Star Trek’s ultimate Lower Decker is coming to Star Trek: Lower Decks at last. Garrett Wang will reprise his Voyager role as Harry Kim on the show’s fifth and final season, and the show’s cast couldn’t be happier to have him. In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, they note that one Harry Kim wasn’t enough.
Says Tawny Newsome, the voice of Beckett Mariner on the animated Star Trek comedy, says, “What I can tell you is that Garrett Wang has so much personality and energy, and he is such a vibe as Harry Kim that we couldn’t have just one. So we had to find a way to have multiple Garretts, multiple Harrys because [of] the fans and we’ve been waiting for so long to see Harry.” Eugene Cordero, who plays cyborg engineer Sam Rutherford, reassured fans, who’ve wanted to see Kim get his long-awaited promotion since Voyager ended in 2001, that “the payoff of it is amazing, that it’s worth the wait,” and calls it “an unbelievable cameo” that “feels like more than a cameo.” You can see for yourself when the final season of Star Trek: Lower Decks begins today, October 24, with a two-episode premiere on Paramount+.
Who Is Harry Kim?
An ensign fresh out of Starfleet Academy, Harry Kim was assigned to the USS Voyager on what was supposed to be a short mission. Instead, the ship was hurled to the other side of the galaxy, and many of his shipmates were killed in the process, making him an unexpectedly important member of the crew. As the ship made its long trek back home, Kim served admirably formed a lasting friendship with the roguish Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill). However, Kim’s other relationships were not so successful; he unsuccessfully tried to woo ex-Borg Seven of Nine, acquired an alien STD, fell in love with a hologram, and almost married aliens who wanted to fatally drain his DNA. Furthermore, much to Wang’s consternation, Kim remained an ensign over the course of the show’s seven seasons, although several other characters were promoted.
Wang currently co-hosts a podcast, The Delta Flyers, with Voyager co-star McNeill; the show initially went episode by episode through Voyager, and has since moved on to Deep Space Nine, with the addition of co-hosts Terry Farrell and Armin Shimerman. McNeill has guest-starred on Lower Decks twice; once as Paris, and once as Starfleet washout Nick Locarno, who he played in a pre-Voyager Next Generation episode.
The fifth and final season of Star Trek: Lower Decks premieres today, October 24, with a two-episode premiere. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.