Wang's Views On Revolving Producers

The switch of executive producer from Brannon Braga to Kenneth Biller, "was a bad change for me," Garrett Wang (Ensign Kim) told the audience at the Holodiction Odyssey convention held in Sydney, Australia, last weekend.

"It had a lot of impact," said Wang of Braga's departure to work on Enterprise after Voyager's sixth season. "Different actors are affiliated with different executive producers - Roxann [Dawson] with Ken Biller, myself with Brannon Braga."

"Some of the lines that we got, we just couldn't say," he said. "They had too many consonants." Usually, the actors would phone up the writers and try to work out a compromise, but this was more difficult in season seven. According to Wang, "Ken Biller would veto every change." Despite this, the actor said "I liked him [Biller] as a writer."

Wang wasn't unsympathetic to the situation, and he tried to put Biller's actions in context for the audience. The writer had originally left the writing staff, but when Rick Berman realised that "there was no one with any history left to take on season seven," he was asked back to fill the role of executive producer for that season. "Imagine what it's like," Wang said. "[Your] boss comes back [and] asks you not only to come back, but to be in charge. He came back with an attitude."

When he was in charge of the show, Braga had apparently promised Wang that he could direct, and the actor had also expressed an interest in writing for the series. However, with Biller at the helm, this didn't come to fruition. "Ken Biller scoffed 'Have you ever written anything?'" Wang recounted. When the actor relayed Braga's promise, Biller replied that "Brannon's not running the show anymore," the audience was told.

Nevertheless, with Braga at the helm of the next series, Wang told the crowd that he remained hopeful that maybe he'd have the chance to write or direct on Enterprise.

Thanks to Lynda, Penny and Janette for their help with this report.

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