Back in Voyager‘s second season, things got weird, even by Star Trek standards. In the episode “Deadlock,” a freaky subspace rift split the ship into two versions, both somehow sharing the same antimatter supply.
With only enough power for one ship to survive, a tragic sacrifice is made. But not before one Voyager transfers a newborn Naomi Wildman, and, crucially, an alternate Harry Kim, to the other. From that point on, the Harry Kim we followed was technically a duplicate.
Strangely, Star Trek: Voyager never treated it like a big deal. What was up with that? Let’s talk about it!
Why does no one talk about what Voyager did to Harry Kim in “Deadlock“? Who’s the real one?
Of all the strange twists in Star Trek: Voyager, few are as quietly profound, or as frequently overlooked, as what happened to Ensign Harry Kim in Season 2, Episode 21, “Deadlock“. In this episode, a subspace divergence field causes the USS Voyager to split into two identical versions, each with an identical crew, occupying the same space and time.
As the episode proceeds, one Voyager suffers substantial damage, losing several crew members, including Harry Kim and newborn Naomi Wildman. In a final act before the ship is destroyed, the surviving Harry Kim from the intact Voyager crosses over to the damaged one, taking baby Naomi with him. Harry Kim then continues on as part of the main narrative.
This has led to decades of fan debate: Was Harry Kim replaced by a duplicate? And why does nobody talk about it?
Now, unlike a traditional sci-fi duplication, this wasn’t a case of an original and a copy. Both ships are equally “real,” emerging simultaneously. Here is how!
The answer, according to the logic of the episode, is no. The episode never designates either ship as the original or the copy. Neither version of Voyager split off or came second; they both resulted simultaneously from the same anomaly, with no qualitative difference.
Therefore, the Harry Kim who survives is just as real as the one who died, because both are versions of the same original person, drawn from the same timeline and experience.
Thus, in short, Harry Kim wasn’t replaced by a copy; he simply continued on, just from a different but equally valid version of the ship.
What does actor Garrett Wang think about it? Did Star Trek: Voyager do Harry Kim dirty?
Even Garrett Wang, the man behind Ensign Harry Kim, was scratching his head over what the heck happened in Deadlock. In a chat with CinemaBlend, he admitted he was just as baffled as the fans.
Wang confessed that when he first heard about the twist, he was genuinely confused, and maybe a little concerned. Was he being written off? Was this the end of Harry Kim as we knew him? And then nothing. The show moved on as if it never happened. He explained,
I thought, ‘What just happened?’ But really, in my logical brain, I kept thinking, ‘OK, he is an exact duplicate of Prime Harry. There’s no difference whatsoever.’ So it’s fine. I’m OK with it. I’m not gonna think twice about that.
Lieutenant Tom Paris actor Robert Duncan McNeill also had a theory he presented once in a The Delta Flyers podcast conversation, where he revealed,
I don’t think Harry is a copy. I think he’s just as original as the other crew. But if you had to make an argument, he’s the original, and everyone else is the copy, because the antimatter didn’t duplicate.
Whether he’s a clone, a copy, the original, or just Harry 2.0, it’s the kind of question that will keep Star Trek fans awake at night, staring at the stars and wondering which Harry Kim is truly their Harry Kim forever.
Star Trek: Voyager is available to stream on Paramount+.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire