I always wondered why Kim was made part of the senior staff straight out of the academy. If he'd come aboard as Lieutenant Kim, and we'd learnt that he'd taken an advanced officer program at the Academy or something much like Kirk appears to have done, it'd have sat better for me. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Tuvok receive a promotion to Lieutenant Commander around Season Three or Four? Surely they had an extra pip aboard for Kim!
Outside of LaForge's failure to score women beyond the inner walls of a Holodeck, I still thought he was a cool addition to TNG crew because of his X-Ray Specs and special friendship with Data. Burton's such a good actor, anyway. Harry Kim just never really brought anything to the table. as far as I'm concerned. And as an actor in a series, to see this happening to your character, I mean ... does he even care? Or was he just glad to be gainfully employed and cashing those healthy cheques?
That's a good question. Perhaps there weren't any other better-qualified ops officers assigned to Voyager?Idk but maybe Starfleet felt that ops officers were not very relevant to the Maquis-hunting mission,like how having a counselor on board was unimportant too(Which I reckon is a bit silly since isn't the ops position important too?).It is a bit hard to believe or imagine that ALL the other ops officers were freshly out of the academy too,and that Harry was the best out of all of them.
I thought LaForge could be a bit dull too, but the actor was better. I assumed that all the crew members better qualified that Kim had died.
I suppose we could rationalise it away as Harry was top his class in Operations Management or it was his specialty at the academy. Janeway seemed to have an eccentric taste in officers when picking her senior staff.
It would have made more sense if there had been a different Ops officer when Voyager initially left DS9, and Harry was stationed in some auxiliary station on a lower deck. Then the Caretaker's beam grabs the ship, the Ops officer is killed along with all the other guys, and Harry winds up being the only one qualified who survives. It might have added to the character a bit if he wasn't fully prepared for the job right out of the box, and could have accounted for some of his nervousness.
Know what the chain of command is? It's the chain Janeway uses to beat some sense into Harry Kim. She never used it, aparrently.
Same reason Kes was part of the senior staff. I can understand why Neelix was. He was a trader, so he knew how to negotiate with the other alien cultures and was a recognized native species of the quad. It was easier for him to find out stuff and get stuff over that of the unknown uniform officers of Voyager. Why was Kes? She'd never even been above ground, had no knowledge of ANYTHING out there. If they need medical knowledge, they just brought the EMH up on the computer screen. .....and that's why Harry didn't deserve a promotion. The military doesn't promote people unqualified just cause other officers die. They gave the command to the hologram over him, Janeway in "Shattered" looks at Chakotay in disbelief went he called Harry a valued officer. They were telling us the whole time, Harry wasn't qualified for a promotion.
We saw three people promoted after the Maquis got cemented into their positions. Tuvok, Paris and B'Elanna. What was B'Elanna's starting rank before she leap frogged over Carey?
Janeway put B'Elanna to the test and proved she was qualified by passing it. Janeway put Harry to the test and he was never ready for it.
The test was, can you run a department. Harry can. Harry does. (B'Elanna's department is half the crew. Harry's is 5 guys.) What about the poor bastard that took over from Tom (Helm is a department? there are many pilots and some one has to keep them in order.) when Paris was demoted, only to get pushed aside because Janeway had a brain fart? Maybe Tom didn't get his rank because because he's awesome, maybe he got his rank back because his replacement sucked?
That's the best way to move up in the world. You don't have to do anything, just make sure those below you are clearly inferior.
What dept. does Harry run? Ensigns don't run dept. Tom got his rank due to who his father is. Janeway was ambitious, the fast track to Admiral was reforming the Admirals son from traitor to upstanding citizen again. If she could do that, she'd have Admiral Paris in her corner for her own recommendation for Admiral. That was in the movie "Go".
I think Janeway saw potential in Tom, and appreciated his talent as a pilot, and she nurtured his potential and talents. I always thought Harry looked out of place anytime he was in on the senior officer meetings. He was fine to be on the bridge, but looked way out of his league getting the senior officer treatment.
Harry is the Operations Officer, which runs the Operations Department, which is why he gets to sit in on all the big meetings, which is also a bridge position. Operations is two things, making sure that the plumbing is regular (constipation pun intended.) and quartermaster. If there's a mission, he has to assign all resources (Tools, equipment, clothing, and vehicles.) as well as the power to make all those resources work. In ordinary life he makes sure that everyone gets their minimum standard of Starfleet assets, like boots, blankets and replicator rations... (He was the Voyager's Treasurer? Every time he participated in a pool, he was defrauding himself?) http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Operations_officer (I Know! He's a gerbil!) The larger the ship, there's a geometric (size of the ship x size of the crew x difficulty of possible mission remit.) increase in the amount of labour and oversight an operations will need to have to get her job done. Lt Commander Data after 30 years in Starfleet was enterprise's Operations Officer. (massive ship x massive crew x mission impossible.) Ensign Kim on his first day out of the academy was Voyager's Operations Officer. (Tiny ship x tiny crew x dinky predictably samey missions.)
Again, when did we ever see anyone report to Harry? All the duties you described we saw handled by B'Elanna or Tuvok.
Why they think Harry does that, is because that's what O'Brien did, and they "sorta" have the same job. Janeway said that 13 Departments write a report to Tuvok every day in Scientific Method. What do you think Harry puts in his daily reports to Tuvok? "I'm lonely. Why won't a woman love me?" When Harry was not sitting in the Operations position, every time we see him somewhere else on the ship, or on an away mission, some other bugger is sitting in his chair at the Operations position over seeing operations. Possibility #1: It's a floater in a last man standing bridge and any one can do Harry's job. Possibility 2: There are an unknown number of Junior Operations (Petty?) Officers who work for Harry and/or stand in for Harry when he's sleeping or on break. Possibility 3: The bridge posisiton is left unmanned and vacant beciase it's a bit shit.
No, I think he's a Department Head. I was also being fair and balanced. You don't believe in Memory Alpha?