Harry Kim's birthday, 5 March

[Lynx]

Funny, I was just thinking of it today.

Why did Kim all of a sudden become such an important member of the Senior Staff?

I mean, he was fresh from the Academy and what I can see, he was just one of the crewmembers designed to OPS. I mean, he couldn't be working there 24 hours a day so there must be others as well, probably someone with higher rank than Ensign.

Did he have such extraordinary records from the Academy that he got such an important role immediately, or what?

The only theing I can think of is that one or more of the OPS crew with higher ranks were killed during the Caretaker's transport of the ship to the Delta Quadrant and therefore Kim became so important. As we could see in "Caretaker", former Maquis Ayala was also designed to OPS so there might have been a shortage of candidates for that job.

As for Ensign, there's only one rank, no First Ensigns or such.

 

[Lynx]

Not fair... but fun.

I think she became a drunk. The events of Deadlock left her depressed and confused. She took to the bottle while Neelix and Flotter took responsibity for Naomi. She thought her husband was Ktarian (buttocks foreheads) but then the rhino baby came out and she began to suspect that Greskrendtregk may not have been who he said he was. It all started to fester in her fragile mind and she drank to numb the pain.

Neelix would find her in her quarters each morning in a pool of her own shit and piss shouting obscenities about Janeway's dirty ginger fuck-hole.

And that's why we didn't see much of her.

To be honest, I do find that highly unlikely.

But still very funny!

 

[stardream]

I just assumed that Kim became a senior officer because there was no one else left because most of the original senior staff was killed during the "Caretaker' event.

Didn't Neelix's participation in the briefings become less and less over the seasons or am I just not remembering him being there all that much later on?

 

[hux]

Off the top of my head, there was Lieutenant Walter Baxter who survived to the end.

I also recall Kim telling him what to do a in Twisted when they met in the corridor despite Kim's lower rank. Kim on the bridge made very little sense.

 

[Drone]

Whether one feels disinclined or even incredulous to describe him as being worthy of being part of the Senior Staff, I don't find it strange, in the particular situation that Voyager found itself in. First, I don't think that the significance and magnitude of the definition of the Senior Staff held nearly as much weight and/or deference as it would on some no name Starfleet ship doing its duty in the AQ. There may very well have been other casualties among those who might have run OPS that we didn't know about. But even notwithstanding that possibility, I think that by his very selection to fill that role at all, on the first run of a new class yet, speaks a lot to the potential that was seen for him to be eminently able to proficiently handle such a responsibility. While he wasn't up to to intuitively understand and fake his way through hawking the Yellowstone at a moment's notice, one should be mindful of all the technobabbly solutions that he presented so copiously during Voyager's run that saved the ship's bacon. In fact, I can think of very few instances when his expertise, intuition, or perhaps luck in some of those instances, proved to be flat out wrong. Timeless of course, would be an exception, but I think it was established that there were simply too many variables that anyone could've calculated, that would have made the full ride tenable.

In general, like Neelix, but for different reasons, Kim was too easily dismissed as a lightweight by many viewers. I think far too much stress is given in this calculation, to his awkwardness, social maladroitness, and perceived inability to shake off the rookie tag, not to say of Wang's being just about low man on the totem pole for acting chops. An exemplary character, not so much. But I found him easily likable, and more to the point of this response, shown to be up to the standard of a valued and valuable member of the command inner circle, whether one wants to refer to it as the Senior Staff or not.

 

[Ghislaine H. B. BRAEME]

Harry KIM was a likeable character, no doubt on that, but let's be honest, he played the marionette of service during 7 years and I can understand that this situation was able to entrainer a certain frustration from him ... only for a short time.

I wonder if the decision of not to promote the character (even if we saw him putting the captain's uniform in Endgame) came because the producers were forced to keep his performer. Though that, Harry Kim was involved in some interesting stories during these 7 years, expecially Timeless and Warhead in S5.