See Star Trek Alum Confirm He’s Appearing On Jeopardy!
Wil Wheaton will appear on the October 30 episode of Celebrity Jeopardy!
Wil Wheaton will soon be appearing on an episode of Celebrity Jeopardy!, fulfilling a lifelong dream for the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast member. Wil Wheaton posted an image of himself holding a laminated Celebrity Jeopardy! card on his incredibly popular Instagram account (currently at 1.2 million followers and counting), with the caption indicating that his episode will air on October 30. The combination of Star Trek and Jeopardy! is a potent one for a certain kind of pop culture fan, so the day before Halloween will no doubt be a celebration for many.
It makes sense that Wil Wheaton would be a fan of Jeopardy! considering, well, basically everything he has based his career on. The long-running and beloved game show has had a chaotic run of it in the last several years, but hopefully is managing to settle down into a more peaceful era of quizzing. As of late, permanent rotating co-host Mayim Bialik has been hosting the celebrity version of the show that Wil Wheaton will be appearing on, so there will presumably be at least two stars of The Big Bang Theory on the show that night.
Wil Wheaton is something of a minor deity within nerd circles, in which the ranks of Star Trek fans and Jeopardy! fans overlap in a Venn diagram that closely approximates a perfect circle. Wil Wheaton is also not the only notable Star Trek alumnus to receive deep loyalty from Jeopardy! fans, with his Next Generation co-star LeVar Burton having lobbied to host the show for years. It seemed like he was finally going to get his chance last year, but events surrounding the hallowed quiz shows seem to have prevented that.
Longtime Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek sadly passed away in 2020 after decades as a pop culture institution, leaving fans to both mourn and speculate as to who could take up the role next. The show instituted a revolving cast of guest hosts including media personalities like Katie Couric and Anderson Cooper, controversial athlete Aaron Rodgers, and odd choices like sports broadcaster Joe Buck and current political candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz. Infamously, Jeopardy! producer Mike Richards selected himself as the next permanent host, only to leave the position after a number of controversial statements he had previously made were unearthed.
Since then, it sometimes seems like the show has careened from minor scandal to minor scandal, but hopefully, Wil Wheaton will not be bringing any drama to Jeopardy! The once and maybe future Wesley Crusher recently reprised his Star Trek role for the first time in years, appearing in a scene in the Star Trek: Picard season 2 finale. It was announced that unlike the majority of The Next Generation cast, Wil Wheaton will not be appearing in the third season of Picard, but at least he will have Celebrity Jeopardy!
Since his Star Trek: The Next Generation years, Wil Wheaton has primarily pivoted to acting roles as himself, podcasting, and narration, being quite successful at all of them. But even with that, it is nice to see someone’s dream come true.
