By Chris Snellgrove | Published
Most Star Trek fans agree Picard was pretty uneven in the first two seasons, but mercifully managed to stick the landing in the third season. However, a legend of this venerable franchise recently revealed that his planned cameo was completely scrapped and this cameo would have made a killer in the final season even better. Voyager Actor Garrett Wang announced he would be there Picard Season 3 as a Starfleet captain, but that he was completely eliminated from the series.
Harry Kim loses again
This came up in Garrett Wang’s in-depth interview with TrekMovie, where he covered everything from his hilarious subject matter Lower decks Cameo about his abortion Picard Miniature. He was originally intended to play a similar narrative role to Shelby, the ambitious commander from the TNG two-parter “Best of Both Worlds”, who appeared later Picard as admiral. The idea of including them Voyager Alumnus never came to fruition, but the actor described how close that idea came to fruition.
According to Garrett Wang, he actually received confirmation from his manager that he had been hired Picard Season 3. However, his planned role was repeatedly cut. As he put it, he originally had “a three-episode story arc that then turned into two and then one.” Nevertheless, his manager informed him that he had to be in Los Angeles for a costume fitting and that plans for his cameo were so advanced that his character’s name appeared in the scripts.
It was actually Garrett Wangs Voyager Costar (and Picard regular) Jeri Ryan, who broke the news of how abruptly he was eliminated from the show. She told him that his character was written into the script, but after a series of revisions, the Kim character was nowhere to be seen. This led to Wang being “depressed for months afterward,” although he eventually returned thanks to his cameo appearance in a hilarious episode of ” Lower decks.
Picard’s loss
So why are we so confident that Garrett Wang would have made it? PicardIs the excellent last season even better? For one thing, he would have been a much cooler cameo than Admiral Shelby. Fans only spent two episodes with Shelby while we spent seven years with Ensign Kim, and his sudden appearance would have been just as memorable and moving as when Tim Russ reprized his Tuvok character in the final episode.
Plus, there are few Star Trek actors more passionate about the franchise than Garrett Wang, and he would have made the most of one Picard Miniature. For comparison, this actor takes time out of his busy schedule every year to serve as Trek Track Director for Dragon Con, the biggest and best science fiction and fantasy convention in the Southeast. This is someone who forgoes simply signing a few autographs to ensure that thousands of fans have the best time every year, and he certainly would have used his appearance to continue making fans happy in his own passionate way.
Finally, there is a legitimate argument that Garrett Wang deserves one Picard cameo, especially after the actor’s harrowing story of how he was punished Voyager. On the latter show, he claims that he was prevented from directing episodes, that he was shamed for his weight gain, and that his character was considered an ensign, all because he rubbed some producers’ noses. A cameo wouldn’t magically fix all of that, but Kim’s role as captain could have made up for the fact that he remained Voyager’s humble whipping boy for so long.
It certainly worked out for Garrett Wang. He didn’t get his Picard cameo, but he got a cameo in one of them Lower decks‘ best episodes. And he and Voyager Co-star Robert Duncan McNeill continues to entertain fans with his great Delta Flyer recap podcast, which every Star Trek enthusiast should definitely listen to. As for us, we don’t yet know what the future of this franchise will hold, but we do know one thing that Paramount absolutely needs to write down: the more Wang it has, the better it will be.
Source: Trek Movie