Exactly. Harry's not really an ensign at all. We see in "Lower Decks" (the TNG episode and the show) how ensigns live. Harry's more like a lieutenant wearing ensign pips. But we still recognize those who do a good job serving humanity (and non-humanity as well). Which Harry has done. Especially after seeing a guy who messed up worse than you getting promoted past you. Maybe Harry shouldn't have mentioned it right then, but once Tom got promoted back, Harry should have gone to Janeway or maybe Chakotay and asked them what he was doing wrong.
I can see it now... Kim: But seriously, why haven't I been promoted while Tom's not only been demoted but re-promoted to a rank above my own? Janeway: Well...you see...Chakotay and I were discussing promoting you, but then you made that crack about not seeing a box on your chair. That was conduct unbecoming a lieutenant. Not on my bridge, Mister Kim. Kim: ...(throws badge onto Janeway's desk) Take this job and shove it...ma'am.
Needed some irony punctuation to highlight the high degree of sarcasm. Yes, he should be recognized, which is why I find any in universe excuses as just that-excuses.
Which gives me the impression that the writers were the problem, not the characters. They couldn't write for Kes, they couldn't write for Chakotay, they couldn't write for Kim! Was there any character they could have written for, except Seven and maybe The Doctor? And wouldn't the problem have been solved if they had fired the writers and replaced them with people who could write for all main characters? Just look at the Voyager books from the first three seasons where all those characters they couldn't write for actually are doing something. Harry Kim is much better in the books than he was in the series. In the books, he solves a lot of technical problems, computer problems and is involved with a lot of action too.
An observation I made when VOYAGER was airing... In the theme for seasons 1-3, everyone who has a rank is shown the rank in their name. (They even went as far as B'Elanna not having her rank shown in the credits until "TIME AND AGAIN", which is the episode after she was made Chief Engineer, and Chakotay and Paris didn't have their ranks shown until "PARALLAX".) For seasons 4-7, except for Janeway, no one ever has their rank shown in the credits again. Obviously, the reason they made changes was because they had to remove Jennifer Lien's name and character and add Jeri Ryan. But they made efforts in the beginning to show proper rank in the theme, so why didn't they just keep to that bit of attention to detail? (I know that for half of the first season, the rank pips were all wrong for everyone except Janeway and Kim. Which was already a strange thing to miss for that long. The pilot of a series? That can happen. An episode or two into the new show? Sure, I can see that. But for half of the season? That always struck me as odd.)
Wouldn't blame him. But that's if he did it right after doing it wrong. What if he didn't point it out then, but later. Something like... Chakotay's Quarters. Chakotay is reading from a padded. There's a chime. CHAKOTAY: "Come in." Enter Harry. HARRY: "Am I disturbing you, sir?" CHAKOTAY: "Not at all, Ensign. What's on your mind?" HARRY: "It's the captain. I'm just wondering..." CHAKOTAY (nods understanding): "Why she promoted Paris back to lieutenant and you're still an ensign." The problem is, there's no answer Chakotay could give. How do you defend a decision that's inherently indefensible? There's a reason why Harry's comment on the bridge was interrupted by that distress signal. That's because any competent writer could do any number of things with his character. A brand new ensign, still at the start of his journey... the writers could have done anything with him. I know. Is it wrong that I think the "Before and After" timeline was better than the one we got? It struck me as sloppy. Most of Voyager's issues were a result of that. But I read a deeper (and nastier) issue in Harry's non-promotion, since they could have settled that easily enough but made an active choice not only to not do it, but to spend more effort in explaining why they weren't doing it than it would have taken to do it! Possibly because they were planning to have some mid-season rank changes, as happened with Tuvok and Tom. It would have been that easy to do one more!
That might explain Tuvok, who was promoted on the 5th episode of season four, "REVULSION". But not Tom. That was in "THIRTY DAYS", 8 episodes into season five.
They made the changes for Season 4, and just didn't go back. There were no other lineup changes, after all. And, given that VOY was struggling in its later seasons, they might not have wanted to spend more money than they had to. Besides, maybe they wanted to leave it open for other characters to be promoted or demoted as well. And @fireproof78 - I think you're right. Voyager had too many good episodes for us to dismiss all the writers as incompetents... though you did wonder what they were thinking sometimes. Looking at you, "Threshold".
Sometimes I wonder whether they made episodes with the express intention of seeing how the fans would react to the shenanigans they were releasing.
I think they were thinking "We need to get this script done, so let's do it." Arguably, people who are writing it are not always going to see the problems as we do.
It's just that Starfleet probably has ridiculously high promotion standards. 'Hrm, saved the space-time-continuum 3 times.... saved a few planetary populations from extinction level events.... came up with the technical breakthrough that made a defense against the transtemporal phase cannon of species X possible....took the initiative for the heroic deeds at Caliburn X that later proved to have turned the tide in the war ... sorry ensign Whatsyourname, you need some more substantial achievements to warrant a promotion to Lt. Jg.'
I think that's the part that drives me nuts. The attitude expressed about humans on Earth are supposedly about human growth and potential, yet moving up one step in rank is unreasonable? How does an organization grow like that? It's not like Harry is asking to move to commander or captain. He's asking for a reasonable promotion pace, demonstrated both in universe and out of universe. It's unreasonable by any definition.
Ridiculously VARIABLE promotion standards. Will Riker did seven years of exemplary work, and got four promotions. Harry Kim did seven years of exemplary work and got zilch. No other ensign in the first four shows got similarly shafted, and only one other officer period. Especially when the guy next to you just did. After he got thrown in the pokey for attempted terrorism, while all you did was get space syphilis. And undoubtedly, that fact was pointed out by the viewers post-sixth season, after Harry didn't find a box on his chair. So why didn't the showrunners just spend 20 seconds of one episode having Janeway slap a pip on his collar and be done with it?
Perhaps the 'it's not what you know but who you know' that's more important in 24th century Starfleet than we're led to believe. Truth be told, Will Riker does strike me as more socially savvy than Harry Kim. It could also explain why Data never got one beyond the rank we saw him have on TNG. (Then again, that wouldn't explain Tom Paris' field commission and re-promotion. Or perhaps it would - he's still an Admiral's son, after all).
You mean despite saving the Federation from Borg assimilation and Romulan machinations in one year. While Deanna got a promotion by killing a hologram of Geordi. Data would have just repaired the conduit himself. In full cynical mode, yeah. But that's not something Janeway (the captain I grew to admire) would do, any more than the one who denigrated Harry in "Nightingale". And @fireproof78 , love your avatar.
And would probably have survived that. Which means he would have gotten a different test in the first place. Or the test would have been reconfigured in such a way that his presence on the bridge as a commander was absolutely required and going in himself simply wasn't an acceptable option. After all, the point of the test was not to fix the problem, and not even to see if someone would sacrifice their own life, but to see if they could get their priorities straight, even if that meant ordering someone else to their death. Also, Data might have some problems interpreting 'my first duty is to the ship' correctly: Data: And, commander, did I pass the test? Riker: No, because your 'solution' didn't just kill off the entire crew, but every civilian and child, too. In fact, there's no trace of organic life left! Data: Yes, but the vessel is intact, which is my first duty.