Star Trek is very much in the news again: a new Trek TV show will premiere in September. At Windsor ComicCon recently, two stars of previous Trek TV shows made an appearance.

Denise Crosby appeared in several seasons of Star Trek: Next Generation, but she is best known as the young female security officer in the first season. "To be the chief of security in a traditional male role is what the late 1980s were calling out for," she told an audience in Windsor. Until then, Crosby said, women were either portrayed as a "beautiful soft woman, or a hard-assed tough bitch. I was adamant Tasha Yar (her character name) was not perfect. I was always looking for ways to examine her flaws."

Crosby lamented her audition for the role was not videotaped. It was a dual scene with Marina Sirtis, cast as counsellor Deanna Troi. In the audition, Crosby says she was essentially in a therapy session with Troi, worrying that she was never going to be good enough for the top security job. "You were the best in the class," replied Troi. "But Picard (the Captain of the starship) is so great, and such a visionary!" replied Yar.

"Troi was talking Yar back from the edge. Inside of Yar was a dichotomy: this fierce woman and a fragile little girl."

Denise Crosby, grand-daughter of the great singer Bing Crosby, has appeared in yet another major Hollywood franchise: the zombie-infested The Walking Dead. "I need to get on Game of Thrones," she joked. "It would be a trifecta!"

Garrett Wang in WindsorGarrett Wang in WindsorAlso appearing at Windsor ComicCon was Garrett Wang, best known for his role as Ensign Kim on Star Trek: Voyager. Wang was far from sanguine that his character was never promoted in the seven years of the TV show. Once he met another fellow named Harry Kim (in real life), who was in the navy when Voyager was on the air in the late 1990s. "He got crap everyday from the crew mates," Wang said, but he tried to commiserate with Kim. "We were the same," he said to the navy man. "No," Kim replied, "I was promoted!"

Wang said in response to all this that his character was "the Rodney Dangerfield of Star Trek, the punching bag of Voyager."

In one episode Ensign Kim got to kiss the alien 7of9, played by the beautiful Jeri Ryan. "We each have full upper and lower lips. It was like two Sealey posturpedic mattresses banging up against one another," he said playfully. The show aired when Wang and Ryan were watching along with her young son, who exclaimed "Mommy kissed Garrett?!"

Wang had various controversial remarks to make on the Trek movies. Nemesis should have been a Voyager film, and Insurrection should have been a DS9 film." He was referring to the final two movies starring the crew of Next Generation, which were both flops. As for the current series of movies, he decried the casting of Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan. "The first Klingon he encountered would have broken him over his leg like a popsicle stick," said Wang. "The Rock should have been cast as Khan," a suggestion that elicited a lot of approval from the Windsor audience.

 

 

 Photos with this article are copyright by C. Cunningham