I just rewatched it and I found it to be a really good episode. The plot was simple but effective, and Wang's performance was pretty good. Does anyone else think its very underrated?
I pretty much hated it. I just found Harry pretty insufferable throughout really. I also didn't get the thing with Janeway and promotion. She can't give out field promotions, yet she promoted the Maquis, Tuvok and Paris (after demoting him!). Maybe she dislikes Harry as much as I do?
Amusingly, the episode proves that Harry is fully unqualified to lead anybody. I'm not sure if that makes the 7-year-ensign thing stick out less or more.
FTFY. This is why Harry was an Ensign for seven years. He gets punked out by his mutinous crew, then meekly leads them as they do the thing he didn't want them to. Peer pressure FTW! Some leader.
What crew? There was one guy on the bridge he bonded with with Three mad scientist Gestapo generals looking over the entire operation. Kim was preaching over the intercom and assumed that that gave his disembodied voice instant respect to the 2 or three hundred crew he hadn't bothered to look in the eye or shake the hand of and assure them all that he would die for them. A crew can only really mutiny if they fight against their command structure which Harry was in no way part of, not that any one told Captain Kim that.
Harry takes a teeny bit of power and goes nuts with it. As an episode overall, if I don't let Harry's idiocy get to me, it's not bad, but that's a bit of a challenge considering what a tool he is in it. If there was ever a reason to not like his character, that episode is it.
I hate this episode. I mean, any time Seven of Nine is advising someone about how to be a leader, well, we've hit rock bottom. The writers definitely phoned this one in.
Because he wasn't leading, he was led. They only needed an engineer to keep their cloak working, but pretended they needed a Captain. They massaged Kim's vanity and pride to trick him into breaking the prime directive and being their butmonkey. Captain Butmoneky. breaking a blockade in an interplanetary war to delivering medical supplies is breaking the non-interference directive. When those medical supplies turn out to be weapons (cloaks.) you just have to ask why are you working for people who lie, forcing your to work counter to your principles? transporting medial supplies is dodgy, transporting clocking generators is criminal as they could be altering the balance of power in the immediate war. Kim deserved 30 days int h brig for this bollocks.
Yeah I know, I meant to say "bad leader". So Harry failed and at the end he realized he wasn't captain material yet. That doesn't make the episode bad, it makes it more enjoyable and more interesting.
It's bad because the characters are out of character. Seven has openly fought and questioned Janeway's leadership on a number of occasions, too the point where if she was Starfleet she'd be insubordinate. Suddenly, she's giving advice on command structure? What!?! Harry has spend at least 5 or 6 years as acting captain on the night watch while Janeway sleeps. It's highly improbable that during all those years none of that prepped Harry to understand how to captain a ship. He acts like he doesn't know his ass from his elbow. 3rd, what a complete waste of a great stage and screen actor like Ron Glass on such a forgettable part. He never even gets to act with actors on the show of his own caliber, like Mulgrew or even Dawson. Instead, he's left to underact just to make Garrett Wang come off stronger. Best part of this ep. for me is the visual effect of the ship being repaired on a planets surface..........and that's about it.
Kim, annoying as he was when it came to the OBVIOUS situations... in the end, I think that he has what it takes to be a leader... just not yet. Promotions on the other hand were handed out left and right (like in Paris's case) But we also have to keep in mind that most of these people had previous experience and skills needed to rise in the ranks quickly as opposed to Harry. Harry was fresh out of the Academy though with 0 experience most likely.
It was a bad episode because Kim didn't know that he was a bad leader. He just thought that it was a bad crew. That if he had a good crew he would be a good captain. He's blaming others for his own limitations. Which is textbook delusional asshole On the production side... I think the writers thought the same. Despite everything that happened, Kim was a superhero who didn't have any valuable lessons to learn. In the final bit, his comment that he was glad to still be a kid and being a responsible adult captain person was for later. Peter Pan Syndrome much?