Star Trek’s Garrett Wang Was Set To Return As Harry Kims In A Canceled Project

Poor, poor Harry Kim (Garrett Wang). Several seasons into the run of “Star Trek: Voyager,” fans began to notice that Ensign Harry Kim, despite being capable, obedient, creative, and intelligent, never received a promotion. In “Star Trek,” Starfleet officers — if they’re good at their jobs — typically rise up through the ranks at an expected clip, usually moving from ensign to lieutenant in a year or two. Harry Kim remained an ensign through all seven seasons of “Voyager,” which seems like a grievous injustice. Late in the series, Kim had an exchange with Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) wherein they both embarrassingly acknowledged that Janeway required a certain amount of command consistency among her crew, forcing her to keep her lower-ranked officers in their positions indefinitely. It was not fair by design.

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Kim’s eternal-ensign status was joked about openly in the “Star Trek: Lower Decks” episode “Fissure Quest” (December 12, 2024), a parallel universe episode wherein dozens of interdimensional Harry Kims (all played by Wang) gathered in the same room. Only one of them wasn’t an ensign anymore. The others all looked at him in awe. Like most of the jokes on “Lower Decks,” the all-ensign-Kim brigade was based on years of fan-proliferated scuttlebutt. To achieve a certain amount of cosmic justice, and acting on a small amount of madness, Lieutenant Kim overtook a dimension-hopping starship, and concocted a scheme to flee into a new reality.

It seems, though, that Harry Kim — and Garrett Wang — were going to be included in a mysterious “Star Trek” project prior to that “Lower Decks” episode. Sadly, due to the demands of corporate secrecy, only Wang knows what the project was. He at least alluded to it in a 2024 interview with CinemaBlend.

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Wang talked a bit about the noted, fan-acknowledged injustice that Kim had to endure, something he has likely talked about at “Star Trek” conventions in the 24 years since “Star Trek: Voyager” came to a close. It seems that he was not forgotten by the current head honchos at “Star Trek,” though, as he was indeed approached to star in another Trek project at some point. What was it? Wang could only say this: 

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“I’m gonna say something happened, but then something else happened out of my control. I had no control over it. And that offer was rescinded in a way. That’s all I can say.” 

Clear as mud. Wang could be alluding to any number of canceled “Star Trek” projects that have come and gone over the years. There was once a plan for Nicholas Meyer, the director of “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” and “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country,” to make a trilogy of movies for CBS All Access (now Paramount+), but that project fell apart. There were a few attempts to give Worf (Michael Dorn) from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” his own series, but those also all fell through. 

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It was revealed that Wang might have had a cameo on “Star Trek: Picard,” so he could very well merely be alluding to that. In the cut cameo from “Picard,” Kim would finally be seen as a captain. His due, at last. 

Regardless of the project, though, Wang was being thought of. Harry Kim will always be a member of the Trek family, no matter his rank.