One Of Picard's Cut Cameos Would've Allowed A Beloved Star Trek Character To Finally Rank Up
This article contains spoilers for the series finale of "Star Trek: Picard."
The acclaimed final season of "Star Trek: Picard" has come to a stirring and satisfying end — and, with it, the conclusion to the decades-long journey of Patrick Stewart's Jean-Luc Picard and the rest of the beloved crew of explorers from "The Next Generation." But part of the difficult task laid on the shoulders of showrunner and director Terry Matalas involved uniting multiple different shows set around the same time period. That meant tying together loose threads from "Deep Space Nine" like the Changelings, long-missing members of "The Next Generation" such as Ro Laren (Michelle Forbes), and characters from "Star Trek: Voyager" including Tuvok (Tim Russ) and Jeri Ryan's Seven of Nine.
By the end of the finale, the dual threat of the Borg and the Changelings are vanquished once more and seemingly for good. Pulling off such a daring mission required every trick and every remaining ally that Picard and the crew of the U.S.S. Titan could possibly muster up, but apparently, there were meant to be even more cameo appearances waiting in the wings to help our heroes save the day.
One would've involved another key member of the "Voyager" crew: a certain Ensign Harry Kim. Portrayed by Garrett Wang throughout all 7 seasons, Kim has long stood out as a fan-favorite highlight of what's commonly considered a lackluster series. He could've finally received his time in the spotlight had initial plans for the final season of "Picard" panned out, but that was unfortunately not the case. In a recent interview, Matalas explains why.
Justice for Harry Kim!
During a roundtable interview attended by /Film's Vanessa Armstrong, "Star Trek: Picard" mastermind Terry Matalas reveals that there were early plans to bring on board one of the most undervalued characters in all of "Trek." An oversight that soon turned into a years-long running gag, Harry Kim's inability to rise through the ranks of Starfleet after the starship Voyager found itself lost for years in the far-off Delta Quadrant caused no shortage of laughs and consternation among the fanbase. Having first boarded Voyager as a lowly Ensign, he proved his worth time and time again ... only to end his run on "Voyager" as, you guessed it, still an Ensign.
Yet unlike characters such as Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) or Robert Duncan McNeill's Lieutenant Tom Paris, Kim has never again appeared in "Trek" canon since the finale of "Voyager." That would've finally changed — along with a long-awaited promotion — had things worked out on "Picard," but alas! According to Matalas:
"He was captain actually. [...] I talked to Garrett [Wang] about this and he was very, very disappointed. He was [a] captain and yeah, that's all I can say about it. Again, it's time, it's money. We also didn't want to step on 'Star Trek: Prodigy's toes. It was, but again, you don't want to be greedy, right? It's just, it's ... We're talking about Frontier Day, right? Truly if you had another 20 minutes on Frontier Day, you'd be seeing everybody. You'd be seeing everybody who's in Starfleet in 25th century. You want to know what everybody's up to. But yeah, that was that."
The plot involving Frontier Day allowed some other deep-cut cameos to take shape, but apparently Kim's return was simply not meant to be ... for now, at least.
Hope for the future?
The interesting part of Matalas' comment above, of course, is his reference to "Star Trek: Prodigy." The animated series takes place only a handful of years after the events of "Voyager" and has even made way for characters such as Janeway and her right-hand man, First Officer Chakotay (Robert Beltran), to appear on the show. As much of a pleasant surprise as it would've been to see Wang once more in live-action as a much older and wiser (and promoted) Captain Harry Kim for a few moments at some point in "Picard," perhaps the franchise has bigger things in store for the character.
"Prodigy" has had even more reason to expand on the fates of the Voyager crew and Matalas may have tipped his hand that Kim could eventually show up. In the long run, fans would likely accept a more substantial role for Kim in "Prodigy" than a brief moment of naked fan service in "Picard" for a character who, out of the entire cast, only really matters to Seven of Nine. As it is, "Picard" had a lot going on throughout its third season, so it's easy to imagine why Kim's cameo would be among the first to go for the sake of scheduling and budgets.
But that's the thing about "Trek" — no element of the franchise remains a redheaded stepchild for long. (Okay, except maybe "Star Trek: Into Darkness" or that movie with Picard's clone). "Voyager" may not have the sterling reputation as some of its more widely-celebrated peers, but the creatives in charge and Trekkies alike all seem eager to give the cast their due. Here's to one day getting to see Harry Kim once more on-screen ... this time, with those four pips on the uniform signifying the rank of Captain.