Star Trek Actor Reveals Dark Side Of Franchise’s Golden Era

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 3 seconds ago

Beyond discussions of which shows and movies were best, it’s pretty easy for Star Trek fans to agree on one thing: that the ‘90s was the franchise’s golden period. This was when The Next Generation hit its stride, fan-favorite spinoffs Deep Space Nine and Voyager were launched, The Original Series movies wrapped up, and even the smallest towns had their own conventions. However, Star Trek: Voyager actor Garrett Wang’s latest comments about being snubbed by producers is a grim reminder that the “golden” era of the franchise was remarkably dark.

Recently, the Star Trek veteran sat down with CinemaBlend to discuss his happiness at coming back to the franchise in Lowe Decks, but Garrett Wang was quite blunt about what a long road this has been. He described watching how his costars like Jeri Ryan and Robert Duncan McNeill get invites back to the franchise and counted at least seven different wasted opportunities to bring his character, Harry Kim, back into the fold. Interestingly, he would have returned to the franchise sooner if an opportunity hadn’t been taken away from him, but he remains very tight-lipped over the details. 

There was apparently some kind of unnamed Star Trek project in the works that would have somehow brought back Garrett Wang’s character from Voyager even sooner than his recent appearance on Lower Decks. According to the actor, “somehing happened, but then something else happened out of my control…And that offer was rescinded in a way.” Possibly due to an NDA or possibly because he didn’t want to spill the replicated tea, the Harry Kim actor ended this train of thought with a simple, “That’s all I can say.”

As longtime Star Trek fans know, Garrett Wang has never hesitated to spill the tea before about how he was mistreated by Voyager’s producers. For example, he alleges that he was kept from ever directing an episode, something that other Trek lead actors had always been able to do upon request. He also bristled at the fact that his character never got a promotion, relaying a sad story to CinemaBlend that he got so desperate over this that he once showed up outside Kate Mulgrew’s trailer and begged her to help Harry Kim finally get promoted.

Perhaps the ugliest Star Trek story that Garrett Wang relayed was that he and Robert Duncan McNeill were singled out and ridiculed for putting on additional weight during the production of the show. This culminated in the two actors finding girdles in their trailers one day and their characters even getting dialogue in which they teased each other for being out of shape. 

When Wang pushed back against this insulting dialogue, executive producer Brannon Braga allegedly told him in front of the cast and crew “if you and your fellow actors go down the same path of eating the way you have the past two years, we’re going to have to change the name of the show to ‘Star Trek: Voyager — Pigs in Space.” This terrible body-shaming is an example of the fact that Star Trek’s golden age is disturbingly dark and grim.

Despite how much he loved his time on Star Trek, Garrett Wang has never been afraid to name names when it comes to those who wronged him. This includes Brannon Braga’s body-shaming and another alleged incident where Braga explained Kim never getting promoted with a breezy “well, somebody’s gotta be the ensign.” He had a particular beef with notorious executive producer Rick Berman, whom he alleges told the cast to “underplay our human characters” (i.e., act boring) so that the aliens would appear more realistic.

Now, it’s worth mentioning that these guys are basically Star Trek royalty: as writer and producer Braga worked on The Next Generation, Voyager, and Enterprise while also helping to pen Star Trek: Generations and Star Trek: First Contact. Fellow producer and frequent writing partner Rick Berman was an even bigger part of the franchise, exec-producing TNG before co-creating DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise. Berman is also a very controversial figure, one who was accused by veteran Trek writer David Gerrold of being a “raging homophobe” and accused by Jadzia Dax actor Terry Farrell as being “very misogynistic” towards women and their appearance.

Fans learning about this have often debated who the “real” Braga and Berman are. After all, they have created some of the best Trek content ever made (including the epic TNG finale “All Good Things”), but it also seems they have hurt some of our favorite actors. This includes Star Trek’s darling Garrett Wang, and his own tales about these producers are a reminder that these men can be both talented and flawed, capable of great creative energy and capable of causing great pain. 

The golden era of Star Trek has a hidden dark side, but the men who allegedly caused it already gave us the perfect way to examine their creative legacy. In First Contact (cowritten by Braga and produced by Berman), Commander Riker gives Zefram Cochrane some advice from his future self: “don’t try to be a great man, just be a man…and let history make its own judgments.” The golden era of Trek has itself passed into history, and only time will tell how future fans and creators remember its greatest and most flawed architects.