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Most Star Trek fans agree Picard was pretty uneven for its first two seasons, but mercifully managed to land it for Season 3. However, one legend from the venerable franchise recently revealed that his planned cameo was completely scrapped, and the cameo would have made the killer final season even better. Voyager actor Garrett Wang revealed that he would be included Picard Season 3 as a Starfleet captain, but that he was cut from the show entirely.
Harry Kim loses again
This came up in Garrett Wang’s extensive interview with TrekMovie, which covered everything from his hilarious Lower decks cameo to his interrupted Picard portrait. He was originally supposed to play a similar narrative role as Shelby, the ambitious commander of the LPG two-part “Best of Both Worlds” which later appeared on Picard as an admiral. The idea to include Voyager graduate never materialized, but the actor described how close the idea came to fruition.
According to Garrett Wanghe actually got confirmation from his manager that he was cast Picard Season 3. However, his planned part was still limited. As he said, he originally had “a three-episode arc that turned into two, then turned into one.” Still, his manager told him that he would have to be in Los Angeles for costume adjustments and that plans for his cameo were far enough along that his character’s name would appear in the scripts.
It was actually Garrett Wang Voyager costar (a Picard regular) Jeri Ryan, who broke the news of how he was suddenly axed from the show. She told him that his character had been written into the script, but after a series of revisions, Kim’s character was nowhere to be seen. This caused Wang to be “depressed for months afterward”, though he eventually got a second chance at a comeback thanks to his cameo in a hilarious episode Lower decks.
Picard’s loss
Why are we so sure Garrett Wang would Picardis the excellent final season even better? For one thing, he would be a much cooler portrait than Admiral Shelby. Fans only spent two episodes with Shelby, while we spent seven years with Ensign Kim, and his sudden appearance would be just as memorable and poignant as Tim Russ’ reprise of Tuvok for the final episode.
Moreover, there are few of them Star Trek actors who are more passionate about the franchise than Garrett Wang, and he would make the most of it Picard portrait. For context, the actor takes time out of his busy schedule each year to serve as Trek Track Director for Dragon Con, the biggest and best science fiction and fantasy conventions in the Southeast. He is someone who will only give up signing a few autographs to make sure thousands of fans have the best time every year, and he would definitely use his cameos to continue to delight fans in his own passionate way.
Finally, there’s a fair argument that Garrett Wang deserved Picard portrait, especially after the actor’s harrowing tale of punishment Voyager. In this latter show, he claims that he was prevented from directing episodes, shamed for gaining weight, and that his character was held up as a banner, all because he rubbed some producers’ noses the wrong way. A cameo wouldn’t magically fix it all, but writing Kim in as captain might belatedly make up for him being kept as a lowly Voyager boy for so long.
Either way, it worked for Garrett Wang. He didn’t get his Picard portrait, but he got a cameo in one of them Lower decks‘ best episodes. And he and Voyager costar Robert Duncan McNeill continues to entertain fans with his amazing Delta Flyer recap podcast, which every Star Trek enthusiast owes it to themselves to check out. As far as we’re concerned, we don’t yet know what the future holds for this franchise, but we do know one thing Paramount seriously needs to write: the more Wangs the better.
Source: TrekMovie
