Was Timeless the best Harry Kim episode better?

[The Overlord]

Was Timeless the best Harry Kim episode ever?

Sfdebris has reviewed the episode Timeless and he really liked it. Usually he doesn't like Harry Kim and episodes centered around Harry Kim, but this is clearly an exception. So was Timeless the best Harry Kim episode ever or is there a better Harry Kim episode out there? How many great Harry Kim episodes have there been?

http://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/v901.asp

 

[Seven of Five]

I think it's about the only good Harry Kim episode ever, which makes it even more special. He's a very annoying character that experienced stunted growth, whereas Timeless showed him as a far more fascinating person.

 

[R. Star]

Well I said in the "favorite episode" thread yesterday this episode managed to make Kim interesting.

 

[Guy Gardener]

He destroyed the Universe because Chakotay's girlfriend wouldn't fuck him.

Still a prick.

Besides, skip ahead to Relativity and Braxton claims thatTimeless never happened.

(Did he? Did he really? that's not strictly what he said.)

(Shut up. It's one interpretation of the events and... Fuck it.)

Timecop Stormtrooper kicked some doors down and took Kim, Chakotay and Tessa off to timecop prison for daring to be so damn presumptuous as to defy the natural order of things.

Or...

Kim and Chuckles were so incompetent that their message into the past wouldn't have gotten through to Janeway to preserve the natural order of things unless Braxton "helped" behind from the scenes counterbalancing their incompetence and... Oh dear god.

Tessa was Braxton in Disguise!!!!!!

Braxton was Tessa in disguise having sex with Chakotay and Kim was Jealous because it was he who wanted to have sex with Captain Braxton!

 

[R. Star]

Well that explains how Chakotay managed to get a real live woman.

 

[Dale Sams]

I rather enjoyed him in Course: Oblivion.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Well that explains how Chakotay managed to get a real live woman.

Being a double agent spy is why Seska slept with him as much as she did.

I wonder if Tuvok slept with him too for the same reason to cement his false identity?

The Section 31 agent on Voyager was technically Janeway's job to vet and Chuckles only inherited that turncoat, but who ever he was sleeping with on Voyager was probably the spy in question.

(Novels say there was a section 31 agent on board, logic says that there was at least one on TV, because every ship would have to have a section 31 agent or Section would not be all-encompassing and therefore useless.)

 

[LobsterAfternoon]

Best Harry Kim episode? Hell, it's the best Voyager episode.

 

[hux]

Maybe Kim was the section 31 agent (would anyone suspect him) I think it probably is his best episode - I think Ashes to ashes is a close 2nd (an attempt to flesh him out with a back story.....with a girl we've never heard of before....to be honest, lindsey Ballard would have been a more interesting character at ops)

 

[stj]

If you look at the episode closely, it is obvious that Chakotay is supposed to share the lead. But Wang was so much more vivid the Kim character took over. This is actually the case for practically all so-called Kim episodes. About the only episodes that are actually about Kim without a co-lead are The Chute, Favorite Son, The Disease and Nightingale.

The Chute ends with a benediction and plot resolution from Paris. I think it's good enough to compete with Timeless, but that certainly is a minority opinion. Most people are indifferent, near as I can tell.

Favorite Son was intended to humiliate Wang and Paris. And although it is a fascinating episode, it certainly isn't popular.

Nightingale may have been intended to do the same, although it's main target was micromanagers. Whether that was Berman himself, or some unknown suits at UPN is not for us peasants to know. Since Kim was deliberately written as an asshole to stand in for whoever the episode was aimed at, it too isn't popular.

The Disease highlighted Kim's male ingenue persona, always unpopular. Also, the notion that normal heterosexual love is somehow daringly rebellious and shockingly transgressive is hard to take seriously. Also unpopular.

Strictly speaking, Kim saved the ship in The Killing Game. This two-parter was quite entertaining, but is also a great example of how little interest Voyager really had in physical jeopardy plots.

In all, I'd have to say The Chute was the best episode that was more about Kim than anything else.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Kim was supposed to blow up the ship in the killing game.

He punked out.

The crew spent one month as slaves.

One twist of fate and it could have as easily been the rest of their lives.

Kim was a collaborator.

Charges of treason, dereliction of duty and mutiny should have been waiting for him next week.

 

[Seven of Five]

About the only episodes that are actually about Kim without a co-lead are The Chute, Favorite Son, The Disease and Nightingale.

I forgot about The Chute. Sure Tom's there too but it's still a good episode. Not as entertaining as Timeless though really.

The other episodes you mention are horrible.

 

[stj]

The dramatic resolution of The Chute is supposed to be when Paris forgives Kim, and heals his despair with his wise words. And this climax was supposed to be at the very end, sharpening it even more. But I think it played out as just another denouement, because Paris (or McNiell) was so lackluster.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Am I the only one who likes Non Sequitur?

 

[marksound]

"Timeless" may very well be the best of Voyager.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It's cheating.

All time travel episodes are cheating.

Take out the time travel and would it be just as good?

Berman and Braga limit timetravel and Borg stories for everyone else.

Forbids it.

Ditto with the Borg.

But they almost exclusively only write Borg and Time Travel stories themselves.

It's a dirty conspiracy to create a monopoly.

 

[stj]

Am I the only one who likes Non Sequitur?

No. But even more than Timeless, Kim is not the lead in Non Sequitur. That's why the episode makes no effort to show or even verbally justify Kim's determination to return. The real star of the show is alternate Tom Paris and how his inner nobility shines in the final sacrifice.

 

[R. Star]

Or it's revealing of Harry Kim's psyche. He has a willing girl who wants him and he's not even remotely tempted to stay and return to her?

It could've been a way better story if Kim was perfectly willing to say and live happily ever after with Libby, and even get promoted, but he sacrifices all that for Paris when he sees what a wreck his old friend had become.

As written, I think Harry Kim just enjoys suffering.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Harry sacrifices everything for Daniel Byrd who didn't deserve to take his place.

Point is that the only reason Paris got kicked back to New Zealand was that he didn't have to save Kim glibly and comically and conversationally from being a dolt who was buying magic beans... What did Danny do so different that Paris felt that he had to thump Quark?

The more I think about it, Daniel Byrd started the fight and Paris tried to break it up or finish it, and because he was on probation they stipulated Zero tolerance regardless if he started the fight.

Daniel Byrd was a thug?

Would Janeway be better off with a Thug or a Dolt?

 

[R. Star]

Thug. She didn't have any of those, but Chakotay could fill the dolt bill at need.