"Young Ensign Kim" scenarios would have been great in Season 1, Ok in Season 2, pushing it in S3. By S4, Harry should have had a hollow pip on his collar and character traits more appropriate for an officer with three challenging years under his belt. It's fine for a kindergartner to carry around a teddy bear, but by the time he hits third grade, he should be more into muscle cars or gross jokes or something.
I totally agree on this.
Just look at NCIS where Tim McGee started as some sort of nerd, constantly being the target for Tony DiNozzo's jokes but during the series developed to a skilled field agent who was respected by everyone, even Tony DiNozzo.
SWuch development could have been possible for Harry too.
Well, remember, everyone was tortured in "Caretaker". And in "The Chute", Harry got bruised, but Tom got knifed.
True.
But the scenario with Harry as "the whipping boy" started already in
Caretaker.
Tom was knifed in
The Chute but it was more an one-time event and also what I mentioned about Tom's daredevil personality while harry was beaten up and mistreated duringt he whole episode.
Don't forget that she wasn't really a holodeck character, and she tossed him aside like yesterday's socks when Tuvok showed up.
That's also true. But it also confirmed Harry's status as the everlasting loser.
True. As a trained Starfleet officer, Harry should have understood that Tuvok was following Janeway's explicit orders. One of the ex-Maquis (who care less for such things) should have taken on that role.
Honestly, Harry looks like a spoiled child in that episode and by then we was in season 3 where he should have showed up more maturity.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I would probably have had one of my outbursts of rage if I had been faced with such a scenario in the script after three years.
Ironically, I'm Ok with that. Harry A sacrificed himself to do his job and try to save the ship. And Harry B fought his way through Vidiians to save himself and Naomi. Both were heroic, in their ways.
You're right about this. In fact, I would have liked to see more of the "action Harry" we saw in the scenes where he's fighting his way out of the doomed duplicate ship.
But I doubt that any other character would have been considered for being killed off and duplicated in that scenario.
However, if I had been in charge of the show or at least one of the writers, I would have demanded a homecoming scene in the last episode of the series where Harry comes jumping into the house of his parents, singing the old Joan Jett song "Cherry Bomb" with the following lyrics:
Hello Dad, Hello Mum, I'm your D-D-D-D-Duplicate Son!
That would have been funny!
"Favorite Son" was initially an attempt to salvage Harry's foundering character, like they did with Bashir in "Dr. Bashir, I Presume". They were supposed to have Harry actually be an alien, offering opportunities to develop him based on this. Some higher-up shut this down, par for the course.
Which was actually good since we do have some "action Harry" here too!
The plot with Harry being victim for some planted DNA trap is a bit over the top but still better than an Harry who all of a sudden is discoveder as some alien.
That's because they weren't working for the incompetents who ran the show.
That's True.
But the only sad thing is that the "whipping boy" scenario occurs too often even in the books. In fact, it becomes almost ridiculous when he's injured and ends up in sickbay 8 times in 8 of 19 books.
However, he's much better and more active in the books than in the series.
Interesting... maybe it's a variation of the "put a kid in danger" trope.
maybe. But a little too much of it.
Beltran was in a similar state. He reportedly tried to get fired by making higher demands... given their refusal to do anything with him, one wonders why they didn't just cut him loose and give Chakotay a heroic send-off.
As a fan of Chakotay, I'm happy that they didn't. Chakotay is too good to be wasted like that.
All we can do is ponder the evidence logically. The excuses they gave for Harry's non-promotion were patently false, and they clung to it even when viewers presumably started asking questions. That suggests significant motivation on their part.
They were experts when it came to false excuses. Still are as I see it.
If they ruined the character deliberately to get back at the actor, then they were downright childish.
And it also confirms my theories about a certain event with a letter campaign for a dumped character resulting in that characters's come-back only to be humiliated and destroyed.
A rude and childish behavior against loyal fans from people in charge of a popular show.
O'Brien suffered a lot... but he got promoted (once they figured out what rank he actually was), and he had a loving family. Harry had the worst of all worlds: O'Brien's suffering, Data's promotion prospects, and Worf's luck in love!
Yes,.
I really like DS9 but the constant pecking on O'Brien, turning him into this or that episode's victim became too much sometimes. I never understood why they came up with such scenarios that often.
But in some way, the character O'Brien could stand that and not being regarded as some hopeless loser.
He still came out with some dignity while poor Harry became regarded as one of the most hopeless characters ever in a series.
