Wil Wheaton is Watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in Aron Eisenberg’s Honor
"Wil Wheaton" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
While fans and colleagues spent the last couple weeks mourning Deep Space Nine actor Aron Eisenberg’s passing, one former Star Trek actor has found a unique way to honor his memory.
Wil Wheaton, Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Wesley Crusher, posted on his blog on September 27th that he decided to watch Deep Space Nine, something he’d never done before. Quoting the post: “When Deep Space Nine was new, I was still working on Next Generation. I recall feeling this strong sense of sibling rivalry (entirely my issue, never created or encouraged by anyone else) that got in between me and my ability to watch the show, and give it the chance it deserved. [...] Over the years, I’ve wondered what, exactly, I missed, but I never made it a priority to find out.
“With the passing [of] my friend, Aron, last week, I thought that I could remember and honor him by finally watching the series he gave so many years of his life and career to.”
Wheaton said he is not watching every episode of DS9; rather, he’s using a guide to watching the series in about 80 hours. He also said that watching the show is extra special to him because of his own personal emotional journey. “I had all this emotional baggage that got in between me and watching the show,” he said. “But the therapeutic, emotional work I’ve done the past year has let me heal a lot of stuff, and stop carrying around that emotional baggage. So watching Deep Space Nine is extra special to me, because it lets me watch Star Trek, and it lets me LOVE Star Trek, in a way that I hadn’t been able to for essentially my entire adult life.”
There’s a link in Wheaton’s blog post to that 80-hour guide, and if you’d like to watch along, Deep Space Nine is available to stream on CBS All Access, now.
This article was written for the podcast Daily Star Trek News.
Alison Pitt is the writer, producer, and host of Daily Star Trek News, on the Roddenberry Podcast Network. A veteran Star Trek podcaster, she started her career on the weekly show Priority One: A Roddenberry Star Trek Podcast in 2015. She has appeared on panels at Star Trek Las Vegas, WonderCon, and San Diego Comic Con.
