Star Trek’s Best Show Fixing the Franchise’s Weirdest Mistake?
As a franchise, Star Trek has made more than a few mistakes over the years, and if you buy any given fan a Romulan Ale, they’ll air a list of grievances longer than Worf’s bat’leth. However, perhaps the strangest mistake was ensuring that erstwhile Voyager officer Harry Kim never got promoted from ensign, even after seven years of onscreen misadventures. Now, Star Trek looks ready to remedy that mistake in the funniest way possible: in the official trailer for the final season of Lower Decks, we see a plot involving a multiverse of Harry Kims, one of whom has the coveted second pip of a lieutenant.
We don’t yet know what kind of typically silly Star Trek plot device led to this convergence of Kims (our bet is on some kind of multiversal shenanigans), but we can appreciate how this Lower Decks episode seemingly fixes the franchise’s strangest misstep.
Aside from an ironic narration from Captain Freeman, most of the Star Trek: Lower Decks trailer is filled with random funny moments that whet our appetite for the upcoming season. The last of these moments involves a room full of Harry Kims, all of whom are seemingly voiced by original Voyager actor Garrett Wang. When an agitated ensign points out that one of their numbers has “got two pips,” the accused lieutenant has an incredulous question for the room full of familiar faces: “you’re all still ensigns?!”
We don’t yet know what kind of typically silly Star Trek plot device led to this convergence of Kims (our bet is on some kind of multiversal shenanigans), but we can appreciate how this Lower Decks episode seemingly fixes the franchise’s strangest misstep. As mentioned earlier, poor Harry Kim never got a promotion throughout Voyager’s seven seasons.
According to Kim actor Garrett Wang, producer Brannon Braga had a blunt answer as to why the character hadn’t gotten a promotion: “somebody’s gotta be the ensign.”
That would have been insulting for any actor, but it seemed that much weirder considering that Kim’s best onscreen friend Tom Paris managed to get demoted and re-promoted in a shorter amount of time than it took Kim to get no rank change whatsoever.
Just why did Star Trek producers make this strange character decision that Lower Decks is only now properly fixing (sorry, Prodigy fans, but that nameplate featuring Kim’s promotion seemed mostly like an animation Easter egg)? On paper, notorious producer Rick Berman thought that it would make sense, previously claiming that Voyager’s dilemma (being stuck on the other side of the galaxy with limited resources and no support) would make getting a promotion significantly more difficult. Plus, according to Kim actor Garrett Wang, producer Brannon Braga had a blunt answer as to why the character hadn’t gotten a promotion: “somebody’s gotta be the ensign.”
All of this goes to show that Garrett Wang has had a very tumultuous relationship with Star Trek, so much so that his return to the franchise in Lower Decks is a surprise.
Wang has spoken out quite a bit over the years about his clashes with Star Trek: Voyager producers and their alleged reprisals against him. He claims, for example, that an off-the-record comment of his got featured in TV Guide, and this killed his chances of ever getting to direct an episode.
Additionally, he claims that after he and Robert Duncan McNeill had put on some additional weight, they were given girdles and that Braga was brutal in response to one of Wang’s questions. The actor wanted to confirm whether dialogue from his script was, in fact, making fun of his weight gain. Braga allegedly responded, “Well, Garrett, if you and your fellow actors go down the same path of eating the way you have the past two years, we’re going to have to change the name of the show to Star Trek: Voyager—Pigs in Space.”
All of this goes to show that Garrett Wang has had a very tumultuous relationship with Star Trek, so much so that his return to the franchise in Lower Decks is a surprise. It’s a very pleasant surprise, though: not only will this episode showcase his talents as a voice actor, it will also give Ensign Kim (one version of him, at least) a promotion fans have been waiting decades to see.
Furthermore, we’re happy to see that Lower Decks will go out swinging with all the style and humor it is famous for, thumbing its nose at previous Trek drama in order to deliver all the laughs you can fit inside a California-class vessel.
