By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
If you know much about Star Trek: Voyager, then you know that nobody on the cast complained quite as much as Garrett Wang. The Ensign Kim actor sometimes had very righteous gripes, like when he revealed how the writers allegedly fat-shamed him and Robert Duncan McNeil by writing their recent weight gain into a script. Sometimes, his complaints are shocking, like his unsubstantiated claim that he was told to underact by Rick Berman in order to make the show’s aliens seem more realistic.
In fact, when he repeated a version of that complaint to a TV Guide reporter, who dutifully reported that a Star Trek actor was badmouthing his own TV show. To this day, Wang is convinced that this snafu is why he never got a chance to direct. Fortunately for the actor, not all of his complaints fizzled out. If we had never complained about the writing for his character being boring, then rockstar writer Brannon Braga would never have created “Non-Sequitur,” arguably one of the best episodes to ever feature Ensign Kim.
The Squeaky Wheel Gets The Grease
What is “Non-Sequitur” about? In this tale, Ensign Kim awakens in San Francisco to discover that he never joined the Voyager crew and, thus, never got stranded in the Delta Quadrant. He still has his memories from his time aboard ship, but it’s easy enough to forget all of that in the arms of his hot girlfriend. But his absence from Voyager also meant that Tom Paris lost his spot on the ship, becoming a drunken loser with no purpose. In the ultimate “bros before hoes” moment, Kim teams up with Paris to restore the timeline, ensuring that their bromance will continue on the other side of the galaxy.
“Non-Sequitur” is a very solid Star Trek: Voyager story, especially if (like me) you’re a big fan of both Harry Kim and Tom Paris. As it turns out, though, this episode would never have been written if Garrett Wang hadn’t complained to writer and producer Brannon Braga. As the actor confessed to The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine, this episode “was the result of me going into the production office and saying….When is Harry gonna get the girl? When is he gonna have the action?” Braga responded, “Don’t worry about it,” and went on to create “Non-Sequitur.”
Too Cool For Pool
Generally speaking, Wang was quite happy with the finished result because it delivered everything he wanted. The altered timeline of “Non-Sequitur” gave Ensign Kim a cute girlfriend, and it let him kick a little butt once he decided to return reality to the way things were before. He also gets to become a full-on action hero, stealing a runabout, escaping Starfleet pursuit, and even beaming out into the vacuum of space, all in a desperate bid to restore the timeline.
However, this wouldn’t be a Garrett Wang story if there wasn’t one more complaint. According to the actor, he asked Brannon Braga to intersperse all the action and romance “throughout that year,” hoping Kim would become a more dynamic character throughout Season 2. Instead, Braga “put it all in one episode.” Fortunately, “Non-Sequitur” served as a fun showcase for Wang’s abilities as an actor, one that almost (but not quite) made up for what he really wanted: a promotion for his eternally underused, eternally underacting ensign.
