Star Trek's "Middle Child" Was Center Stage At Pensacon

After “Star Trek the Next Generation” had been off the air for over a year and “Deep Space Nine” was in the middle of its run, the powers that be at Paramount wanted another Trek show that was set on astarship. That show was called “Star Trek – Voyager” and debuted in January of 1995. Actor Garrett Wang played Ensign Harry Kim for all seven season of the show. Wang was in Pensacola this weekend for Pensacon.

• Wang enjoys interacting with the fans and has been going to a lot of fan conventions over the past few years "probably on a weekly basis at this point".
• The cast of Voyager didn't feel any extra pressure of trying to live up to any of the other Star Trek shows in the franchise.
• The reaction to a Star Trek show with a female captain was "interesting". (Kate Mulgrew played Captain Katherine Janeway). Some people were "shocked and, believe or not, we actually had several people call Paramount Studios and leave messages about 'wanting to come blow up Paramount Studios' because we dared allow a woman to be in command. So 1995 we already had people acting like it was 1895".
  

  

  Credit Georgia Barrett / WUWF News

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  WUWF News

• Wang thinks of Harry Kim as the "blank canvas character" on the show. He was the youngest of the bunch and was able to grow a lot over the seven years of the show's run. He certainly hopes Harry would "be a captain by now!".
• Voyager is often seen as "the middle child" of Star Trek. Many times fans come up to Wang at conventions saying "'uh, excuse me Garrett, I'm one of the few fans who like Voyager' and I sit there and say 'uh...thank you, I think?'"
• When the character Seven of Nine joined the cast in season four it put a bit of a spark back into the show. (Jeri Ryan played the de-assimilated Borg character).
• There was one episode where Harry Kim starts to flirt with Seven of Nine and she calls his bluff, offering to have sex with the Ensign. He declines. He's never forgiven the writers for that, nor have any of his fellow cast members let him forget it!