Star Trek Returns Crossover Tease With Doctor Who Homage In Prodigy Season 2
We have our own Time Lord! His name is Wesley Crusher.
"It's a TARDIS, come on, he's basically got a TARDIS!" said our own Ellie Littlechild as she crossed over from WhoCulture to TrekCulture for the Star Trek: Prodigy season two Ups & Downs. Doctor Who teased us with a nod to Star Trek in its season one opener Space Babies, but now, with a little space (no babies, but a few older kids), time, thought, and probably still a dash of salt, the crossover came the other way round.
This week, Wil Wheaton sat down for an interview with also our own Seán Ferrick and revealed many a Whovian inspiration in the return of Wesley Crusher in Prodigy. The vault in the trans-dimensional time ziggurat was pretty much a TARDIS. As Wheaton said, "The Travellers are sort of like Star Trek's Time Lords".
It's not for nothing that Wheaton has the title "King of the nerds". He's earnt it, and wears the crown gladly for all of us. Wheaton is actor on, and host for, Star Trek, but first and foremost, he's simply a huge Star Trek fan. The same level of fandom, for Wheaton, also applies to Doctor Who. A lot of thought, therefore, and, indeed, a lot of his own fan fiction and a comic book entry (in Star Trek #400), had already gone into continuing Wesley's story before Wheaton had even sat down with the creators of Prodigy. As it happened, those creators were not only keen to honour the Star Trek that had gone before, but also "to pay homage to Doctor Who".
During the interview, Wheaton also revealed another, more subtly surprising crossover of the two franchises. In order to find the greater "energy" in the recording booth for this version of Wesley, compared to the one he had portrayed in the darker Star Trek: Picard, he began to channel various "mad scientist characters," the likes of Doc Brown from Back to the Future, Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park, and then the Doctor from Doctor Who.
Wheaton wondered, "What would David Tenant do?" That's a question we've all asked ourselves, and for Wheaton, "It all worked". It was "the right energy [for Wesley]," Wheaton concluded. That's the "Allons-y" spirit! Beyond that, in the interview with Seán, Wheaton drew an apt parallel between the "best of any creature" Doctor of Doctor Who, the mission and ethos of the Travellers, and the "best of humanity" that most characters in Star Trek represent.
Fans have reacted warmly to Wesley's decidedly joyous return, his criss-crossing of both and multiple universes included. Ever grateful, Wheaton noted to Seán,
As someone who is a fan, a lifelong fan of Star Trek and Doctor Who, to be a character that's kinda putting them together like that, it was a dream come true, and it was a gift, and I am thrilled beyond words that the audience has responded to it the way that I did.
With all this flirting back and forth between Star Trek and Doctor Who, though, it occurs to us that both franchises should really get a room! Well, actually they have! Now only just over a week away, on July 27th, Star Trek and Doctor Who will be in Room 6A for an hour together at the San Diego Comic-Con as respective showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Russell T. Davies join brains, forces, and universes, for the 'Intergalactic Friendship Panel: Star Trek x Doctor Who'.
Given that, and all of the tippings-of-the hat mentioned above, the buzz in the Who/Trek collective community for some sort of actual (on-screen) crossover between the two universes isn't going to go away any time or Time Lord soon. To the TARDIS… ziggurat… vault…!
All episodes of Star Trek: Prodigy season one and two are available to stream on Netflix. And stay tuned for more with Wil Wheaton from Mick Joest at CinemaBlend!