Kerr measurements, ellipsometry, and quasielastic light scattering have been used to probe nematic fluctuations and nematic wetting at an isotropic liquid crystal-substrate interface in four generations of liquid crystalline monodendrons and dendrimers. We find that the pretransitional behavior is qualitatively similar to that of low molecular weight liquid crystals, exhibiting a Landau-like divergence of the relaxation time and a logarithmic divergence of the optical retardation on approaching the nematic-isotropic phase transition from above. Quantitatively, we find that the transition temperatures of the monodendrons are typically about 0.5 K above the supercooling limit of the isotropic phase and that the orientational viscosities may be fit to a power law in molecular weight M(n), where the exponent less than or equal to 1.0.