Garrett Wang - Star Trek

Star Trek

From early childhood on, actor Garrett Wang was a science fiction fan, in particular Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica. Wang never got into Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) prior to working on Voyager as the first episode he watched was "Code of Honor", which Garrett says is widely considered to be the worst episode of TNG ever produced. On two separate occasions (each around a year apart) he tried to watch TNG again and it was always a repeat of "Code of Honor". Wang considers this a good thing, as he believes if he was a fan he would've been too nervous and may have "messed up" his audition and never gotten the role of Harry Kim. After being cast as Kim, Wang had a strained relationship with Voyager executive producer Rick Berman, who took over from Star Trek inventor Gene Roddenberry: "When Roddenberry passed the reins over to Berman, unfortunately Berman kept the same formula. And he just kept plugging it in. So when I'm asked what made Voyager stand out...you are talking about the same overall formula so it doesn't. It has stayed the same for every single episode." But Wang also added: "But if you put that aside, what sets Voyager apart I think the camaraderie among the cast was stronger with our cast than on the other series."

In a 2007 interview with scifiworld.com, Wang voiced his displeasure about the show. He felt the Harry Kim character was "underused", passive and one-dimensional. Prior to season two, he went to the producers and said: "Listen I want to have a stunt double, I want to do some stunts, I want to run, I want to kick; I want to have a love life". He also stated to only have had "minimal" creative impact upon Harry Kim: he desperately wanted Harry Kim to be funnier, but the producers felt that Neelix or The Doctor fit better as comic relief. In the end, he described it as unfulfilling, and also spoke of a "rift" between Berman and him. When he complained that every other character on the show got promoted except Kim, he was told that he had to remain the lowly Ensign because "well someone's got to be the ensign".

Wang also was unhappy how the series ended. "I think the first hour was brilliant, absolutely brilliant... but the second hour seemed like the abridged version of the ending... Janeway tells Paris to set a course for home I was thinking that there was no real reaction among anyone here to the fact that we are home", which Wang felt was unemotional and a big let-down.