Category: Television

Twenty-Five Years Ago Today, A New Crew Went Boldly, Where No One Had Gone Before.

Posted on By Wil

In place of the post I’d write if I wasn’t on vacation, I offer the following:

Today, Star Trek: The Next Generation turns 25 years-old.

When the show started, I looked like this:

and I couldn’t find a warp core with both hands.

Today, I look like this:

And I got a course you can plot.

Star Trek has been a huge part of my life, and a huge part of who I am, over the last 25 years, and it wasn’t always awesome.

But you know what is awesome? Talking to my friends and family from the cast today, celebrating not only that it’s been twenty-five years since we first Boldly Went When No One Had Gone Before, but that we still love each other, and still care about the time we spent together exploring the galaxy on the best starship to ever carry the name.

I know that Star Trek: The Next Generation has meant a lot to more than one generation since we debuted a quarter century ago today, and it means a lot to me in a lot of ways … but the thing that means the most to me, the thing that I cherish the most, is my family from the Enterprise D.

Happy Birthday, Next Generation. I’m proud and honored to be part of you.

New #Tabletop: Elder Sign (or, in which I have a tentacle party with Felicia Day)

Posted on By Wil

The newest Tabletop features a really fun dice game set in the Arkham Horror universe called Elder Sign.

Fantasy flight Games publishes an epic game called Arkham Horror that I just love. In the game, the players assume the role of Lovecraftian Pulp Investigators who are all working together to stop one of the Great Old Ones from devouring the world.

You know, like you do.

Arkham Horror is a complex, intricate, incredibly difficult, beautiful game. It's more like a guided role playing game where the board itself is the GM, and there really isn't another boardgame out there (that I can think of off the top of my head, anyway) that plays like it does. I would love to play it on Tabletop… but it takes a minimum of three hours, and if I put it on the show, I wouldn't do the game justice. There's just no way to edit a 3 or 4 or 5 hour game into 30 or even 45 minutes, while staying true to the heart and soul of the game.

Luckily for us, Fantasy Flight also publishes a cooperative dice game set in the Arkham Horror world called Elder Sign. Designed by Richard Launius and Kevin Wilson (who also designed Arkham Horror), it takes about an hour to play, and while it isn't a scary and complex as Arkham, it is still beautiful and challenging. It was perfect for my show.

Follow this link, if you don't see the embedded video above, to watch Elder Sign at YouTube.

While I have your attention: 

At GenCon last weekend, the most frequently asked question I got was "When do you start the second season of Tabletop?"

The next most frequently asked question was, "What are you going to play on the second season?"

My answer to both of these questions is: "I have no idea, because we don't know if YouTube is going to fund a second season."

What usually followed was a series of confused noises and some stammering before the final question was asked: "How do I help you get a second season?"

Here is the answer:

The best and most effective way to support Tabletop — in fact, the only way that Google even cares about — is to subscribe to the channel, like and comment on the episodes (if you, you know, actually like them) and encourage everyone you know to do the same thing.

Google cares about interactions like that on their Premium Channels (like G&S), and while we all know we're never going to get the same numbers as the longtime YouTubers who are getting five million views per video, I think that if we can stay up in the six digits, we'll get another season.

It's amusing to me that we're not dealing with a studio or a network, but we still have to hit certain numbers to get more funding (just like we would if we were on broadcast television.)

Finally, I'll leave you with this:

image from 25.media.tumblr.com

You'll have to watch Tabletop's Elder Sign episode for context. But beware… there are some Things Man Was Not Meant To Know.

Answering a FAQ: “Why do you play so many evil characters lately?”

Posted on By Wil

Every actor has a particular type they can play well, for some reason or another. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with who we are in real life, but it's just what we do well.

Example: Travolta is amazing as the Lovable Loser. When he's in Welcome Back Kotter and Saturday Night Fever in the 70s, he is the biggest star in the world, because people can identify with him in a way they may not be consciously aware of.

Then, in the early 80s, the industry decides to make him The Leading Man. They put him in films like Perfect and Urban Cowboy, and his career tanks. Nobody can connect to those characters, because it's not the right type for him to play. He does those talking baby movies for awhile, and then he explodes back to the top of the A list when he plays a junkie hitman in Pulp Fiction. He's back to being the Lovable Loser, and audiences go crazy for him, because that's the type he's meant to play.

You can do this with just about every actor if you look hard enough and spend enough time on it. It's all about Jungian Archetypes and Campbell's Hero With A Thousand Faces.

So why do I play evil characters? When I was a kid, I played the sensitive, awkward kid full of self doubt who really wanted you to like him*. When I was in my 20s, I kept getting auditions for those roles and never booking them, because it's just not the type I'm meant to play. When Kim Evey cast me as a douchey agent in Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show, and Felicia wrote me into The Guild as douchey Fawkes, things started to turn around. I realized that I'd found my type, and I started looking for those roles.

It turns out that my type is the Villain You Love To Hate, so that's who I am in The Guild, Leverage, Eureka, and Big Bang Theory. I don't think it's a coincidence that, once I started playing these types of characters, my acting career began to come back to life, and I will be grateful for the rest of my life to Kim and Felicia for taking a chance on me.

I really don't know why this is my type, but whenever I try to figure it out, I start to feel like Lenny with the rabbit, and I really don't want to break something that's working out pretty well for me right now.

I do know this, though: the whole point of being an actor is to portray characters who are different from who you really are. The most important thing in the entire universe to me is kindness, so it's really fun to play characters who are antithetical to my personal ideals. Exactly why I seem to be so good at doing that, though? I'm not going behind that particular barn.

 

*Incidentally, that's pretty much who I've been in my real life since I can remember.

I’m hosting Falling Skies: Second Watch

Posted on By Wil

 

Wil Wheaton hosts Falling Skies Second Watch for TNT

Two creators, one geek.

 

Remember when I said 

I don't cancel convention appearances lightly, because I know how disappointing it is for the people who are attending. I assure you that this isn't a ploy to win a game of Mystic Warlords of Ka'a, or even a bowling match… this is just something that happens from time to time when someone like me is lucky enough to land a dream job that conflicts with a planned trip out of town.

This is what I was talking about:

TNT announced the launch of a new web show, 2nd Watch, hosted by Trek and Leverage star Wil Wheaton. The show will air on http://fallingskies.com with a live premiere episode on Sunday June 17 at 11pm ET – following the two-hour East coast season premiere of Falling Skies.

I love Hardwick's show Talking Dead (even though I wasn't crazy about last season's Walking Dead), so when TNT asked me if I was interested in hosting a similar show for Falling Skies, of course I said yes.

I mainlined Falling Skies over two days, watching every single episode from the first season and everything that they gave me for the second season. Also, [REDACTED]. 

I'm really excited about this for a few reasons: Number one, it's online, so you can watch it anywhere in the world whenever you want to see it. I believe that this is a fantastic step in the right direction for TNT (and all networks) because — let's face it — online is the future where everything is happening right now, and making it easy for fans to gather in one place and geek out over the shows they love just makes sense.* (Now if HBO would only listen to all the cord cutters who want to give them money… but that's slightly off topic.) Number two, I get to spend a ton of time geeking out with writers and actors who make a show that I love, and I get to ask them pretty much whatever I want. Number three, I'm standing on the shoulders of Chris Hardwick, which is always a nice place to be**. 

Most of the episodes are taped, but the season premiere and season finale will be followed by a live show (this is why I can't go to the Denver Comicon, and why I may have to miss GenCon this year.) I really want to say a lot more, but the NDA I have with TNT is terrifying, so I'm going to err on the side of shutting the fuck up, which is a new thing for me.

* I see in comments that you have to be a cable subscriber to get access to the show. Damn. Well, baby steps, I guess.

**I love this guy!!