Why Didn't Harry Get Promoted?

[Akiraprise]

Why didn't Harry get promoted during VOY's run?

In-universe there really was no excuse for Janeway failing to promote him to Lt . JG at some point. By her own admission he was a great officer. Competent. He was an alpha shift bridge officer. Ops department head. Took shifts commanding the ship during night watch. Janeway was capable of and willing to both promote (Tuvok / Paris) and demote (Paris). When Tom got his rank back there should have been a box on Harry's chair as well. In-universe Janeway messed up. His rank didn't reflect his responsibilities.

Out-of-universe Wang was a bit of a pain in the butt at the time, by his own admission. TPTB refusing to allow him to direct an episode and disciplining him for poor work performance are evidence of that. Garret stated he was a bit depressed at the time and they sent him to counseling. He was young so the truth is probably a bit of both accounts. The promotion thing bothered Wang. TPTB were indifferent and perhaps a bit douchey about it and chose not to promote him.

I would have thought that the current Trek showrunners would have addressed this by now honestly. Even in a throw away line.

@Oddish the ball is in your court sir.

 

[Dukhat]

I think Harry just suffered from the same ailment that Chakotay, Paris, Torres, Neelix and Tuvok suffered from: They weren't Janeway, Seven, or the Doctor. Because by at least the 5th season, the show only centered around those three. Sure, one of those other six people might have gotten an episode or two focused on them, but by and large, it was the Janeway/7/Doctor show. So nobody really cared about Harry getting promoted, much less UPN who just wanted the show to end so they could start producing the next Trek show.

 

[Oddish]

@Oddish the ball is in your court sir.

Awww, thanks, @Akiraprise . I'm touched.

I would have thought that the current Trek showrunners would have addressed this by now honestly. Even in a throw away line.

Or a cameo on Lower Decks much earlier. They dug up Shannon Fill, who hadn't acted professionally in a quarter century, to play Sito. And if I remember right, Garrett was practically begging to be on LD...

Out-of-universe Wang was a bit of a pain in the butt at the time, by his own admission. TPTB refusing to allow him to direct an episode and disciplining him for poor work performance are evidence of that. Garret stated he was a bit depressed at the time and they sent him to counseling. He was young so the truth is probably a bit of both accounts. The promotion thing bothered Wang. TPTB were indifferent and perhaps a bit douchey about it and chose not to promote him.

Reading between the lines, they were a little more than indifferent. Undoubtedly, after Harry's remark at the end of S6, people wrote in demanding to know what the frickin' deal was, Tom getting promoted back after one year, Harry still an ensign after six. It would have been the work of twenty seconds of dialogue to just accommodate them. But instead, in "Nightingale", they pretty much rubbed our noses in the fact that Harry was staying an ensign and if we didn't like it we could piss off.

It seems clear to me that keeping Harry at ensign was a big deal for them, if they were willing to snap the fans' garters like that.

In-universe there really was no excuse for Janeway failing to promote him to Lt . JG at some point. By her own admission he was a great officer. Competent. He was an alpha shift bridge officer. Ops department head. Took shifts commanding the ship during night watch. Janeway was capable of and willing to both promote (Tuvok / Paris) and demote (Paris). When Tom got his rank back there should have been a box on Harry's chair as well. In-universe Janeway messed up. His rank didn't reflect his responsibilities.

Only it wasn't played as an error or an oversight. When Harry mentioned in "Nightingale" that he was still an ensign after 6 years, Janeway was downright nasty. First she accused him of "bucking for a promotion", then she accused him of being overly sure of himself when he said that he'd have been at least a lieutenant, had they been in the Alpha Quadrant.

Ironically, the end of that episode could have been used as a course correction. Harry feels (correctly) that so much went wrong, and he thought he was ready for command but found out how much he still had to learn. The ever-wise and supportive Janeway that we know and love assures him that that's why there are so many steps between the classrooms at Starfleet Academy and the captain's chair on a starship. No, he's not ready for her job yet. But "you are ready for the next step on your journey... Lieutenant Harry Kim."

It's not as public as the box on the chair... but just as satisfying in its own way.

 

[CaptainCalvinCat]

Oh, he was promoted. I should know, I was there. Fedcon 2011 - Ensign Kim got promoted to Lieutenant Kim by Archer. ^^

But yeah - it's really annoying, that he didn't get promoted in the Series.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Clarinet

 

[Oddish]

Clarinet

He switched instruments mid-series. Didn't help.

 

[Farscape One]

I must also accept some responsibility in Harry Kim not getting a promotion.

Years ago at DragonCon, there was a trivia contest where multiple people battled it out for a chance to go one on one with Garrett Wang. (Wang knows his ST trivia well, too.) I beat all the others and went head to head against him. The prize? Lt. pips. After a number of rounds of both of us getting everything right, he missed the last question... which I answered correctly. (I don't remember the question, but I do remember the answer was "David Livingston".)

This was a couple years before DISCO premiered, which is around the time Wang took over as director of TREK TRACK at DragonCon.

After some cheering and some laughs, he turned to me and said something along the lines of not ever seeing a promotion, and I went, "Not today... ensign." He was a great sport about the whole thing, though. He definitely has a lot of fun with the fans and it shows.


I do remember once telling Wang a couple years ago, after he lamented about being the 'eternal ensign', that DISCO made this no longer the case... with the Discovery jumping to the 32nd century, Tilly was now the 'eternal ensign'. I said something like, "900 years as an ensign... that's about as eternal as you can get." He smiled and appreciated the sentiment.

 

[Oddish]

I must also accept some responsibility in Harry Kim not getting a promotion.

It wouldn't have been canon if you'd lost. I mean, he's been a captain in two AU's that we know of. And a lieutenant in several more. They just keep getting deleted.

I think there's just so many people who take a sadistic pleasure in him being stuck at ensign, they didn't dare bring it to an end.

Spoiler

The trailer we've seen for his appearance in "Lower Decks" suggests that even as they're promoting him in one timeline (which may or may not be ours) they're not in several others.

 

[GulBahana]

Rick Berman influenced Janeway from a parallel universe.

 

[Farscape One]

Admiral Rick Berman is listed on a LOT of starship dedication plaques...

 

[AntonyF]

The producers didn't promote a fictional character to upset Wang? Why would that upset him? He wanted more rank insignia to pawn?

 

[Lynx]

He switched instruments mid-series. Didn't help.

And he started to like Iron Maiden as well and that didn't help either!



Poor Harry, this is the reason why I was promoted and you weren't!



Harry learned his lesson but it didn't help.

 

[GulBahana]

Rick Berman

The producers didn't promote a fictional character to upset Wang? Why would that upset him? He wanted more rank insignia to pawn?

It did upset him. He called the producers and asked why he wasn't promoted.

 

[AntonyF]

Rick Berman

It did upset him. He called the producers and ask why he wasn't promoted.

Why would that upset him? He wanted more rank insignia to pawn?

 

[Oddish]

Why would that upset him? He wanted more rank insignia to pawn?

His 7-year ensignhood was obviously intended to be humiliating, and it worked. It's basically made his character a laughingstock for the last 20+ years, poor dumb Harry and all that. Just look at the Voyager caption contests and the VOY 5-word story on this site.

 

[WarpTenLizard]

The only explanation I could ever come up with was that Starfleet told her "no more promitions" before she got the chance.

Right when they first got lost, she gave field commissions to all the Maquis, plus Paris. Tuvok then got a promotion in early Season 4, right before contact with Starfleet. Perhaps Starfleet told her, "enough promotions and field commissions already!"

The problem with this theory is that Ayala apparently got a very significant promotion near the end of Season 7, receiving both a command uniform and dialogue!

 

[Oddish]

Right when they first got lost, she gave field commissions to all the Maquis, plus Paris. Tuvok then got a promotion in early Season 4, right before contact with Starfleet. Perhaps Starfleet told her, "enough promotions and field commissions already!"

A few problems with that...
1. Given that Harry earned a hollow pip in 8 months in the "Non Sequiteur" timeline, he should have been promoted long before contact was made with Starfleet.
2. Tom was promoted back to lieutenant at the end of S6, well after contact was made with Starfleet.
3. Harry's remark suggested that there was no reason why he couldn't be promoted as well.
4. It's just illogical. Starfleet is OK with a Maquis terrorist as first officer and a Starfleet dropout as chief engineer, but they can't handle an Academy graduate getting promoted on schedule? It would have made more sense for them to direct Janeway to promote him.

 

[Tosk]

I think it's pretty obvious that the integrity of the prime timeline depends on Harry being an ensign.
If he does get promoted in an upcoming Lower Decks, that would explain the degradation of the galaxy we see in Star Trek Picard. Graphic violence, everyone starts swearing, people can't afford to turn the lights on...mass hysteria!

 

[Oddish]

I think it's pretty obvious that the integrity of the prime timeline depends on Harry being an ensign.
If he does get promoted in an upcoming Lower Decks, that would explain the degradation of the galaxy we see in Star Trek Picard. Graphic violence, everyone starts swearing, people can't afford to turn the lights on...mass hysteria!

All the more reason for him to turn up in Season 3 wearing captain's pips.

 

[Farscape One]

Harry could easily have been promoted in "NIGHT", the season 5 premiere, by Kim walking onto the bridge with his Lt. pips... exactly how we discovered Dax and Bashir got a promotion between season 3 and 4. At that point, he was an ensign for 4 years... already too long in that rank, particularly given he is already a bridge officer, a department head, and was exceeding all expectations according to Janeway.