Non Sequitur is such a good episode

[IAmAParrot]

It's such a dream episode. Imagine longing for something so much, only to suddenly see it come true.

Youre engaged to the love of your life, you're a recognized person in your organization.

Kim longs for home the most in voyager in the delta quadrant.

SO episodes like this, where you get to see someone get a second chance we all wish we could magically have, it's beautiful.

And you know what else is beautiful? How advanced and enlightened people in the 24th century are. The moment Kim realizes his friend Danny has to suffer in the delta quadrant, or how Tom Paris isn't in such a good place on earth in the alternate time line, he sets away his own desires and wishes, even when it's right in front of him, even when the alien asks him to stay and not risk trying to alter time again, he still risks everything, because they aren't the greedy, selfish, arrogant people of today. If something like this happened to a 21 year old today, they wouldn't even care if a dozen people or a thousand people had to suffer or even die if it meant they could live their dream life and have a second chance. And that's what I despise about life today, how selfish and arrogant people can be. Everyone sits on their high horse and delude themselves to think they're kings and everyone should bow down to them, if someone else suffers due to them, who cares, "sucks to be you". They'd never consider sacrificing their own "happiness" to save others.

Thays why when I watch harry Kim trying to undo the altered time risking his life just to save Paris, it just makes me happy and sad. Happy that there's so much good that humans can be, and sad that currently, not only are we not, but it seems like we are heading towards the opposite destination day by day. People are becoming more arrogant with less experience and knowledge to at the very least justify some of their arrogance. I really hope there is a time where our species, can be just like earth in 2372

 

[Oddish]

Good insights... it's too bad that Harry's heroic self sacrifice is paid back with seven years of Data's career advancement, Worf's luck in love, and O'Brien's general pummeling.

Rule of Acquisition #285... NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED!

 

[Phaser Two]

Good call. Definitely an outstanding Tom-Harry episode.

 

[IAmAParrot]

Good insights... it's too bad that Harry's heroic self sacrifice is paid back with seven years of Data's career advancement, Worf's luck in love, and O'Brien's general pummeling.

Rule of Acquisition #285... NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED!

Uhm am I missing something here? I never remembered Harry's decision affecting those characters? Word and jadzia had just met by this episode

 

[Oddish]

Uhm am I missing something here? I never remembered Harry's decision affecting those characters? Worf and jadzia had just met by this episode

Not what I meant.

Data was among the worst characters in terms of career advancement. Every other TNG and DS9 character either received a promotion, or (in Picard and Riker's cases) turned one down. Data was stuck at LCDR for years. The only other character who career similarly stagnated... Harry Kim.

Worf was among the worst characters in terms of luck in love. He had a romance with Khe'lar... she died. He married Jadzia... she died too. And he had few other opportunities. The only character who had similarly bad luck romantically... Harry Kim.

And, a well known Trek mantra was "Chief O'Brien must suffer." And for Voyager, it was "Harry Kim must suffer". He died multiple times, got tortured in prison, nearly eaten alive, was the only person in Trek canon punished for screwing an alien, and still potentially had his career trashed for no good reason.

Bottom line:
Data had bad luck in his career.
Worf had bad luck in love.
O'Brien had bad luck in everything else.
Harry... all of the above.

 

[IAmAParrot]

Not what I meant.

Data was among the worst characters in terms of career advancement. Every other TNG and DS9 character either received a promotion, or (in Picard and Riker's cases) turned one down. Data was stuck at LCDR for years. The only other character who career similarly stagnated... Harry Kim.

Worf was among the worst characters in terms of luck in love. He had a romance with Khe'lar... she died. He married Jadzia... she died too. And he had few other opportunities. The only character who had similarly bad luck romantically... Harry Kim.

And, a well known Trek mantra was "Chief O'Brien must suffer." And for Voyager, it was "Harry Kim must suffer". He died multiple times, got tortured in prison, nearly eaten alive, was the only person in Trek canon punished for screwing an alien, and still potentially had his career trashed for no good reason.

Bottom line:
Data had bad luck in his career.
Worf had bad luck in love.
O'Brien had bad luck in everything else.
Harry... all of the above.

Oh I get it now. I suspected it had something to do with this but I wanted more clarity before jumping to this conclusion.

I see. So maybe if Harry had been selfish, all of those characters might have had different fortunes. It's possible. But then again, the best episodes of obrien are those when he suffers lol.

 

[IAmAParrot]

Anyway I just love an episode like this.

Imagine you have deep regrets of your past, and wish you could go back and fix them Ala have a second chance to correct things.

I definitely constantly do. Imagine knowing what we do now and having a second chance to go back and change things. Or at least be transported to an alternate reality where things changed to your favor. But I admit just like Harry, I don't know if I could stay if I realized innocent people I LIKED, or don't know, had to suffer for it. But the few who are my enemies, idk I think I wouldn't mind, depending on the severity of their suffering. If they had to lose a job or even a home, I could live it. But if their whole family died in an accident, then perhaps not

 

[Oddish]

So maybe if Harry had been selfish, all of those characters might have had different fortunes. It's possible. But then again, the best episodes of obrien are those when he suffers lol.

No, Harry could not have affected Worf or O'Brien's fortune by staying in his new timeline... but he could have profoundly affected his own. A gorgeous fiancee, pips on his collar, far less suffering... wouldn't it be nice?

 

[IAmAParrot]

No, Harry could not have affected Worf or O'Brien's fortune by staying in his new timeline... but he could have profoundly affected his own. A gorgeous fiancee, pips on his collar, far less suffering... wouldn't it be nice?

Yea. Wouldn't it be nice if something like this could happen to us?

 

[Turd Ferguson]

It would've been funny if we'd cut to the pocket dimension Voyager, and saw Lt. Danny Byrd at Ops

 

[Oddish]

It would've been funny if we'd cut to the pocket dimension Voyager, and saw Lt. Danny Byrd at Ops

Or if this had been the episode where they canned Garrett Wang, so he stayed on Earth, and a very bewildered Byrd had to reconcile himself with being stuck on Voyager now.

 

[Ragitsu]

Data had bad luck in his career.
Worf had bad luck in love.
O'Brien had bad luck in everything else.
Harry... all of the above.

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[100Pic]

Okay I’m going to go rewatch this episode and report back

 

[gweeps]

I love this episode. It's also spooky.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Shandrine's is real.

Whether it's a pool hall or a brothel IRL, on Voyager it is a Brothel.

Actual person's likenessessess are being used to whet the grind.

Paris is a Criminal.

 

[Lynx]

Probably the best Harry Kim episode!

Favorite Son was also OK.

 

[Oddish]

I personally think that Harry should have had at least a little bit of conflict.
I mean, look at his options here...

OPTION A
* Live on Earth, which has zero poverty, no war, and is basically so awesome that even the prisons are nice. As in New Zealand nice.
* Have a CO who respects you and might actually promote you ahead of schedule.
* Spend steamy nights with your gorgeous fiancee. Get married. Make babies.
* Chug a Vulcan Mocha extra sweet on the way to work.

OPTION B
* Be stranded 70,000 light years from Earth, surrounded by species that want to steal your tech, extract your skeleton, harvest your organs, assimilate you into their collective, or purge your galaxy.
* Have a series of cold showers interspersed with painful romantic misadventures... even your holodeck dates get spoiled by unexpected bovine transformation.
* Be the only person in Starfleet history who gets dinged for an interspecies romance, probably because your CO wants to keep you at ensign until the heat death of the universe.
* Eat Neelix's cooking, 'nuff said.
* Die repeatedly.

No, I was wrong. Harry should have had a WHOLE LOT of conflict!

 

[Sumire]

Danny Byrd Is no Harry Kim. I know we share a love for Harry, Oddish, so I hope you won’t find it too confrontational of me to assert that Harry couldn’t have chosen to stay on Earth and still have been the man we know and love.

Harry believes he’s an important part of the Voyager team, not an interchangeable crew member — a vital part of their chance to get home, their chance to survive their next encounter unscathed. And although he doesn’t fully know it at this point, he genuinely is. I wouldn’t want him to think any less of himself.

Harry and B’Elanna’s friendship is quite arguably the most important Maquis/Starfleet friendship after Janeway and Chakotay’s. Do you think Danny "Miss Turtlehead" Byrd was going to forge that type of connection?

If Danny ended up in Harry’s position on Voyager, would he have been able to rescue the crew by disabling the holoprograms in "The Killing Game”? Would Danny have been able to diplomatically reason with a sentient warhead? Would Danny have been instrumental in creating a quantum slipstream drive and then, when a phase variance results in Voyager’s destruction, risked everything to send a message back in time preventing this but still managing to get them ten years closer to home? I don’t think so!

That’s not even taking into account everything Tom Paris does for Voyager that also wouldn’t take place in this Danny Byrd reality. And, of course, the fact that Paris is in a very bad way and Harry cares about his friend too.

Harry is irreplaceable and he is right to believe that he is. As a loving, compassionate, moral person, he has only one option available to him and it is the option he chooses.

 

[Oddish]

Danny Byrd Is no Harry Kim. I know we share a love for Harry, Oddish, so I hope you won’t find it too confrontational of me to assert that Harry couldn’t have chosen to stay on Earth and still have been the man we know and love.

It's not so much "love" per se and more outrage at the injustice the character had thrown at him.

But first, I see your point. Second, I never said Harry had to stay (though I would not have thought less of him for doing so). Just that he should have considered it more than he did.

"Non Sequitur" is actually all the more tragic since one Harry's self-sacrifice was paid back with repeated suffering, years of solitude interspersed with romantic misadventures, and (if the eternal ensign crowd have their way) total career ruination. And cherry on top, the Harry who occupied that timeline was probably erased from existence.

 

[fireproof78]

I think my biggest thing is simply that Harry has little to no conflict (been a while since I watched the episode) over immediately going back. It's not even a moment in his debate that he questions it. He just accepts that this wrong, and has no temptation over it. Which is fine if you want to show him as completely and utterly loyal, but then it makes for a very poor character because the character basically becomes the whipping boy of the show, willing to endure suffering because he puts the ship and the crew above all else. It strains believability but not only that but it makes for a poor character who's only existence is to suffer to demonstrate how loyal they are and that's their only character trait.