What in Gods name did Harry Kim do in Voyager?

[Bluesteel]

Are you guys serious? They kept Harry Kim for 3-4 years only because he was called sexy? I find it hard to believe. If that's true my opinion of Voy can't possible go lower.

I find some humor in that Nog, who was a full Starfleet officer for less than two years, got a promotion to Lt. Jg. Meanwhile, we have Kim the eternal ensign.

You know what took the piss? The Maquis outranked him. Tom Paris a disgraced Starfleet/Disgraced Maquis got a higher rank then him. The demoted and then promoted back up to a higher rank. Where was mister Kim? Doing nothing.


Nog a short little Cadet fights off the Dominion. Kim? Standing on the ops station doing nothing,


In fact I remember correctly. Nog left leg had more character development then Harry Kim. I truly feel sorry for Garret Wang. While Roxann and Robert have become directors/writers/producers. He's .... doing nothing. Just like his character.

 

[TheGodBen]

Are you guys serious? They kept Harry Kim for 3-4 years only because he was called sexy? I find it hard to believe. If that's true my opinion of Voy can't possible go lower.

That's the story that I've heard. I'll elaborate:

At the end of season 3 there was some worry about the show's declining ratings, and how bad much of the third season was. Braga came up with the idea of the Krenim and the Year of Hell and pitched it to last for a full season, but that was rejected by either Berman or Taylor or the suits at UPN. Instead Braga adapted Year of Hell as a two-part episode and the plan was to make it the season 3 cliffhanger.

Then Braga came up with the idea of Voyager rescuing a Borg and having them join the main cast, Berman loved the idea and decided to make her a "Borg Babe" as a means of drawing in more teenage male viewers. However, they could only afford nine cast-members, so one of the regulars had to go and they decided that it should probably be Kim. Braga and Menosky rushed off and wrote Scorpion in a week, and they included Kim being eaten alive by an 8472 infection as a way of killing him off if the plan was to go ahead.

However, during the hiatus People magazine added Wang into their list of the 50 most beautiful men, coming in at number 18. Realising Wang's apparent sex-appeal, the producers chickened out of killing Kim off, so they went with plan b and wrote Kes out of the show instead. Some of the producers have claimed in the past that Kes was picked because they didn't see any potential for the character, but that's clearly a lie because she had oodles more potential than Kim.

Year of Hell was then adapted to include Seven and was aired during season 4.

Anyway, that's the story that has been passed around on this forum ever since I got here, so you might want to take it with a pinch of salt.

 

[RyuRoots]

^Yeah, but nog did things. Kim didn't.

That's not true: he... well I'll think of something.

Yeah, Kim did things. He got locked out of the computer all the time, he got killed, he got denied by numerous women, etc.

 

[KiraDax]

On every single series, there's been a character (sometimes two, or three, or...nevermind) who is completely worthless insofar as practical application goes.

Doesn't mean they don't have some draw. Sometimes they stick around just because they provide much needed 'hot' factor. Sometimes they stick around because they provide much needed 'hot' factor and are so cute you just want to reach through the screen and pinch their cute widdle...

Point is, a character doesn't have to do a lot of obvious stuff to provide balance. Kim was a lot of things to the other characters...Janeway's baby, Tom's devoted buddy, B'Elanna's role model ...

Show wouldn't have been the same without him.

 

[The Grim Ghost]

Though he was definitely the weakest character, I've never thought he was as bad as everybody makes him out to be.

He was basically the Geordi of Voyager.

Nice guy, kind of boring and has horrible luck with women.

Sure Geordi was about 10 times cooler and more interesting, but still...

 

[dHunter333]

but honestly...what is kims position
i would think science officer, but he is in yellow
he sits in the ops station
wtf is this
he is not an engineer...or is he? i know he helps b'lenna (sp sry) sometimes
i am currently rewatching ALL trek (start with tos, end with ent then nuTrek) currently watching season 3 voy/5ds9/first contact, almost done with both seasons

anyway
i keep thinking
what the hell is kim
science officer? no
he is yellow
engineneer? ensign? ops officer
wtf
what exactly is his station
communications/sensors? no other ship really had a person (science officer or communication officer maybe) but a yellow shirt doing that stuff?
i dont konw, he has always confused me

 

[Cuhl]

Played the clarinet!

 

[Bluesteel]

Played the clarinet!

I remember one episode he was going to play with his band. Barely lasted a second before he got booed off by a bunch of weird Aliens. Man doesn't even get to show off his talent.

 

[Wally]

People magazine added Wang into their list of the 50 most beautiful men, coming in at number 18. Realising Wang's apparent sex-appeal, the producers chickened out of killing Kim off, so they went with plan b and wrote Kes out of the show instead.

Soooo.. Kim was attractive and Kes wasn't? . Way to go creators. ::sarcastic clapping::

 

[TheGodBen]

what the hell is kim
science officer? no
he is yellow
engineneer? ensign? ops officer
wtf

This dates back to the inception of TNG, apparently. When Roddenberry came up with the idea of Data he was supposed to be the science officer, but they found that the blue uniform clashed with his make-up so they put him in gold and concocted the notion of an "operations officer". I'm not entirely sure what the duties are, but the role of ops officer seems to be an amalgamation of various duties on the ship.

When creating Voyager they felt they had to have an ops officer too, hence Harry Kim manned ops and wore a gold uniform. Personally, I think it would have made more sense for Voyager to have had a science officer as a main character.

 

[Shazam!]

Played the clarinet!

I imagine he only learned that because no-one would hang out him and he thought that playing a musical instrument would get him the chicks.

 

[crohnie]

The one bit of character development I remember about Harry was when he was making out with that Alien Chick and then basically got an STD from it (The Disease)

Janeway was pissed and ordered him to break it off but he wouldn't and defied her on the bridge. By the end of the episode Janeway realized he wasn't a baby anymore...

the problem is I can't remember if they actually paid attention to this episode and tried to make Harry grow up more. Knowing the writers, I don't think they did...

 

[exodus]

Harry built more than half the new technology on Voyager.
He built the slipsteam drive.
He built Astrometrix.
He built the the time portal device in "Time & Again".
He was the only one that could read Borg.
He was only one capable to rebuild the EMH from scratch.
"Non Sequiter" showed Harry was gifted when it came to shuttle design.
Harry expanded the holodecks in "the Killing Game".

 

[Guy Gardener]

He Built astrometrics "apparently".

 

[Tallis Rhul]

He did a more important job than any of those things. Think how dusty the ops station would have gotten if he hadn't been there to keep pressing buttons!

And there would have been no-one to hover on stage right behind Janeway's massive haircut.

^Yeah, but nog did things. Kim didn't.

That made me chuckle.

 

[TheGodBen]

Harry built more than half the new technology on Voyager.
He built the slipsteam drive.
He built Astrometrix.
He built the the time portal device in "Time & Again".
He was the only one that could read Borg.
He was only one capable to rebuild the EMH from scratch.
"Non Sequiter" showed Harry was gifted when it came to shuttle design.
Harry expanded the holodecks in "the Killing Game".

All true, but if Harry hadn't been on the show then B'Elanna would have invented all those things instead. Its not like as if Braga and Menosky would have come up with the plot for Timeless and then go "shoot, we can't make this episode because we don't have a character on the ship who can design a quantum slipstream drive".

What did Harry bring to the show as a character? Doctor Shmully allowed for the exploration of issues relating to holograms, B'Elanna brought some interesting stories about self-identity and even Neelix brought some good stories about his troubled soul. But Harry? He brought a naivety about life that never went away, and the only two times when his character truly shined was in the alternate future stories of Timeless and Endgame, both of which never happened.

 

[JB2005]

^ Did anyone else, when Harry said "Maybe it's about the Journey" Want someone else in the room to go "F@*! the journey, I wanna go home"

 

[Itisnotlogical]

He modified things. Just like Scotty remodulated things and Geordi reversed the polarity on things.

 

[JustKate]

Harry built more than half the new technology on Voyager.
He built the slipsteam drive.
He built Astrometrix.
He built the the time portal device in "Time & Again".
He was the only one that could read Borg.
He was only one capable to rebuild the EMH from scratch.
"Non Sequiter" showed Harry was gifted when it came to shuttle design.
Harry expanded the holodecks in "the Killing Game".

All true, but if Harry hadn't been on the show then B'Elanna would have invented all those things instead. Its not like as if Braga and Menosky would have come up with the plot for Timeless and then go "shoot, we can't make this episode because we don't have a character on the ship who can design a quantum slipstream drive".

What did Harry bring to the show as a character? Doctor Shmully allowed for the exploration of issues relating to holograms, B'Elanna brought some interesting stories about self-identity and even Neelix brought some good stories about his troubled soul. But Harry? He brought a naivety about life that never went away, and the only two times when his character truly shined was in the alternate future stories of Timeless and Endgame, both of which never happened.

I agree with that GodBen guy. Yes, Harry did things, but only because they had to have somebody do them, and it was, like, his character's turn or something. He generally - and mind you, I rather liked Harry, which is what made it a shame - acted more like a plot contrivance than a real person. There weren't very many situations in which a crisis would come up and I'd think to myself, "Only Harry can solve this." Most of the time, there were actually other people who could have done it just as well or better (e.g., Seven or B'Elanna or Janeway).

Harry...just never really came together as a character. The idea of having a naive young officer on board as this ship traversed an unknown area of space was a fine one, but the problem is that that was almost all he was. In order to continue to make him interesting, the writers needed to let him grow up and develop, and...well, they didn't. And that's why he became so boring, IMO.

 

[TheGodBen]

I agree with that GodBen guy.

TheGodBen!

I have to make a confession, I like Harry too. He was my favourite character when I first saw the show as a teenager and I never gave up on him while the show was on air. Fundamentally he was a good character for the show, but the writers treated him poorly and he ended up being a joke.

Luckily for him, along came Mayweather and he usurped Kim's position as the most criminally underused Trek character.