Why does Harry Kim never get promoted?

[Dukhat]

I wonder if they'd even care about ranks anymore after a certain length of time being stuck away from Starfleet. Janeway's talk about how we're "still Federation officers!!", which thankfully reduced a lot after the first couple seasons, always rang hollow to me. Voyager is clearly something like a privateer ship, and everyone just agrees to follow Janeway's orders because they have no idea else what to do, and she's the sort of person you'd probably want leading you home.

Tom's demotion and promotion really did amount to absolutely nothing. He's still just the same guy who has to do a 12 hour piloting shift followed immediately by a 12 hour sickbay shift in his relentless 24-hour sleep-free schedule, no matter what rank he ostensibly is.

Which was one of the fundamental flaws of the show. If it had been based in any kind of reality, nobody would give a crap about promotions, because there was no Starfleet or Federation to care about what rank you hold. You'd be too busy just trying to survive in an unknown area of space with little supplies and no other ships or starbases to offer assistance. But of course, VOY wasn't remotely based in any sort of reality.

I like Kim but not everyone gets promoted, that's just life. Wang was lucky. He was a young, new-ish actor and landed a long-term role as a bridge crewmember on a Star Trek show! There are worse gigs to have but he complains like he was a redshirt in TOS.

Wang was a lot luckier than you think, because they were going to fire him. If it wasn't for some stupid People article about the "100 sexiest actors" or whatnot, he would have been shitcanned. Instead, they fired Jennifer Lein.

 

[Refuge]

Which was one of the fundamental flaws of the show. If it had been based in any kind of reality, nobody would give a crap about promotions, because there was no Starfleet or Federation to care about what rank you hold. You'd be too busy just trying to survive in an unknown area of space with little supplies and no other ships or starbases to offer assistance. But of course, VOY wasn't remotely based in any sort of reality.



Wang was a lot luckier than you think, because they were going to fire him. If it wasn't for some stupid People article about the "100 sexiest actors" or whatnot, he would have been shitcanned. Instead, they fired Jennifer Lein.

Um, I don't think any of the Treks are based on reality I am confused though, are we mad at Voyager for not promoting Harry or are glad he wasn't because it makes it more believable? I chose option number two.

 

[DonIago]

I don't think it is believable that he wasn't promoted over seven years. He may not have been a stellar officer (well, that's coming to mind...) but if I went seven years without a promotion I'd recognize that I was in the wrong line of work even if nobody was kind enough to tell me so...and Starfleet is supposed to have performance evaluations, so...one wonders what Janeway was feeding him.

Hell, if the 'Paris is going to leave the ship' storyline had occurred later in the series I might have argued that Kim would have more cause to be frustrated by that point. At least Paris was noticed. Kim was Officer Cellophane.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Starfleet punishes people who keep their heads down and do their jobs and rewards people who take risks.

 

[MAGolding]

I wonder whether the Starfleet Captain's Guide recommends promoting ensigns after X amount of time barring good reasons not to... In other words, whether Harry should have had a reasonable expectation of getting promoted.

Seven years as an ensign does seem like a reflection upon him, though.

I don't think it is believable that he wasn't promoted over seven years. He may not have been a stellar officer (well, that's coming to mind...) but if I went seven years without a promotion I'd recognize that I was in the wrong line of work even if nobody was kind enough to tell me so...and Starfleet is supposed to have performance evaluations, so...one wonders what Janeway was feeding him.

Hell, if the 'Paris is going to leave the ship' storyline had occurred later in the series I might have argued that Kim would have more cause to be frustrated by that point. At least Paris was noticed. Kim was Officer Cellophane.

There are a few comparisons to be made:

In "Datalore":

LORE: Promises he later proved to be true. Which made you and me possible, brother. Our beloved father. Will I soon have a uniform like that, brother?
DATA: If you get one the way I did, Lore, it will mean four years at the Academy, another three as ensign, ten or twelve on varied space duty in the lieutenant grades.

Kim was an ensign a lot longer than Data was.

 

[Defiler-Of-Redshirts]

Because Garrett Wang complained enough to the B&B hacks that his character was never given much to do. So Berman & Braga, in their puffy, vindictive egos, simply no longer gave a shit about Mr. Wang or his Harry Kim character. Robert Beltran expressed similar complaints and Beavis/Butthead, I mean Berman/Braga never wanted to do very much with his Chakotay character either. Berman was such a worthless piece of shit, he specifically stated for years that he wanted to keep the human characters bland & generic so it wouldn't detract from his equally bland & generic aliens. Berman even refused to use the extravagant music from the original series because he thought it would be distracting and he said he wanted the music to be generic "musical wallpaper." Those B&B pricks went out of their way to deliberately make Star Trek as bland and formulaic as they could and fuck them for it. Unlubed, as if I had to tell ya!

 

[Kor]

^ Don't mince words. Tell us how you really feel.

Kor

 

[Ghislaine H. B. BRAEME]

Because Garrett Wang complained enough to the B&B hacks that his character was never given much to do. So Berman & Braga, in their puffy, vindictive egos, simply no longer gave a shit about Mr. Wang or his Harry Kim character. Robert Beltran expressed similar complaints and Beavis/Butthead, I mean Berman/Braga never wanted to do very much with his Chakotay character either. Berman was such a worthless piece of shit, he specifically stated for years that he wanted to keep the human characters bland & generic so it wouldn't detract from his equally bland & generic aliens. Berman even refused to use the extravagant music from the original series because he thought it would be distracting and he said he wanted the music to be generic "musical wallpaper." Those B&B pricks went out of their way to deliberately make Star Trek as bland and formulaic as they could and fuck them for it. Unlubed, as if I had to tell ya!

Let's be honest, if Voyager was shot today, Wang and Beltran would have been invited to leave the sets to never return and that after all warnings they got (from the production) but never listened/followed. Indeed, it seems that productions & studios are less permissive/tolerant now than in 90s.

 

[valkyrie013]

While I agree that B&B were a bit generic, and not wanting to "upset the applecart" n stuff..
I've also read how the music people were trying to sprinkle good music into the series when they could, and that BB did just want bland music wallpaper, but we still got good stuff like The inner light and others..
Voyager was a massive messup of a series, so much more they could have done, but the insistance on serialization and "episode reset"..
Read an article from JMS from Babylon 5, discussing back in .. what 93 or so.. about his 5 year serial.. The producers in the WB were afraid of the show being serialized because to them syndication shows out of order, well JMS went to talk to tv channels and not a 1 said they shown them out of order, even in like a repeat time.. ( Growing up Tng was aired daily at 9pm on my Fox station, and they went in order.. and when a season was finished, they would add to the rotation..)
So Voyager could have been serialized format.. but wasn't.

As for Little Wang and Beltran, if I was in charge, I'd talk to them, ask them what they would like, and try to work with them, but if they contineued to poo poo the show, they'd be shown the door.. In Space.. no one can hear your agent scream!

 

[Silvercrest]

I don't think it is believable that he wasn't promoted over seven years. He may not have been a stellar officer (well, that's coming to mind...) but if I went seven years without a promotion I'd recognize that I was in the wrong line of work even if nobody was kind enough to tell me so...

• If he went seven years without a promotion, then clearly he was doing something wrong.
• If he went seven years trusted as Operations Officer, sat in senior officer meetings, and occasionally took the big chair during that time, then clearly he wasn't doing anything wrong.
• If it was a matter of rank slots and there was no room for advancement, then he clearly should've been offered one as soon as a slot opened up.
• A slot clearly opened up every time a crew member died who was above the rank of ensign, PLUS when Paris lost his.

It doesn't add up no matter how you look at it.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

When Michael Piller started working for Star Trek, the writers started taking more cues from the actors, adjusting the scripts to improve the characters so that they played to the actors' strengths. Sometime the interests of the actors made their wishes known, like when Patrick Stewart said vociferously that he wanted Picard to do "more fucking and fighting." That attitude continued through DS9, saving it from the shaky characterizations of the first season.

Why was it that once Piller left, the message was "screw the actors?" Wang and Beltran weren't asking for anything extraordinary, just not to be wallpaper for the show. If they were on TNG or DS9, the writers would have found little things to show Chakotay and Kim growing and evolving. When people joke about Nog getting more development than Kim, I think they are selling their argument short. Rom had more development than Kim. Leeta had more development than Kim. Vic Fontaine had more development than Kim. Brunt had more development than Kim. Did Kim beat anyone out? Maybe Morn, but not by much.

 

[USS Excelsior]

Also how did he go straight from the Academy to Chief of Operations is another thing. But Janeway did say the reason was because of a strict command structure on the ship.

 

[DonIago]

I like to think the ship was outfitted for the Maquis mission in a bit of a rush, or the normal Operations Chief was violently ill or something, and that Kim was never intended to fill the position long-term. Or maybe with everything else going on Voyager wasn't considered a ship that needed an experienced Ops Chief.

Of course, it would have been nice if such sentiments had worked their way into an episode or two, but let's not tug at that thread...

 

[B. L.]

There are a few comparisons to be made:

In "Datalore":



Kim was an ensign a lot longer than Data was.

So maqui bypassed about 15 years of training

 

[Defiler-Of-Redshirts]

Let's be honest, if Voyager was shot today, Wang and Beltran would have been invited to leave the sets to never return and that after all warnings they got (from the production) but never listened/followed. Indeed, it seems that productions & studios are less permissive/tolerant now than in 90s.

Interesting. I knew that Beltran and Wang had a somewhat contentious relationship with B&B, but I never knew that it was that volatile.

 

[Ghislaine H. B. BRAEME]

I would like to point out that, whatever the field of activity, granting promotions (outside the successful completion of an examination), do not get taken on an impulse by the superior. The relevant candidate must meet very specific parameters, most of which are very subjective.
-> it seems that Janeway felt that Harry Kim, as brilliant and smart spirit that he was as an individual, didn't YET fillied all the parameters she expected from him as a Starfleet Lieutenant having a potential as a future leader and let's be honest, she wasn't totally wrong : after 5 years on Voyager, he still acted sometimes as a cadet straight out of the academy in his general behavior. Otherwise, when he finally decided to take the lead, he did it with an excess of authority, in any case, enough to antagonize people (I remind you that Harry was not far from having to handle a mutiny against him!) until Seven came to calm him down and made him listen to reason / when he decided to object to an direct order of his commanding officer, he not only did it for the wrong reason (if Janeway ordered him to stop his relationship with Derran Tal, it wasn't just because he violated a Starfleet rule of procedure but in pursuing this relationship, he was endangering Voyager's crew and the Varro crew -> he was lucky to fall on Janeway and just getting a blame in his file, because with someone else on another vessel or on Earth, his faulty behavior could have made him court-martialed and fired from Starfleet!).

The other reason for which Janeway never promote him could have been that she felt that Harry's frustration could be channeled for more important things more difficult to manage. That didn't alter the fact that she respected his instinct and talent and liked him for who he was -> IF he was unable to accept the situation,
too bad for him.

When I see Endgame's Captain Harry Kim, with his tired look (not only physically but mentally too), while he was supposed to be of the same age as Katherine Janeway when she was Captain on Voyager, I wonder if he really was ready to occupy this seat....
.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

it seems that Janeway felt that Harry Kim, as brilliant and smart spirit that he was as an individual, didn't YET fillied all the parameters she expected from him as a Starfleet Lieutenant having a potential as a future leader and let's be honest, she wasn't totally wrong : after 5 years on Voyager, he still acted sometimes as a cadet straight out of the academy in his general behavior.

And yet she felt that Tom Paris, who proved that he has a pattern of being impulsively insubordinate to the point which he deserved both incarceration and demotion, should once again be given the rank of lieutenant? Not buying it.

 

[Farscape One]

If memory serves me, an interview with Wang once said he was told "someone has to be the ensign", or words similar.

I must point out that, except for Ezri's first 3 episodes, DS9 never had an ensign as a regular. (I know Nog was one for almost 2 years, but I am talking about main cast.)

TNG technically didn't until the last couple season 3 episodes and 9 episodes into its 4th when Wesley left. He was an acting ensign for most of the rest of the time. Then, no ensign for the rest of the series.

STAR TREK had Chekov in season 2 and 3, and though he is not credited as a main, he has always been considered one along with Sulu, Scotty, and Uhura.

VOYAGER and ENTERPRISE both had their ensigns, and both were primarily run by Berman.

Maybe in Berman's mind that statement was true. I do think there is enough evidence to support Kim's character not getting a promotion due to the actor's problems.

It is one of those odd things that never added up in VOYAGER... another in a long line of them. We'll likely never know the full reason or story, but I suspect the truth is a combination of both Berman and Wang's stories.

I will point out one thing... DS9 is the only series where virtually all the leads got a permanent promotion. Sisko, Bashir, Dax, Kira, Ezri... even Nog at the end. I feel that is realistic given amount of time and service and accomplishments.

TNG had three promotions... Worf (twice if you count GENERATIONS), Geordi twice, and Troi.

VOYAGER only had Tuvok, though Paris got demoted then promoted back, but I don't really count that. (You could argue Torres and Chakotay both got promoted from terrorist, as well as Paris from being prisoner, though I count each of those times as getting a commission rather than a promotion.)

ENTERPRISE had NO promotions. Which is odd, considering that finale took place 10 years after the pilot. EVERYONE stayed the same rank for a decade? Archer and Tucker, I buy that. T'Pol too. But Reed, not even getting to Lt. Cmdr.? And especially Travis and Hoshi? Ensigns for a decade?

 

[Farscape One]

I like to think the ship was outfitted for the Maquis mission in a bit of a rush, or the normal Operations Chief was violently ill or something, and that Kim was never intended to fill the position long-term. Or maybe with everything else going on Voyager wasn't considered a ship that needed an experienced Ops Chief.

Of course, it would have been nice if such sentiments had worked their way into an episode or two, but let's not tug at that thread...

I think Kim was supposed to be Operations Officer from the jump. He graduated high in his class, and Voyager isn't a high profile ship, not like a Galaxy or Nebula class. I look at his assignment as getting the top spot of where he was at the time, but needing to prove himself in order to move up to more high profile postings. And Janeway clearly saw something when looking at his file when deciding on an Ops Officer... "NON SEQUITUR" implies this when Kim reads his service record.

If not for Voyager's fate, it would likely have just been a regular ship like the rest of the fleet. And this was Janeway's first command, too. So it was very much a ship of testing newly promoted officers' abilities and mettle.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

VOYAGER only had Tuvok, though Paris got demoted then promoted back, but I don't really count that. (You could argue Torres and Chakotay both got promoted from terrorist, as well as Paris from being prisoner, though I count each of those times as getting a commission rather than a promotion.)

This is where the problem of Harry Kim comes into fullest light. In universe, Paris' demotion is regress. In terms of character, it's progress: it shows that the writers cared about Paris' redemption, giving him obstacles to overcome, to learn about why he behaves as he does. Eventually, he regains his rank AND he wins the girl.

Kim's lack of promotion really just shows that they don't care about the character's development. Paris gets an arc. Kim doesn't. Kim was basically Bobby Hill.