{alltv} Excitation builds for Wheaton's 'Big Bang' recurrence

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Imagine that The Big Bang Theory's Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) did invent time travel and took a little trip back to 1987, when actor Wil Wheaton was just getting started as w¨nderkind Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Would Sheldon have picked up on the evil bubbling just beneath the surface of the unitard-clad cherub? Might our anal-retentive physicist have tried to stop the teen actor before he grew up to become his arch nemesis, Evil Wil Wheaton, the Khan to his Kirk, the Q to his Picard?

In other words, will Sheldon ever win?

"My inclination would be no," says Emmy winner Parsons, whose character encounters his rival for a third time Thursday (CBS, 8 ET/PT). He outlines his reasoning in a manner that reminds you of his overly rational alter ego: "Sheldon already wins most of the battles on the show. It's one of the charming aspects of having a Wil Wheaton who always get the better of him."

Reason No. 2: "If Wil Wheaton wasn't winning all the time, I'm not sure we could get him to come back."

Reason No. 3: "Wil's such a good guy in real life that it makes sense in a weird way that Sheldon's nemesis is so innocuous. The fact that Sheldon's found someone to fight so passionately … what misguided energy!"

Wheaton, now 38, says he was content writing and working on video games when Big Bang writer Steven Molaro and executive producer Bill Prady came calling.

Mutual fandom — he admired their ability to fit poetic dialogue about science into a sitcom, while they were avid followers of Wheaton's blog and Twitter feed — led to an invitation to attend a taping. But when they asked Wheaton to play a "delightfully evil" version of himself on the show, he thought it was a prank and forced his agent to vet the invitation.

The offer checked out, but then he wondered — as many sci-fi acting veterans do — whether it was a good idea to play himself. He went to friend and Leverage executive producer John Rogers for some career advice.

"He said, 'What's wrong with you?' " Wheaton recalls. "'A rerun of Big Bang beats every first-run episode it's up against in its time slot. And you are playing a character. The character is evil you!' "

Prady confirms just how evil they wanted him to be. " 'In our depiction of you, you're awful. You're just horrible.' And when I said that, Wil got really excited."

So Wheaton reported to the set for his debut in Season 3's "The Creepy Candy-Coated Corollary," in which he defused Sheldon's anger about a missed Star Trek convention appearance by saying his grandmother had died. After Wheaton played the "Meemaw card," Sheldon lost the nerve to defeat his one-time idol at cards. And being Evil Wil Wheaton, naturally, he used that against Sheldon to win.

"The Wheaton Recurrence" provided a rematch, this time at a bowling alley. He says everyone dwells too much on the fact that Evil Wil Wheaton broke up Leonard and Penny in order to win.

"Everyone's missing the key aspect of that whole experience," he argues. "Evil Wil Wheaton won at bowling despite not being good at it. He defeated a whole team that was named after him (The Wesley Crushers). There's going to be collateral damage in everything, whether it's bowling or something less serious."

That's also the case in Thursday's episode, "The 21-Second Excitation," which refers to a Raiders of the Lost Ark screening containing unseen footage that Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, Raj and the rest of Pasadena's nerd community are eagerly awaiting. (Hint: Google Jason Bateman and iPhone and you can guess what's going to happen.)

Finding his inner villain has paid off for Wheaton, who has parlayed his recurring Big Bang role into work playing not-so-great guys on Syfy's Eureka and TNT's Leverage. "I'm really fortunate," he says. "I'm employed full time as an actor and it's like I have little families scattered all over the entertainment industry that I get to visit from time to time."

But what about members of his original TV family from Star Trek: The Next Generation? Are they welcome on Big Bang?

For them, he has this warning: "Evil Wil Wheaton is doing a fine job on his own, thank you. They can come visit if they bring him proper gifts as tribute, such as single-malt Scotch, a functioning death ray, and Detective Comics No. 27 … otherwise, get the hell off his bridge!"

WHEATON'S WORDS TO LIVE BY

"Don't be a (expletive)." This was the crux of a keynote speech Wheaton gave at a gaming convention, aimed at jerks who were ruining his online gaming experience. Friends then named it "Wil Wheaton's Law" because it applies to everything.

Want more? Find this and other Wheatonisms on his blog (http://wilwheaton.typepad.com) and Twitter feed (twitter.com/wilw).

Get in the mood: You can watch his self-made Big Bang promo and learn more about his "evil beard of evil" at Youtube.