Star Trek: Voyager missed a huge opportunity with Harry Kim, according to Garrett Wang. Despite being a main character, Harry often got sidelined with the least interesting storylines. As the youngest and least experienced officer on the crew, he rarely had arcs that stood out. However, season 3 almost gave Harry a game-changing plot that would have added depth to his character.
In the episode “Favorite Son,” Harry starts showing strange symptoms that lead him to an alien planet. The Taresians, aliens he encounters, claim Harry is one of them, sent to Earth as a baby with a drive to return home. They had altered his DNA to lure him back and feed off his life force. After escaping, Harry’s human DNA reasserts itself, but it almost didn’t end that way.
In an interview with The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine, Wang revealed that the writers originally intended for Harry to remain a Taresian. “They were going to keep it that way,” Wang said. “They were talking about keeping me in alien spots for the rest of the series. Some big-wigs looked at it and said, ‘More sex, more action,’ and suddenly, it became convoluted. The arc wasn’t clear. They added in the vampire-like, blood-sucking women. But they didn’t go all the way with it.”
Wang’s disappointment is evident. Keeping Harry as an alien would have drastically changed his character and likely enriched his story arcs. Voyager often sidelined Harry in major storylines, and this twist could have provided much-needed character growth.
The twist’s removal left “Favorite Son” floundering. The episode, part of season 3’s so-called “trilogy of terror,” is often cited as one of the worst. Studio-requested rewrites muddled the plot, stripping it of coherence and impact. With Harry remaining Taresian, “Favorite Son” could have been a pivotal episode, exploring his struggle with identity and betrayal by his own people.
While the alien twist wouldn’t have solved all issues, it would have made “Favorite Son” more memorable. Watching Harry grapple with his non-human identity would have given Star Trek: Voyager rich material to explore throughout the season. Instead, the episode remains a low point, a missed chance to deepen Harry Kim’s character and enrich the series narrative.
