off’s (Tosh.0, Rediculousness, etc…). He just… well.. didn’t have the chops.
Meh. I could take it or leave it. At least the show knew what audience it was going for.
The thing is, what masterpiece does SyFy have already lined up to replace it with?
WrestleMania 2015
The couple of times I saw the show I liked it. I laughed. Only complaint I had, as a person who is still only half way through season 2 of game of thrones, was sometimes I had to be quick on the mute button to avoid spoilers.
It’s encouraging to know that the powers that be at Syfy don’t know who Wil Wheaton is. At least that way I know there’s no reason for me to regret not having access to Syfy.
Whil Wheaton had a show?
> It’s encouraging to know that the powers that be at Syfy don’t know who Wil Wheaton is.
No surprise there, after all, what did Wil Wheaton ever do for sci-fi?
Oh, wait. This is Syfy we’re talking about, which has nothing to do with science-fiction. My bad.
I do wish him well though. After years of misguided hatred for his Wesley Crusher character, the nerd community these days loves him. I hope he gets his big break. I’m not convinced his tiny part on The Big Bang Theory counts.
shave the beard Wesley
Really doesn’t surprise me. I watched an episode (and several commercials) and he was about as funny as watching paint dry. I think the demographic for that style of humor is too low, and adding a geek factor to it just made it lower. Too niche of an audience to work on a major network. I used to like Wil and followed him on his Twitter for a while. His motto is “Don’t be a d*ck,” but the longer I followed him, the more I realized when it came to politics and religion, if he didn’t like something, he was a major d*ick about it. Being a geek myself, I try to shy away from the stigma attached to geekdom that makes a lot of them think they are better than everyone else. Just my opinion.
Wheaton with not enough ls in his Wil, is kinda a dick anyway. He gets super political on his twitter feed around election time. Great actor!! Just a little to in your face with his opinions.
He also has a Hulu gaming show called “Table Top”…
I *pay* for Hulu Plus but could STILL NOT watch it on Hulu Plus because of soe deal with my cable copany that *BLOCKED* it!?!? 😡 I’m ALREADY *PAYING* FOR BOTH HULU PLUS *AND* EXPANDED CABLE – I SHOULD BE ABLE TO WATCH THE DAMN SHOW!!!! (Makes me wonder what *other* shows Hulu Plus will lock in the future!?!?)
It was a bit like Talk Soup for geeks – AND when Wil listed off all the past seaspn’s scifi shows that go the ax – he listed EVERY SINGLE ONE *BUT* “THE NEIGHBORS” – WHAT WAS WITH THE *HATRED* FOR “THE NEIGHBORS”!?!? (And I guess ABC Family Channel picking it up was just a pipe dream…. )
I 100% agree.
Agreed. I know that the hardcore Wheaton fans hate to hear it but frankly his show sucked. I also tend to agree that he’s a d*ck that isn’t worth giving attention to.
“Republicans are spending a lot of effort trying to scare Americans about ISIS. Probably just a coincidence that there’s an election soon.
– Wil Wheaton (@wilw) September 8, 2014”
The man is a freaking foreign policy expert of Bismarckian stature, a savant for our times. How dare folks criticize him.
BUAHAHAHAHHAHAA!!!