Category: Television

the great wheaton hockey scandal of 1991

Posted on By Wil

My friends at CliqueClack did an interview with Dean Devlin, creator of the sensational new series Leverage. Dean and I played hockey on the same team (with, I’ve just now remembered, Adam Baldwin, also) from around 1989-1991. He was a forward and I was a goalie. One night in Burbank, our team gave up a breakaway near the redline. I saw it happening when the puck was still in the offensive zone, so I was ready.

When the other guy crossed our blue line, I was already way out of the net, near the bottom of the faceoff circle on my left side. I skated backward with him to force him to shoot on my terms. I guess I was near the crease when I saw him pull his stick back way over his head. “Oh good,” I thought, “he’s just going to try to blast it past me. Those shots almost always go wide, or right into my glove.”

The next thing I knew, there was an explosion in the rink, and a bright flash of light before everything went dark. When the lights came back on, I was on my knees, surrounded by a semicircle of skates. I pulled my helmet off, and watched a whole bunch of blood pour down onto the ice.

“Oh, the way it beads up is really neat,” I thought. Then, “Wait. That’s my blood.”

I’d done my job and forced him to take a low-percentage shot that went wide, just like I was supposed to. Unfortunately, it went right over the net and into my skull. My helmet was crushed, and I got to take a trip to the emergency room for something like 36 stitches in my head. I also got whiplash, which was not awesome.

Anyway, in Dean’s interview with CC, this game came up. He said:

“Wil was a dynamite goalie. When he was still shooting Star Trek, we were playing in a game and a puck actually cracked his helmet open and he needed stitches and the producers of Star Trek basically wanted to murder me. ‘You’re letting Wil stand there in front of a net while we’re shooting the series?’” Oh, the scandal.

I miss playing hockey so much. If I could justify the expense, I’d totally buy some new gear (I’ve outgrown my skates and pants, and I’d need a new helmet for obvious reasons) and find one of those leagues for guys who are in their thirties.

It may seem silly, but seventeen years after we played together, hearing that Dean thought I was a dynamite goalie means the world to me. I worked really hard to be a good keeper back in those days, and I was really proud of our team. I had a lot of free time, so I worked out at the rink almost every day, and played pick up games a couple of times a week. That season, I had a great record and a great save percentage. I even got to travel and play in an exhibition game against some members of the 1980 gold medal team in front of a sold out Boston Garden – where I was scored-on and pulled after one shot, which still makes me sad to this day. In my defense, it was Mike Eruzione who made the shot, and it was a two-on-none break. But still, I wish I’d stayed in the game.

Until I read this today, I had no idea the producers bitched Dean out, and it’s amusing to me that they did because I wasn’t even a regular on the series when this happened. In fact, shortly after the injury, I got a call from the Star Trek production office. I was surprised to hear from them, and assumed someone had heard about the accident and wanted to bitch me out about it.

They were actually calling me to tell me that Gene Roddenberry had died.

It’s weird how memories are all woven together, isn’t it?

work in progress …

Posted on By Wil

work in progress

I should really tell OpenOffice that Stardate is a word, but now it’s kind of amusing to me that it always tells me “UR DOIN IT WRONG!”

Coming of Age is as enjoyable to watch as I remember, even though I haven’t seen it in at least twenty years. In fact, my only real complaint so far (I’ve watched a lot more of it than it would appear from this screenshot) is that my acting is pretty flat and predictable. I make a lot of obvious, weak choices. Of course, I’m not exactly objective about that sort of thing, so maybe I’m being too critical of myself. Also: really bad pre-helmet hairdo. There’s a story behind that, but you’ll have to wait for the book to find out what it is.

Oh, and to anyone who says that Memory Alpha isn’t exhaustively comprehensive, I can only say: flux coordinating sensor.

(Image can be embiggened at Flickr)

a moment of silence, please.

Posted on By Wil

Majel Barrett Roddenberry died yesterday. She was a hell of a lady, who loved Star Trek and Star Trek fans like no other.

Some knew her as the original Number One, some knew her as Lwaxana Troi, and everyone knew her as the ship’s computer, but I just knew her as Majel, my friend Rod’s mom, who always treated me like he and I were brothers.

Since we got the news yesterday, a lot of people have asked me if I can tell a story as a way to remember her. I’ve dug around in the attic of my mind for hours, and the best I can do is: We always had fun when we were working on Next Generation, but when Majel was on the set, it was a party.

“He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.”

Posted on By Wil

I’m nowhere close to Hollywood’s “A” list, but when they opened it up to the rest of us, I signed this letter:

Dear SAG Board Members, officers and staff:

We feel very strongly that SAG members should not vote to authorize a strike at this time. We don’t think that an authorization can be looked at as merely a bargaining tool. It must be looked at as what it is — an agreement to strike if negotiations fail.

We support our union and we support the issues we’re fighting for, but we do not believe in all good conscience that now is the time to be putting people out of work.

None of our friends in the other unions are truly happy with the deals they made in their negotiations. Three years from now all the union contracts will be up again at roughly the same time. At that point if we plan and work together with our sister unions we will have incredible leverage.

As hard as it may be to wait those three years under an imperfect agreement, we believe this is what we must do. We think that a public statement should be made by SAG recognizing that although this is not a deal we want, it is simply not a time when our union wants to have any part in creating more economic hardship while so many people are already suffering.

Let’s take the high road. Let’s unite with our brothers and sisters in the entertainment community and prepare for the future, three years down the line. Then, together, let’s make a great deal.

Sincerely,

[About 130 actors who are on the “A” list, according to the people who decide what the “A” list is. And your pal Wil Wheaton, who is not on the A list, but still struggles to qualify for his health insurance every year.]

Allow me to give a little perspective on where I’m coming from: I’m a former member of SAG’s Hollywood board of directors. I’ve chaired committees, and I’ve sat in on negotiations. I’m about as pro-union and pro-actor as you can get, and I hate the insulting offer the AMPTP has given us. But I’m also a realist. If we go on strike in February, we won’t hurt the moguls enough to force them to negotiate with us, they’ll just fill up on “reality” programming and produce new works under the disastrous contract those idiots at AFTRA agreed to, while SAG’s health and pension plans are destroyed. We’ll definitely hurt our own members, and all of our friends from other departments who work with us on the set. Yeah, I realize that SAG’s first responsibility is to its own members, but we don’t exist in a vacuum, and we have to acknowledge that fact.

Let me be clear: The moguls can go to hell seventeen different ways for being greedy and unreasonable, and trying to bust our unions. In three years I’ll be the first in line to fight them as long as it takes … but we aren’t coming from a position of strength right now, and everyone knows it, especially the AMPTP. Producers and networks won’t feel the pain of a strike in any significant way, but a – and we all know that they’ll do whatever they can to drag it out as long as possible; look at what they did to the WGA – will likely ruin the lives of more middle and working class people than I care to think about.

For the SAG board to even consider voluntarily stopping work when we’re falling deeper and deeper into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression isn’t just stupid, it’s recklessly irresponsible. SAG needs to face the reality we’re stuck with: AFTRA sold us out. AFTRA fucked all actors everywhere by negotiating with the AMPTP on their own and agreeing to shockingly horrible terms. The AFTRA negotiators failed all actors, whether they’re currently SAG, currently AFTRA, or are still hoping to join. Those “negotiators” should be ashamed of themselves, and they shouldn’t be allowed in the same building as a contract ever again.

I believe the things SAG is asking for are entirely reasonable, I believe they reflect the reality of the entertainment industry in 2008 and beyond, and I believe that they are vital for actors to continue to make a living in the future – especially internet jurisdiction and residuals. In any other economic environment, I’d be willing to walk out in a heartbeat to get them. But we have to be realistic. People are losing their homes, can’t afford basic healthcare, and are struggling to support their families. SAG is not negotiating from a position of strength (thanks again for that, AFTRA, you’re awesome) but in three years, we can join our sister unions and we will be.

Sun Tzu teaches us that “He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.” SAG leadership needs to be responsible and realistic; this is not the time to have this fight. If you’re a SAG member, I urge you to vote no on the strike authorization vote, and be ready to fight like hell in three years.