I’ve never been a Wesley hater. By the time I was old enough to watch TNG, it was already mothballed and existed only in reruns. My best recollection is that our NBC affiliate (WAVE3 out of Louisville) ran TNG on Saturday afternoons, and seemed to favor episodes from the last three seasons of the show. My primary exposure to Spandex Seasons 1 and 2 came from either renting or, more often, purchasing individual episodes on VHS tapes, so my exposure to Wesley was fairly limited. Due to his absence in the TNG films (except for a few frames in Nemesis) I had no idea what a central figure Wesley was until I watched TNG in its entirety for the very first time as a 30 something with a Netflix account. 

Having backed my way into Wesley-dom, I have to say, he’s fine. Wil Wheaton was a talented young actor and he brings plenty to admire to his portrayal of the 24th century wunderkind. Common complaints about the character being whiny or overpowered (no, high school students should not helm the Federation flagship, no matter how good their grades) must have deeply frustrated the TNG writers because, obviously, those feelings were indicators of their success. Wesley was often intended to be grating to the audience, as most teenagers are. Fans of any fictional world frequently forget that they are observing what ought to be fully realized people with likes and dislikes, good days and bad days, and, occasionally, long stretches of teenagerdom.

So I can understand where people are coming from when they say they don’t like Wesley, even if they don’t always understand why they don’t like him. But its important to remember that, at the time, Wil Wheaton was arguably the most famous person on set (with the possible exception of LeVar Burton) and without Wesley Crusher, The Next Generation may never have seen the light of day.