Today on "'Voyager's' (lack of) Continuity," we discuss Ensign Lang. A woman in Season 3 and early Season 4; then a POC man from mid-Season 4 onward, with the first name of Timothy.
The female Ensign Lang (Deborah Levin) plays a significant role in "Displaced," Season 3. She appeared before that in "Blood Fever," and afterwards in "Year of Hell" (Season 4.) She was seen operating Tuvok's security station in his absence more than once, indicating that she was a Security Officer.
The man pictured above (played by Sylvester Foster) first appeared as a security guard in "Scientific Method." He appeared as a Security Officer many more times, finally being identified as "Crewman Lang" in "Warhead," at the end of Season 5.
Then, in "Imperfection" (early Season 7), Tech. Timothy Lang appears in a list of Voyager's casualties.
Memory Alpha presumes that "Tech Timothy Lang" is the same man as "Crewman Lang." But this isn't confirmed, as far as I know.
How many Langs we got on this ship anyhow?
Lang is a common surname. But Voyager's relatively-small crew is comprised of people from all over Earth, plus a few other planets. That lowers the probability of the same surname appearing twice by coincidence. Still not implausible though.
Since it's the 24th Century, one might think that there's one Lang who underwent some physical transformation. Lang could be transgender (and transracial?). Lang could be an alien who "regenerates" like in "Dr. Who." But if so, then Lang transformed more than once, because in "Relativity" (Season 5), we're shown that this man was already a crewmember in Voyager's second year in the Delta Quadrant.
...however, he is never called "Lang" in that episode. His name is never clarified in that episode at all.
This opens up another possibility: this man's last name was originally something else. Then, prior to "Warhead," he married Ensign Lang, and took his wife's surname. It's the 24th Century after all.
I never cared for the idea that the ten main characters were the only ones having life-changing experiences, while the rest of the crew just pressed buttons for seven years. I like to think that the Langs had a full story playing out over the course of Voyager's journey. They fell in love on Voyager, and got married some time before "Warhead." Timothy wanted to leave his old surname behind, for whatever reason. (Maybe he had issues with his family; or maybe he was an orphan assigned a surname that never meant anything to him; who knows.) Then, some time prior to "Imperfection," Timothy died. Maybe he was a casualty in "Equinox," or maybe he died in the battle against the Borg in "Unimatrix Zero."
Or maybe two boring humans with the same common surname boarded Voyager in "Caretaker." And pushed buttons for seven years.
