This, or something like the main ops person, Lt either jg or sg but probably jg due to the ship's size, got killed by exploding console syndrome when the caretaker took the ship. thus Harry had to take over
Why does Harry Kim never get promoted?
- Thread starter B. L.
- Start date
Exactly. It made no sense in terms of Riker's character that he would shoot up four ranks in seven years, then just... stop. He originally took the berth on the Enterprise to accelerate his career. Once he was offered his own command in "Icarus Factor", he should have taken his next step. BUT, there was an IRL reason: Frakes was popular.
DS9's equivalent of long term stupidity was Ishka's "turn Ferengi females from essentially livestock to full blown equality just by seducing the Nagus" routine. But female rights on Ferenginar were just going to happen: it was the 1990's, after all. And, the realistic road to equal rights is a slow, brutal process with reactionary males fighting every step of the way. Since the writers didn't have time for this, they suspended disbelief. I get it.
Again, that would work as well. But with Chakotay, Torres, Paris, and the EMH all catapulted into their positions by DEATH, I opted to have Harry's path be different.
But then the producers would have to go to the graphics department and get them to change the intro to reflect the change, and who's got that kind of time?
they did it for Tom, didn’t they? And of course for Kes/7But then the producers would have to go to the graphics department and get them to change the intro to reflect the change, and who's got that kind of time?
Given that "Ensign Harry Kim" was replaced by "Harry Kim", it's like the credits graphics people were figuring, "Ok, let's just figure they're going to promote the poor sap at some point. They can't possibly plan on keeping him at ensign for the full seven years, that would just be frickin' dumb."
Or they wanted to keep open the option that at some point, he would be stripped even of his Ensign rank
Or they wanted to keep open the option that at some point, he would be stripped even of his Ensign rank
That would have at least been doing SOMETHING with the character.
Riker not accepting a promotion to captain didn't make sense to me in-universe. You don't go straight from 1st officer aboard a big ship to command of a big ship. You go from 1st officer of a big ship to command of a small to medium ship, and then to command a big ship. It gives captains a chance to work up to the hard job a step at a time. Even if Picard was killed or something, the command of the Enterprise would go to someone who'd been captain of a medium-sized ship already, not to Riker. In a realistic series, he would have been separated from Starfleet the second time he turned down a captain's job, in order to give one of the Lt Commanders a chance to move up to Commander.
Riker's lack of promotion and Harry's were similar in that they both made no sense whatsoever in universe. Riker's, however, made sense in the real world. The viewers liked Patrick Stewart, they liked Jonathan Frakes, and they liked Brent Spiner. So, all three of them were kind of stuck where they were. Promoting any of them would have required removing someone.
Harry's lack of promotion was totally unnecessary. Anything he did with one gold pip on his collar, he could have done with a black pip next to it. Therefore, the slack that I cut TNG for not promoting Riker does NOT pass to Voyager.
Harry's lack of promotion was totally unnecessary. Anything he did with one gold pip on his collar, he could have done with a black pip next to it. Therefore, the slack that I cut TNG for not promoting Riker does NOT pass to Voyager.
he was hoping for picard to die in the middle o an emergency, he being able to save the situation and being then able to convince admirals that he could do the job better than anyone else because he was familiar with ship and crew.
Which in a real navy (one that reassigns officers every few months to avoid exactly the kind of personal loyalty we see) doesn’t make sense, but perhaps In starfleet might fly...
He was probably bummed when picard decided not to take that civilian job in family.
Except that it probably wouldn't go down that way. He'd be intimately familiar, but it's still far more likely they'd appoint another, already experienced captain, and ask (command) Riker to stay on as XO to help the new captain to get accustomed to this particular ship. The only exception to that would be an emergency field promotion without any time to fly another person in, such as in BOBW.
This is, after all, supposedly the flagship, the poster ship, the very finest ship they have, not the Stargazer where they could take the gamble of appointing an inexperienced Captain.
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that’s exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of (and that happens). No surprise he didn’t like Jellico!
Even so, I doubt that it would have been permanent. I suspect the rank itself would have stuck (as he was due for promotion to Captain anyway), but he'd be transferred to a smaller vessel as soon as the crisis was over and circumstances allowed for it. Probably, only the most senior captains of the entire fleet would be considered for captaincy of the flagship as a permanent position.
Janeway promised him a deferred superpromotion as soon as they returned to Earth if only he’d remain ensign and encourage the rest of the crew to keep their ranks and help preserve stability. In 2378, Harry immediately became a commodore, then admiral soon after.
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