Wheaton: Life After Star Trek: The Next Generation

For Wil Wheaton, finishing Star Trek: The Next Generation meant a temporary but welcome break from the entertainment industry.

Wheaton had been working full time as an actor for eleven years, and “had never really known what it was like to be a normal person with a regular life.”

Moving on to other things after the series was exciting for the actor. “I was really excited to jump back into the world and go back into working in film and I was excited to have some time to myself to do some regular things that regular people do,” said Wheaton. “And I was kind of getting tired of the entertainment industry.”

Part of that fatigue with the entertainment industry was due to having an non-supportive producer on The Next Generation. “Rick Berman was not the greatest producer in the world to work for and at that time I was under the impression that there was no such thing as a good kind nurturing producer,” said Wheaton.

But Wheaton can look back on those The Next Generation days with fondness now. He published a book, Memories of the Future Volume One, in which he shared his memories of the first season of the show. Wheaton is still working on the second volume, which will complete his memories of that initial season. “I’m about two-thirds of the way through it and as I had said for the last three years… working very hard to get it out by the end of the year,” he said.

Two episodes of the first season of The Next Generation: Where No One Has Gone Before, and Datalore, were shown in a special screening at theaters yesterday, and Wheaton is giving away those specific chapters of his Memories of the Future Volume One book as a free ebook download to fans. The free ebook download is available at his website.