“Nightingale”

For this episode, I ignore all aspects of "Harry the Captain," and instead view it as a cautionary tale of what happens when you intervene in the internal affairs of other societies. Because the plot is actually preposterous - not only does Harry decide to help support the Kraylor cloaking device prototype shakedown cruise, he engages in military actions against the Annari, all while wearing a Starfleet uniform. There are violations of sovereignty all over the place.

Meh. At least there were those cool shots of the warp nacelles being refurbished.

My favourite nickname for Harry Kim is "the man who can't be moved" because it's true. His character can't be moved. He never develops. If half the stuff that happened to him happened on Battlestar Galactica (well, half the stuff that happened to him WOULDN'T happen at all on Battlestar Galactica), getting sucked out of an airlock, having his heart broken, getting killed and brought back to life... (I could go on all day) he'd either have committed suicide or be a nervous, defunct wreck by now

I think this episode came way too late, despite its many flaws. Ensign Kim changes WAY too much in this episode. In a few episodes back, he's gullible about getting home... and now he's playing captain?

The truth is that in some scenes, Harry appears to be quite a strong leader - a deeper voice, more confidant, etc. While I don't doubt the credibility of this character EVENTUALLY... it comes right out of left field here. Simply put, the character did not undergo enough transformation to make what is shown here credible.

Sure, Harry makes some pretty bad mistakes as captain... and I suppose you should make mistakes when your learning command. Still, the mistakes even come out of left field... and the dialog and acting make it go way over the top. When Harry was "being the big man", I was cringing. I had a sick feeling to my stomach. I felt that the writers were pushing too hard to force this on Harry. The dialog and logic behind his actions also kind of didn't make sense.

The whole episode is just two much of an extreme. I get emotional stomach pain watching.

This is just an example of how the writers, even after 7 years, still base their stories on what must have been written in the show's bible. While DS9 comparisons are cliche I can't help but draw the comparison to Dr. Bashir who of course started off as the green fresh out of school doctor but matured at a respectable pace as the series progressed. The writers/costume people even gave him a promotion LT JG to full LT.

Just think about it. By this point, Nog was alread a junior-grade lieutenant, outranking Kim.

Harry was a waste of bridge space. No one lasts 7 years as an ensign if they're doing a good job. Given how much Garrett phoned it in, I'm not surprised that might reflect on his character development.

Data said the average ensign life span was 3 years.

"At least there were those cool shots of the warp nacelles being refurbished."

I liked that footage, too, but what struck me (and this is not the first time) was how tiny Voyager was made to look compared to the people scampering around it. It's sized more like a jumbojet than a starship bearing a dozen or so decks. I remember thinking the same the few times Voyager was shown landing on a planet and was shot with crewmembers standing near it.

Anyway, soooooo, Harry "Can't-Get-A-Lock" Kim a captain!?! Wow. That guy couldn't captain a third-division junior highschool hopscotch team!! LOL!!! But another fine mess he got Voyager into.

"The show wants us to accept Harry as a starship captain. That's sort of like asking us to accept Tuvok as a stand-up comedian."
:)))))))))))))))))))))))))

No-Lock: "If we werre back home, I'd be a [] lieutenant-commander[.]"
Ha! Given the number of things he screwed up over the seven years, I'd have him scrubbing plasma-conduits! I'd sooner have Icheb be an admiral than "No-Lock" anything above an ensign, and even that's really pushing it. He is always depicted as a nice guy but there wasn't a single moment I remember him really shining.

Speaking of Icheb, that poor guy's probably still having wet dreams, ten years after the episode was shot! Man, the scriptwriters can be really cruel!! *grin*

Um, anyhow, here's what I don't get: The Kraylor planet is in dire straits and its inhabitants may die of starvation due to the Anari blockade of the planet. So, the planet is not self-sufficient? Unlikely. Secondly, why did "Dr. Loken" develop the cloaking technology so far away from the planet instead of on the planet itself? Ah, never mind.

Good show. I liked the action sequences. It deserves three stars, in my view.

Icheb's nutritional supplement looked like nachos.

An episode centred around Ensign Hapless - yeah that was going to end well.

Dull as dishwater, just like Kim himself.. I almost nodded off, if not for the odd slightly interesting moment like watching slices of nacelle being moved around.

One star, and not a golden one...

"My favourite nickname for Harry Kim is "the man who can't be moved" because it's true."
I guess there's too much interference to move him?

"Wandering into an alien conflict by chance, Harry makes a choice while on a Delta Flyer mission with Seven and Neelix: He opts to stop one ship from firing on another. Strictly speaking as a matter of policy, the conflict is not his concern, but humanitarian instincts tell him that saving the crippled ship under attack is the right thing to do."

I'd say that's court-martial material right there.

An overlooked point is that while Harry is interfering in an alien squabble he knows nothing about, Voyager is helplessly planetside with its insides splayed out in the open. So if there's a hostile response to Kim's meddling, Voyager not only can't come to his rescue, but has zero capacity to defend anyone at all.

Both Janeway and Kim were lucky that all the Annari did was escort Voyager out of their space. If they had decided to arrest everyone and impound Voyager, what could the crew have down, given that the ship was totally helpless during its maintenance?

Zero stars. Unless it becomes a two-parter with Kim being court-martialed the next episode.

Hah. I was just cleaning through my hardrive and forgotten I actually wrote my own review on Nightingale. I posted it some 12 years ago to Usenet, where it's still archived to this day:

groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.startrek.reviews/browse_thread/thread/2413150b6f0ca120/38069ddf84fc5af4?q=nightingale+author:mitchell+author:spector#38069ddf84fc5af4

I think it was my first and only Trek review! I sort of felt the need to vent about the series and this particular episode culminated a lot of those frustrations.

I didnt mind this episode in the least. Not great stuff but a welcome Kim driven show. The character of Harry Kim has been hamstrung up to this point by writing that keeps him as Ensign Naive. He always struck me as competent just not given the chance to shine often being outshone by other characters. I like this episode as an"ok" one.

The words of wisdom spouted from Seven concerning Harry's "command" should really have come from Neelix. He is the one with the introspection necessary to have made those somments in a useful fashion...as much as I like Seven, those comments didnt seem right coming from her. She looks better in tight clothes than Neelix and that is always good for ratings...

And I thought the Icheb B story was kind of cute...Jammer missed her reaction in the form of a wry smile when she agreed to not see him again :)

Why is it that people complain Harry Kim's character never evolves and then on episodes where they work on "Evolving" his character people complain that it was "So obvious" and don't like it?
Go back to previous episodes with Harry Kim as the main plot character and read the forums section and you'll see what I'm talking about.

@Jay: I noticed that too! I guess nachos would be a 16-year old kid's preferred nutritional supplement. :)

Wow, what a terrible episode. I'm not sure if the Harry Kim character or Garrett Wang's acting is worse, but they're both positively cringe-worthy.

One thing that really bugged me that no one else brought up is the idea that flying a ship automatically equals a chain of command. If I ask someone else to drive my car home, that doesn't mean I'm going to call them "sir" and let them bark orders at me. I thought that was very presumptuous on Kim's part, to make the jump from chauffeur to captain. I would drive home blind before I'd let someone I just met boss me around.

This reminds me of what happened with Lost in Space. They may have begun with Guy Willians and June Lockhart as leads but the show became all about Jonathan Harris's anti-hero Doctor Smith, making for one very unhappy cast.

Certainly that had to be true here too, with Robert Beltran complaining the loudest.

Firefly this ain't, but Firefly's writers didn't have to come up with seven years of material based on three previous series dating back 45 years.

On the subject of Firefly, I'm stunned that no one remarked on Shepherd Book's turn in this episode as a somewhat duplicitous weapons scientist.

I don't think I ever actually saw this episode when it first aired (I believe I would have had exams coming up in late Nov). It's not really *that* bad, and although I pretty much agree with Jammer's review, I do find Kim just affable enough to enjoy watching. He's the star of some of the worst episodes of the series and makes for the blandest character on a ship on which Tom Paris, Tuvok, and Chakotay also serve.

The Icheb subplot is a reasonably well executed cliche, but "guy misreads situation" is almost too pedestrian for the amount of screen time it gets. Snooze.

@Josh, ah, so that is Shepherd Book's big secret!

Harry Kim must be the worst actor in Voyager. Whatever he does his expression stays the same. They should have got rid of him the same time they got rid of the other poorly acted character Kes.

One thing could have helped this episode along: if at the end, Kim simply left his statement as "I'm not a captain." That would have been a wonderful realisation. Not everyone is a leader. Not everyone is command material. Unfortunately, Kim had to blow it with his follow up statement "At least not yet." This is not confidence; this is delusion.

1. why is it everyone complains about Harry kim not "growing?" but every time they try to make him grow, everyone complains about it. it is too late. it makes no sense. he cant have a lock..blah blah blah. if they didnt tell us ..they cant get a lock..then you would all complain.."why didnt they just beam them out."

i swear, some of you guys dont understand it is about entertainment.

i was fully entertained. i was not bored. i liked belannas wry smile over ichebs comments.

i think it is so silly that jammer makes fun of kim the whole review but doesnt mention the smart job he did to save the scientist and the ship. in the end he came through... jammer makes it look like he failed. he just came over an initial flaw and had the cajones to realize he was wrong in his initial command.

3 stars.

Harry Kim, and Garrett Wang for that matter, get the most unfair treatment on this site. It's astounding. I have not been able to determine why there is this level of negativity for both the character and in numerous cases, the actor. It almost seems discriminatory. Seriously. Moreover, the writers seem to share this same uncomfortable view.

I was grateful to see a Harry Kim episode. It was definitely long overdue and not the best character development, but I honestly could see where the writers were trying to go. This episode would have been much better suited to seasons 3 or 4 than to 7 but, here it is, anyway.

The beginning of the episode had potential to let Kim shine and demonstrate growth. By the middle of the episode, his chance to solidify our confidence were sabotaged by the plot. I understood every decision that Kim made and probably would have done the same thing. The circumstances were a big fat Catch 22 trap!

It would have been one thing to focus on forgivable errors like not being able to delegate without taking over or perhaps not taking suggestions from the crew. Instead, we get all of that PLUS a "flip of the script" when the mission changes from humanitarian to military. Harry has to deal with lies, an attack, the death of a crew member, mutiny, and being dressed down by Seven. He's lucky to have fared well at all. Anyone would.

I think the writers have done little service to the character, Harry Kim, and have encouraged the unrelenting ire of Star Trek fans. It's a shame. I wish others could see the character as fondly as I do.

Not sure I understand your astonishment when you acknowledge that Kim's character was poorly written. Are viewers supposed to pity him in spite of it? Why?

That said, whatever derision Kim deserves, failing to be promoted -- or to grow at all -- is not the reason. On DS9, while many characters traveled a grand arc, O'Brien was the eternal Chief. (Unless you consider his evolution from TNG extra to be an arc.) Even having a son changed O'Brien none whatsoever. Perhaps because he was already mature, his lack of growth was less noticeable than Kim's because Kim would've been expected to emerge from his galaxy-spanning odyssey changed in some way. (After serving as a chew toy, one might imagine Kim was eager to get home so he could quit Starfleet for good.)

Kim earned mockery, and O'Brien did not, because Kim was portrayed as incompetent. (Except when the plot needed him to be a genius.) That would've been interesting if he had been aware of and bothered by it, like the misfits in "Good Shepherd." Instead, as Jammer explains here and which few will deny, he was a victim of the writers' neglect. The negativity aimed at Kim is a natural response to the character as portrayed; that he shouldn't have been portrayed so poorly earns Kim no sympathy.

I understand your points, Grumpy. Perhaps I have not explained my position well enough.

Some have complained about Garrett Wang's performance, as well as his character's incompetence. I disagree with those views. I think Mr. Wang has portrayed a believable character in Harry Kim. And, I think that Harry Kim is competent although eternally "green." The disservice is in leaving him at Season 1.

This character helps to build the Delta Flyer, single-handedly creates Astro-Metrics and among other skills, understands Holomatrix technology but he is "the incompetent" one? I don't see that. What does this guy have to do to earn a pip on this ship?

He is also "green" in the area of romance, but only compared to the chemistry established with such pairings as Tom/Kes, Tom/B'Elanna, Janeway/Chakotay, The Doctor/Seven, etc. Harry Kim has forever been relegated to "wing man."

I really feel for the guy, if for nothing else than that he is the true "underdog."

I've got to admit I did find it surprisingly entertaining, although it really isn't anything to write home about.

Harrys' situation was an interesting one where he's in an unknown conflict surrounded by catch-22s and opposition on every front, with serious self-doubts looming over his head; not to mention a hefty responsibility ranking up the pressure dangerously close to melting point.

His reactions are believable and while the episode didn't really live up to much of its potential, I liked the new sides shown to the character particularly with how he dealt with failure.

He's got the instincts, but life's got plenty left to teach him. My favourite scene was when Harry asks Janeway for a chance to prove himself. Her proud smile niggled with worry and thoughtfulness was a beautiful Voyager 'family' moment.

It's not perfect, the ending was abrupt and the juvenile B plot was a big waste of time, its definitively a good character story for the one guy who really needed one.

3/4 stars.

As much as I laugh at Kim (not that I'm much better in my eternal dead end job - maybe it makes me feel better :P), it's just that he's written so endlessly green. I don't think it's fair to bash Mr Wang as an actor either, he could only do what was written for him.

Anyway, Kim is quite a developed character, in hindsight, after watching Enterprise with erm... wotsisname... thingy... Mayweather.

Previous to watching this episode I saw that Jammer gave it two stars, so I was prepared for something pretty mediocre. So I guess that's why I found myself entertained by the episode. I honestly thought it was well acted and the characterizations were good. I thought this was the best Harry episode besides "Timeless", but in this one he's actually playing his current self. Harry doesn't bother me like he does other people – he is a little bit of a caricature, but there are people in the world like that.

I thought the story with Icheb and B'Elanna was hilarious! I think the thing I liked best about this episode – not that I thought it was the greatest – was just the tension between the characters in both plots. I think that's what made it good for me.

So Season 7 seems to be the trolling season so far. At least trolling the people who actually cared about this show being good.

You've got Repression. Which is basically "hey look at the things we could have done to make this show really good a long time ago." The mutiny that really should have happened in season 1 or 2. And should have been real. This reminded me of the other mutiny that was fake, Worst Case Scenario. Although that episode was more worthwhile since it was more of a fun episode where the mutiny was a holodeck program where everyone was enjoying playing the parts in it.

Then you've got Inside Man where we see episodes that could have been with the excellent Pathfinder cast. They brought back the entire that made Pathfinder so good and wasted them on a Ferengi episode. It only serves as a reminder of how these characters should have been a much larger part of the show.

And now Nightingale showing us an episode that should have happened in season 1 where Harry Kim actually gets some development. Learning how to be in command, realizing what it means to be in command. But we all know it won't stick. Harry will still be the lovable dumb sap that we all know and hate. So should I say "development."

I have already seen the series finale, so I know that we don't even see anything that happens after Voyager gets home. Because presumably that would be too difficult for the writers to come up with. No mention of Doc and Seven integrating into society. No mention of the crew coming home after being gone for seven years and trying to re-integrate (not that they ever thought they were going to not make it home anyway). No meetings with Barclay and the Pathfinder crew. Nothing. Just "Voyager's home, roll credits."

So basically season 7 is just trolling everyone who cared about the show. How did this happen.

I'd like to also throw some words of support towards Wong. I think he's a perfectly fine actor. Perhaps, his character should have had more meaningful stand alone episodes. But, he had some good roles from time to time. For instance, Ashes to Ashes was a very good episode in my opinion. I'm not an expert on Voyager, but I've probably seen 1/3 of the shows up to this point.

I think this show was an interesting exploration of the Prime Directive rules. It was a good conflict to compare and contrast what Kim might have learned since the academy. Unfortunately, the Voyager crew was not integrated into Kim's story, and the larger frame story was not fully developed. Due to the absence of a larger frame story, the episode hinges completely on Kim and the characters of the crew of the ship he commands. This puts a lot of pressure on the guest actors and Kim's character. Still, the episode accomplished the goal of featuring Kim as the main character in a reasonably appropriate plot for a personal journey.

I thought it was odd that a member of a nonhuman species would use the word "humanitarian."

Oh, I get it. The Kraylor guy actually said, "[We're on a] Kraylorian [mission]” and the universal translator rendered it as "We're on a humanitarian mission." That must be it.

I don’t think we are supposed to accept Harry as a Captain. The whole point of the episode is that he thinks he can do it, but can’t (yet). And unlike Jammer I thought he did at least learn that much by the end. Still there are several problems:
-It came too late in the series. Season 4 would have been the right time, with room for Harry to grow from there.
-Wang’s acting (sorry. Sometimes he's good, but here he's just ok)
-A few logical issues, notably how ridiculously easy it was for Harry to « use [the enemy’s] weapons against them » twice in the episode.
Still, I respect the writer’s good intentions for once, so I’ll be generous and give it 2.5 stars.

When I saw Ron Glass in this one as Loken, I immediately thought, "That's the same one who played Harris on Barney Miller!" Sure enough, he was the very same.

Garret Wang himself complains that much like WIl Wheaton, Rick Berman had it out for him from the get-go which is why we saw Wesley Crusher ultimately sidelined more and more shortly after Gene Rodenberry's death.

Berman actually wanted to fire Wang, but Wang made it on the cover of some magazine and helped give the show some recognition and ultimately I think he was chosen over Kes. His punishment (in his mind) was that his charcacter would never be full developed beyond geeky sidekick. Wang himself complains that towards the end that the series had become nothing more than the, "Doctor/7 show"

Harry tries on the big boy pants. We all knew where this was going. He'd start with overconfidence, events would occur that made him doubt himself as a leader, someone gives him a peptalk and he accepts his limits and saves the day.
And then he's just plain old Harry Kim again. Poor guy has one interesting episode over the course of 7 seasons. That's rough. I always kind of liked Harry, but it seems he was destined to come in last.
The Icheb/B'elanna subplot was meh. It's believable, given what we know about Icheb but not really funny or interesting. Another episode of nothing really happened or changed and I doubt I'll remember this episode for very long.

Voyager looks so small compared to the people standing on it. I don't think it's big enough.

Garrett Wang is a good actor, but compared to Ryan and Picardo who are Excellent actors, it makes Wang's acting look bad in comparison. We have been privledged to see how Ryan and Picardo can convey emotions/messages through just their eyes or body language for a few seasons now. They raised the bar, and Wang can't compete.

I was a Manager of Operations in IT, and I know many people who have told me they have no interest in management. They are smart, technically minded people who are perfectly happy to stay where they are in life and career. Some of them would make great managers, but some would definitely not be good. Some people are born salesmen, whereas others can try, study, imitate, but never truly be as good as The Born Salesman. I believe the same goes for Leadership Qualities and People Skills. Kim has been written as someone who is technically gifted, but lacking in leadership. Time to take him off the night shift Captain duty, (before he beams up another bomb), and give someone else a chance to prove themselves. To Kim: Focus on your strengths. Command is not one of them.

Everyone who violates the Prime Directive should be thrown into the Brig. I can just see Tuvok escorting Kim to the Brig. When they get there, we see Janeway and Torres behind a forcefield. They look at Kim and say at the same time "Prime Directive?". Kim just smiles, shrugs and says "What else, Prime Directive".

Even Picard violated The Prime Directive "9 times" as stated in one episode. Violating it has apparently no consequences at all.

It's almost endearing that even now as the series rolls toward its end there's still an idea that Harry Kim can carry an episode. Oh, this is inoffensive enough to be sure, but seeing Harry make a string of bad decisions that culminates in a 'success' that he has no right to be even doing at all does not a great episode make. The one great moment is Seven's askance look over her shoulder as Kim pronounces "Engage!" in portentous style.

The Icheb B-story is about as light as it gets, but amiable enough all the same. But only 2 stars.

I liked how Icheb, being a typical teenager, is caught snacking on nachos at his workstation but plays it cool by rationalizing 'snacking' as "a more efficient use of my time", and 'nachos' as "nutritional supplements replicated to meet my metabolic requirements."

Ah, the episode that raises a difficult question. Who is more naive, the bridge officer with seven years of experience in a challenging environment, or the Borg kid with less than a year of actual life experience? Decisions, decisions...

Speaking of the Icheb subplot, it was light as a feather, but perfectly adequate. Seeing him get involved more with the ship is a good idea and nice continuity with Survival Instinct, and I guess if anyone is going to have such a clueless romantic encounter it would be him. Dawson plays the part of the completely befuddled Torres perfectly, and her reactions once Icheb announces that they have to break it off was probably the best part. I also liked Icheb's interpretation of Tom talking about racing cars as being an invitation to a duel for Torres' honor. I wasn't expecting that part (I was expecting Icheb to interpret this as Tom being open to Icheb pursuing romantic relationship with B'Elanna), and I liked that interpretation of it. But like I said, this was a harmless fluff of a B-plot, and it filled its role adequately. Which is a good thing, because the A-plot failed.

I'm not one to complain about Harry being static. I think there were some attempts, albeit very light, to make him grow. In Demon, he really did stop being a wallflower and start asserting himself more, and I think that aspect of his character did stick with him through the 5th and 6th seasons. He did start getting command of the night shift. He did stop pining for home constantly. Yes, these are barely present, and there are incredible step-backs such as his naivete at the end of Inside Man, but they are there. So seeing him try to assert himself here works as well, and I think works reasonably given Harry's minimal character arc, rather than seeming to come out of nowhere.

The problem, though, is that it was done so poorly. Twice we have the patented Voyager method for character development. Character A acts in an extremely one-sided manner through several scenes. Character B has a talk with Character A. Character A then becomes the complete opposite of what he was like before. And then circumstances twist themselves in a way to validate the new approach Character A has. It's pretty ham-fisted, but it's an approach Voyager's been using for years. They love it so much they use it twice here, both times with Seven as the one to chat with Harry. Unfortunately, they both fail, albeit for different reasons.

In the first, we have Harry being completely incompetent in his first command, being so heavy handed about the people surrounding him. Given that he's been watching Janeway for seven years, and seeing that he's been running the night shift for a year, shouldn't he know that stuff by now? Was he really micromanaging things on the bridge of Voyager? That seemed rather ridiculousness to me. Seriously, Wesley had more ability as a leader back in Pen Pals than Harry does here. He was so pathetic that it basically rips his character apart. How is Seven smarter than him here?

And of course, the second time around was the wrong lesson. So Harry quits being captain after learning that he has inadvertently taken a side and engaged in military matters in a war. And then Seven claims he's only quitting because of his self-confidence. Excuse me? Harry is completely violating about a gazilion Federation protocols, so of course he should quit. Of course he ought to avoid working with them anymore. Yet the episode goes out of its way to declare that that is not the issue, that Harry should be helping these people. People who lied to him, who are transporting military equipment, who are basically trying to drag him into a war. What does he possibly owe these folks?

Really, the episode takes some time to make it clear how messy the situation is in and how delicate Voyager needs to be when treading in these internal affairs. But then throws it all away in a desperate attempt to give Kim something to do. It's bad writing when you completely fail to appreciate the larger points of your plot just to create a ham-fisted character development piece that doesn't really work to begin with.

And, like I said, the episode then creates a contrivance to show how awesome of a captain Harry can be. So what does he do? He violates the Geneva Convention. Well, ok, I'm sure there is no Geneva Convention in the Delta Quadrant, but his solution is basically a war crime. Faking a surrender is heavily frowned upon, and for good reason. What Harry taught his "enemies" is that his allies can't be trusted, and so the next time an ally tries to surrender the enemy will blow them to bits. After all, how can they be certain that an attempt at surrender isn't just another trick? But of course, the episode doesn't even think about that sort of thing.

I have no qualms with the idea of giving Harry some well needed character development, but it was just so clear that they had an endgame in mind and were going to force a bad plot into that endgame regardless of the logic or consequences of that plot.

Harry just needs to set his phaser to kill - then exterminate all of the annoying people who are retarding his growth - mainly these people are script writers.

However, I would like to see Harry stabbing Janeway repeatedly in the head with a letter opener - it would certainly have me tuning in. Its about time Harry lost his cool - and kicked Chakotay in the nuts, and rammed his head into the coms panel for added effect.

Unlike most people, I really like Harry, but he has certainly been on the wrong end of the script for long enough - its time he went FULL RETARD! Get your self respect back Harry - its going to cost a lot of lives - but so long as its members of the Voyager crew - then all those lives are meaningless.

The complaints that Harry has never been promoted are perhaps misplaced. You can't get promoted unless there's an opening in the TOE that fits your new rank. Generally such a position would have some ensigns under it. Now, where on Voyager would we find a position like that? Harry's only hope is that some unlucky lieutenant, one who's in a position he has some background and/or aptitude for, buys the farm and Harry can be promoted into that billet. Sure, Voyager had her share of casualties over the years, but not so many that this would be a sure thing.

Besides, everyone agrees that Harry's character didn't develop much (if at all) in seven years. Even if there was an opening he could have been promoted into, Janeway might well have decided that he wasn't ready.

@Chris Knight

While this may be a reasonable in-universe reason for Harry's lack of advancement, it still doesn't excuse the writer's lack of ingenuity or reluctance to shake things up and give a long suffering character some development. He started the series green and wide-eyed and seven years later after experiencing many a life-changing experiences, ended the series green and wide-eyed.

I love comparing Harry, who is by all accounts a static, hardly changing character to DS9s Nog, who went from petty Juvinile delinquint to a starfleet lieutenant over the same time frame of seven years.

Again, there may be some in-universe reasons for the differences, but it really comes down to the writers of one show willing to take their characters places that evolve and change them, while the writers of another were too paralysed by fear to even allow for something that before now, (such as on TNG where promotions happen off-screen with hardly a mention) had been treated as a minor, almost unimportant event.

Tell you what though, I bet Harry was a bit ticked to find out when he got home that some upstart Ferengi child out-ranked him after only four years in Starfleet.

Imagine that storyline, Voyager gets home and Harry has PTSD and ends up wanting to go back to the DQ, because that's all he knows and is the only place he feels alive and worth anything, after being disatisfied with life at home.

@ Chris Knight,

I don't tend to follow the Voyager reviews but I'm responding to your comment because the rank issue was a major peeve of mine while Voyager was on the air. Yes, promotions generally have as their assumption spots for the officers to occupy, but this is only a major issue with Commanders and Captains, who need to be CO's or XO's of a ship. Other than that you can have the tactical officer be an ensign, Lt., Lt. Commander; it doesn't really matter. The difference for the crew is that there is only so much you can learn as an ensign since a lieutenant would have new responsibilities. From what we gather from the ST universe being an ensign tends to last at most a few years. Lt. junior and then senior grade take more time to advance. Worf, for instance, was a Lieutenant for all of TNG. Data, as a Lt. Commander, was in Starfleet for (I think) 17 years, but in his case I think it's safe to assume they were slow to promote him because he was an android.

Kim needed to learn to handle more responsibility. Because he was one of the stars of the show he attended senior staff meetings (illogically), but even so when was he supposed to learn how to command if he was never promoted and trained? This is doubly true since any of the crew could have been killed at any time with no possible replacements. It's not that Janeway needed to have ten Lt. Commanders around, it's that she needed to have a number of people groomed to take command of the ship in case of an emergency. Plus she was treating them all like Starfleet officers through the whole series, and it's simply not fair to them as officers to deny them promotion arbitrarily. Kim stayed a kid for the whole series not because of some character flaw, but because they never bothered to write anything else for him. To be fair this could be because the actor was weak and they didn't think they could do anything with him, which I totally get. It's hard to recover from casting errors.

A note concerning Harry's promotion opportunities on Voyager.

To say he can't be promoted until some other LT dies is gobbledygook.

They promoted Tuvok, didn't they?

A complete oversight on the writer's part.

With ranks, another issue is chain of command. Eventually, everyone on the ship would be promoted, and suddenly it's all chiefs and no braves, so to speak.

As others have said, the producers should have allowed the crew to grow. As higher-ranking officers are lost in shuttle crashes or turned into cubes and crushed, our heroes rise to take their place. New recruits -- Maquis, Equinox, Borg foundlings, useless loads like Neelix -- fill out the bottom ranks. That way, everyone knows who's in charge.

I'm thinking of "Band of Brothers," which clearly portrayed the promotions within Easy Company during their one year in combat.

I don't have any military experience or anything. I've always wondered if, specifically in Trek, there is a kind of expectation that there are some junior officer positions which are department heads or bridge officers and that they are given a sort of automatic entry into "senior staff" (bridge officer) meetings, like Kim here. In TNG, Wesley and Ro tended not to be in senior staff meetings but nevertheless were in something of a privileged position as bridge officers. Same with Nog when he's the pilot on the Defiant, and I guess Paris during the demotion period. I think it makes some sense for navigation to go to very junior officers (ensigns) -- it is a very important position and one which requires a narrow set of skills which can be learned and "perfected" in youth, which does not require the level of leadership or judgment or breadth of knowledge that more senior positions require. I do find it odd that Ops, which was the place they put the multitasking supergenius second officer android in TNG, and which both The Most Toys and Future Imperfect suggest maybe would have gone to the ship's tactical officer (Worf) next is suddenly a job for an entry-level just-graduated ensign (even being a relief ops officer is, as we find out in Lower Decks, a lt. j.g. job), but I assume that it is a less taxing job on an Intrepid-class ship, due to a combination of easily imagined factors (e.g. it's a more compact ship and therefore there is less to manage, more functions seem to have been transferred to tactical, since Tuvok seems to have some of the duties equivalent to Data's). So Kim's attendance at "senior staff" meetings might make sense.

Really though it's very odd that Kim was never promoted. It'd be one thing if rank were declared not to matter, but Kim complains about Tom getting re-promoted above him ("there's no box on my chair") and in this ep says he would have been lieutenant or lieutenant commander by now. Tuvok gets promoted doing the exact same job. More to the point, it is not like there are many senior officers on the ship to begin with -- as far as I can remember, the only major characters we see with a rank over lieutenant junior grade are Janeway, Chakotay and Tuvok. Paris as the navigator *and* only medical personnel with commission, Torres who is the *chief engineer*, etc. could clearly eventually have gotten lieutenant senior commissions. Kim is apparently important enough and competent enough to be able to basically run the ship by himself in The Killing Game.

Checking Memory Alpha (memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/USS_Voyager_personnel), apparently there were a handful of other senior we never saw who were listed on jokey crew manifests named after crew members (i.e. Commander Rick Berman, Commander Brannon Braga, Lt. Commander Michael Piller) but I assume those don't count. I haven't bothered going through each page to see whether the lieutenants listed are junior or senior grade, because I may be a pedantic nerd but even I have my limits.

I mean, Kim not getting promoted would make sense if, like "Tapestry" AU Picard or those "Good Shepherd" officers or whatever, Kim simply never distinguished himself, or was an actively weak officer. And sometimes this is sort of implied, with the sense that Kim has not changed in the series. But again, I think that doesn't match the level of importance Kim has as a main cast member or generally in anomaly of the week episodes. To the extent that he "can't get a lock" or whatever, or shows incompetence in ways that seem to be incidental to the plot, I don't get the impression that these are meant to be genuine flaws held against him. However, again, Kim-centric episodes seem to have him in this perpetual green ensign bubble. The comparison with Nog is not *entirely* fair because Nog's rapid ascent in terms of Starfleet status from illiterate to lieutenant j.g. requires either suspension of disbelief or the recognition that wartime requires promoting officers very fast, and I don't really think "in second year at the academy, Nog is now living on the station, in third year he's now a full ensign" is entirely earned. But I do agree that Nog was granted *character* development which outstrips Kim's quite a bit, unless I am misremembering the Kim material.

To add to my earlier point, it does seem as if navigation is a common route to command -- Sulu, Chekov, Picard, Riker, Jellico, Geordi (who initially was, it's heavily suggested, on command track), and Worf started or spent a period of their career in navigation/helm, or at least such is implied -- and young prodigies being somewhat groomed for bright futures like Wesley, Nog and seemingly Ro (whose career Picard takes a particular interest in once he decides to defend her) are placed there as well. It makes sense to me that Ops on Voyager has a somewhat similar role as a testing ground for promising future command officers, which is why Kim's rank stasis is all the more notable. Obviously much of this is a matter of storytelling convenience -- if you want to do stories about low-ranking officers (or acting ensigns or whatever), there has to be some kind of role for them which will tend to be important to the plots of the week most of the time. But it makes sense that navigation (and on Voyager, apparently Ops) are positions which can be done with relatively little training and experience (as opposed to Chief Engineer or something) which allows particularly-promising-for-future-command junior officers to observe the goings-on.

"I mean, Kim not getting promoted would make sense if, like "Tapestry" AU Picard or those "Good Shepherd" officers or whatever, Kim simply never distinguished himself, or was an actively weak officer."

Wasn't Ensign Kim designing engineering marvels throughout the series, including the Delta Flyer? Hardly the hallmark of an undistinguished middling officer who thrived on carrying reports around. This guy could probably have gone on to be a designer at Utopia Planitia after they got home.

"Wasn't Ensign Kim designing engineering marvels throughout the series, including the Delta Flyer? Hardly the hallmark of an undistinguished middling officer who thrived on carrying reports around. This guy could probably have gone on to be a designer at Utopia Planitia after they got home."

Exactly. They regularly portrayed him as very competent and imaginative as an engineer and scientist, except in episodes that were specifically about how he's a loser who is perpetually 22.

Jammer: "...which seems to be a last-ditch effort by the writing staff to redeem themselves for years of Harry non-growth. "

Ah, yup... and it wasn't a good one. Harry: "Captain, can I go play Captain please?" Can I huh, can I"?

Well, we get Ron Glass and I still want to learn more about Sheppard Book. :-)

The whole B'Elanna pregnant/Icheb thing was pretty darn funny. I about lost it when she said "I was hot!!" ... lol

It is what it is, Seven has to tell Harry how to be Captain.... jeesh... even when Harry is in charge he needs a kick in the nuts.

2.5 stars I guess.

Harry seemed delusional to be thinking of, let alone expecting Lieutenant Commander ...
Harry generally seemed bright rather than incompetent but I'm one of the fans who doesn't expect the characters to get promoted or see their not being promoted as indicating bad performance. In fact to me Dax getting promoted between DS9 Season 3 and 4 feels quite unearned (maybe just so she would outrank Bashir and not be outranked by Worf) and I think most agree Paris suddenly getting repromoted was quite unearned. Regardless, bad as "The Disease" was in it Harry did show some pretty bad judgment and it can provide a lot of explanation for why Harry didn't get promoted even if it otherwise would be expected.

I just don't get how someone could spend SEVEN YEARS as a bridge officer and still be an ensign. It's beyond unbelievable, it's absurd. Especially since he's been involved in fighting the Borg and several other baddies, been on away missions which went terribly wrong, was shot down and survived to find his way back more than once, and almost never disobeyed orders or did anything wrong, except that one episode where he caught the "love bug." And that was at least partly biochemical.
Can a guy get a break?

I was more engaged with the mediocre sub plot.(*)

Whilst I agree with most people about the ham-fistedness of the writers in dealing with Harry, I think his micro-managing as captain can at least be partially excused by the fact that his crew didn't know how to pilot the ship. The guy he had on the helm had only piloted shuttles and basically said he had no clue. Still made me cringe though.

WTH? Harry directly ignores the prime directive (in a super clear cut matter... Like the textbook example) no moral ambiguity. Don't get involved in someone else's war! Anyway he does this, then the captain backs him? Then rewards him with a command position after demonstrating god awful judgement?

I don't even care about anything after this point in the episode. Everyone on the ship is fired. You all fail basic deplomacy.

If anyone things Wang is a good actor, just look at how much work he has got since Voyager. Scraps to say the least.

However, a lot of his stuff was writing... they didn't seem to care about him. Even the most non descript boring and conservative officer would at least get up to Lt. Jr Grade or something like that, right? It honestly made no sense to have a bridge officer, who went on dozens and dozens of life threatening away missions, did have his fair share of creative ideas to solve their problems, and was in senior meetings week after week, to never be promoted. I suppose it was intended as a rib, but someone needs to own up to why they did that.

"It honestly made no sense to have a bridge officer, who went on dozens and dozens of life threatening away missions, did have his fair share of creative ideas to solve their problems, and was in senior meetings week after week, to never be promoted."

Speaking of which, it actually made no sense to make a fresh Academy graduate on his first posting a senior officer on Voyager. Maybe on some small escort ship or unimportant shore facility... On a state-of-the-art vessel with a crew of 150, he'd probably be training under a division head for a year or two before getting a promotion and assuming more responsibilities.

Garrett Wang talks a lot about how the writers had it in for him, and how he was deliberately portrayed in a bad light, and I have to say that this episode pretty much proves that he was right. They intentionally trolled him by making him acknowledge/complain about how he was the perpetual ensign and that if he had stayed in the Alpha Quadrant he would have made ensign by now. Then him having to grovel to Janeway to get his shot at command (guess night shifts don't count), and also admitting to Paris that he was always the wingman and was sick of it.

I also really like Kim and Wang's portrayal of him and agree with SpiceRak2 that I'm a bit surprised at the amount of vitriol Jammer and a lot of the fandom have for him. Per his 'wooden' acting, there was an interview where Wang said that all humans were specifically instructed by Berman to show a minimum amount of emotion, as Berman didn't want the humans upstaging the non-human races. That being said, I think the good ensign works best when he's paired off with Tom or B'elanna, since those three seem to have a natural chemistry.

Also regarding the comparisons of Nog to Kim, I also don't think it's a fair comparison to make, and I agree with a former poster who stated that Nog's ascent in Starfleet ranks required a considerable suspension of belief. Character wise, everything about Nog was beyond obnoxious, from the way he brown-nosed all the important people to his condescension towards people who were non-Starfleet (Jake, especially in 'Valiant'). Not to mention, he had a very harsh and grating voice, which made his line delivery/character all the more annoying..! At no point did Harry Kim ever come close to being this irritating.

The only reason they didn't kill Kim in season 2 was that the actor was included in People's 1997 sexiest people alive list.

I liked this episode better than a lot of you did.
I enjoyed the scenes where they showed crewmen working on the outside of the ship.
I laughed when i saw Icheb munching on nachos
I enjoyed B'elanna laughing off Icheb's misperception
I am one of those who thinks Kim has gotten a raw deal. Yes, he is one of the weaker characters, but the degree of vitriol that he receives is beyond what he deserves in my opinion. Again, I get that he is hapless in love, gullible, slow to evolve, and has made some whopping errors in judgment at times, but throughout the series he has often demonstrated competence and imagination in solving problems, he's efficient, extremely hard working and dedicated, he has demonstrated much courage in going on dangerous away missions multiple times. I admit, I crack up when he shouts, "i can't get a lock!" but if the writers make the story line so that he can't get a lock how can you blame Harry?
If you're going to criticize Harry for breaking the prime directive here, better rag on Janeway too because she's done it many times and would doubtless have done it here (she even admitted as much).
I had never seen Harry micromanage like this, but it seems very appropriate in this episode because the passengers had insisted that they were not crew and the one kid who had any experience (at least to Harry's knowledge), barely had any--I would have been checking to make sure they did it right too.
Finally, though i haven't watched it in a while, I remember from the episode Timeless, that Harry did show he was capable of significant growth and honor.
3 stars

Okay seriously now, can anybody explain to me how does this make sense? "You are already involved, therefore you have to help them!" Why? As far as Harry knew, he was helping doctors delivering vaccines, not means to fight their enemies. They lied to them and as Harry points out, they have no way of knowing they are telling the truth now. Why does the show so often treats interference as all or nothing sort of thing?

Regarding comparisons with Nog... Honestly? To me, Nog is three-dimensionally flawed and entertaining character, to others he's an annoying jackass. But even if you hate him, there is at least something there to even hate. Unlike Harry, who's entire character revolves around being miserable buttmuch.

Nothing made sense in this episode. Harry's decision to disregard the prime directive, Janeway's support of Harry taking command after having broken the prike directive (oh wait.. that's not so unusual since Janewy played with the prime directive like a 5-year-old toddler plays with dominos), even Seven's encouragement of Harry to get back to captining the Nightingale. Please....

And the B story? We didn't even get to see a testosterone-filled car race between Tom and Icheb.

Really weak episode. The shots of Voyager on the surface were the highlights of it, if anything at all. And Jammer's following comment in his review:

"The show wants us to accept Harry as a starship captain. That's sort of like asking us to accept Tuvok as a stand-up comedian."

Hahahaha, that's great Jammer..

Whoa! A Harry Kim episode -- those don't come around too often and when they do, they typically aren't very good. This one's not bad, not too good either. So Kim's captain here and it doesn't go well...surprise, surprise. Kim's been one of the neglected characters on Voyager (like Neelix, Tuvok, and even Chakotay) but we do get an idea of his ambition here.

I didn't think 7 needed to be used as the one pointing out to Kim where he's failing as a captain but everybody else outranks him -- just that 7 is overused on Voyager, but she's become a great character since her intro. Perhaps Neelix could have played this role?

The episode is idealistic in terms of showing Kim the challenges of command and he's way too eager to get involved in this situation. But he does have good points about still being an ensign after 7 years on Voyager. So Janeway lets him run with the command -- which immediately goes to his head. I think the episode did a decent job showing the micromanaging part which makes sense for someone who is a worker bee but gets elevated to queen bee.

Some random thoughts: Nice visual of Voyager landed on the planet and people walking on it for repairs etc. Gives an idea of how big the ship is, which is nice for a change. But really not a fan of the Icheb scenes with B'Elanna. That B-plot was pretty lame.

Barely 2.5 stars for "Nightingale" -- good to get Harry Kim a reasonable episode that focuses on his character, even if ultimately he realizes he's where he is for a reason. Nothing wrong with that. Some deceptive aliens and the cloaking technology and the ever-present Voyager spaceship battle scenes, but the B-plot kinda sucked.

All I could think at the end of the episode was that I guess someone does have to be the captain of those random Starfleet ships we see get blown up throughout these shows. One day Harry Kim will be that captain.

Subplot: mildly amusing, and I like the look of mild confusion that Icheb sports throughout, but it still has some problems. The scene with the Doctor, for instance: his Icheb-have-you-met-someone? tone seems wholly inappropriate given that there are no other teenagers on the ship, or even anyone close to his (biological) age. (Take the youngest Starfleet or Maquis and add six years.) The Doctor's disinterestedly listing how you can tell whether someone is attracted by monitoring their vital signs also is pretty dumb; does he not realize this kid is going to get out the tricorder now? How does Icheb know what B'Elanna's baseline readings are, anyway, enough to (mis)read her signals as being high? And there's something kind of sad about the way B'Elanna just lets Icheb go thinking that this is what was going on between them rather than suggest that they actually go rock climbing or whatever with Tom (and maybe some others) in order to reassure him and allow him to actually have friends.

Main plot: Jammer nails it; and so does Skeptical in his comment above. I didn't even think about how bad pretending to surrender is, not just morally but in terms of how it will hurt the Kraylor's future. But Harry screws up throughout the episode, and the idea that he continues serving the Kraylor *after* it's revealed that they had been lying to him the whole time and that this is presented as a good thing -- and the idea that Seven presents that his refusing to work for them because he's throwing a fit because he's unhappy being captain now -- is mind-boggling. It's out of character for Seven; it's a bizarre idea; and it totally undermines whatever this episode was doing otherwise. Now, the basic idea of doing an episode on whether Harry can have a command -- which is basically of asking whether he's stifled by Voyager's command structure -- isn't a bad one, and/but it plays out really badly by playing up Harry's incompetence and then letting the Kraylor's duplicity go completely, and thus Harry's more overt violation of Starfleet protocol, go unchecked. (It also reflects badly on Harry that he didn't seem to even check whether this ship does have the vaccines that they claim to have.) Anyway the episode is sort of tolerable until Neelix tells Harry he needs to be DECISIVE in order to be captain, which basically plays out an exact mirror of Harry telling Neelix he needs to be an aggressive reporter back in Investigations, and which similarly derails the episode by having the lead act totally inappropriately over-the-top. It is nice to see Ron Glass, though.

The thing is, watching the show again, it seems clear to me that Harry is actually portrayed more competently in episodes not directly about him than in episodes that are. I mean, he basically ran a one-person insurgency in The Killing Game, has helped to design the Flyer, etc. In something like Muse last year he apparently makes it across a continent or two to get to B'Elanna. The idea that Harry is hopelessly in over his head, and the continual episodes showing "progress" where he starts out at -100 and makes it to -99 not only makes for poor drama -- Demon, Warhead, this one -- but also seems to me to be unfair to the Harry that we occasionally get glimpses of who seems to actually know what he's doing.

Anyway, 1.5 stars, mostly for the B-plot.

Harry Kim episode rankings:

Timeless

(Big gap)

Emanations
Alter Ego before it became a Tuvok only show
Revulsion subplot
Ashes to Ashes
Warhead
Non Sequitur
Nightingale
The Disease
Favorite Son
Demon

Not a great list. At least he gets Timeless.

Oh yeah. The Chute just below Timeless -- I like that one too.

Right, by now, one has to wonder if someone from casting or writing or both had a serious real-life score to settle with Wang. So, after over six years of displaying Kim as a whiny, incompetent mama's boy who also wouldn't be able to "get a lock" if his life depended on it, we now get this. He spent six years on the bridge and he still hasn't heard what the prime directive is ? Not even a hint of doubt about his decision to jump into the middle of this conflict until he actually gets back to Voyager so we can have another one of those scenes where holier-than-thou Janeway can slap it in his face, cause you know, we need more of those. And make it quick ! No matter though, cause as a reward for his incompetence, he can now get his first real taste of command. Great going Janeway.
Then we need to wade through about half an hour or so more of Harry being the most incapable officer ever to have graced the bridge of a starship, interspersed, of course, with a sprinkling of that intelligent Kim-dialogue about his intense desire to crawl back into his mother's spacious womb, that by the end, when he does ultimately resolve the situation, who still cares anymore ?
That is why this episode does not work, or MOST Voyager episodes for that matter and why this show was the start of the steep decline of quality in Trek, lazy writing around unrealistic characters nobody can empathize with.
Let's be honest for a minute. Even if they did do a turn-around at this point and actually gave him an episode to shine in, it STILL wouldn't work since we all know by know he's some sort of genetically engineered lab construct that escaped from a lab where real people were researching a cure to attachment disorder. And what is this garbage B-story about Icheb and Torres ? Every time this lingering remnant of one of Voyager's worst outings concerning the Borg gets screen time my heart crumples, since it's just more proof that getting the other three "Borg children" of the ship was NOT the realization they committed a horrible mistake and trying to make up for it, but rather just a stroke of luck. Beam that thing out into space already.
To sum up, trash, as usual.

Note : I wrote this before reading Jammer's review. Seems we share a lot of common points on this one

@Chris Knight

"Besides, everyone agrees that Harry's character didn't develop much (if at all) in seven years. Even if there was an opening he could have been promoted into, Janeway might well have decided that he wasn't ready."

Which is at odds with Janeway's out-of-nowhere remark in season 2's "Twisted" about how Harry has really impressed her and has far exceeded her expectations.

I'm finally getting around to watching most of VOY Season 7 for the first time, and this episode was not good. It makes sense that the hapless Ensign Kim would naively trust the Kraylor, but I would expect Janeway to be much more skeptical of their hard luck story and detect Shepherd Book's obvious deception.

Once the deception is revealed, it's appalling that Harry continues to aid the Kraylor in their military endeavors rather than extricate himself and Seven from the situation as gingerly as possibly. It's not like the Annari were especially cruel or unreasonable. I think we were supposed to feel like Harry was just evening the odds a bit, but we really don't know what the real military situation was or whether the Kraylor were at helpless as we were lead to believe.

At any rate, Ensign Kim should have faced some sort of consequences for needlessly involving Voyager in a dangerous conflict and potentially shifting the balance of power between two civilizations. The lack of resolution just illustrates the sort of sloppy, lazy writing we came to expect from Voyager, I suppose.

On the bright side, the CGI shots of Voyager on the planet's surface were unique and looked terrific. . I also liked the Icheb/B'Elanna stuff. It was light and fluffy, but sometimes light and fluffy is fine when you just want to chill with the crew of Voyager at the end of a long day.

I totally agree @SpiceRak2. When the person doing the review practically admits that they are not going to give the show a fair review because of an irrational personal hatred of a character and subsequent burial of the actor I mean why bother giving a review?

Dry as dirt.

Not much interesting going on here. The main story just doesn't grab my interest, hard to care about "the mission."

The B'Ellana B story is fun and keeps the ep from being a total waste of time.

Comments on the commentary:

--Yowza on the Kim comments and debate. Yes, he was a blah character. Was it the acting or the writing? To me, that's s "chicken or the egg" question, i.e., hard to know which came first.

--I thought, with the B story, we were seeing a bit of a Kim-replacement for the role of "wide eyed naive guy" in Icheb. Kim learns from his experience "misreading the signals" because he has Seven and other inescapable signs of reality to set him straight; B'Ellana humors Icheb, no one confronts him, so he goes on his merry way not having learned a thing.

Zzz. Literally fell asleep during this one! Maybe if I drink some coffee and stay awake during another viewing it might be better. But I doubt it.

Not truly bad enough to be entertaining yet truly heinous. Boring in an indescribable way. Skip at all costs.

Dreadful.

I understand why they had Seven in almost every background shot. They were trying to keep our interest anyway they could.

I liked the Icheb story. It was cute.

Hello Everyone!

My main concern was with helping the Kraylor get their cloaking device. We've seen races in ST who were destroyed, or nearly so, because they were "bad" and there was a good reason for them to be confined to their own world.

In Voyager, we've had the Trabe be homeless because they'd been jerks, and we've had those few thousand folks in the 800-year-old ships who'd been naughty in the past as well (not on my normal computer, so I'm not looking the names up today). Now these folks with Sheppard Book (he even had the same haircut as on Firefly!) ask for help to escape their world, which is under blockade. Until I knew if the blockade was bad, or for the good of the galaxy, I'd not help either one of them.

As far as promotions, it has been noted here and elsewhere that there were only two that we ever saw/noticed: Paris and Tuvok. I don't really believe those count. Paris had no rank when he started, and flipped back and forth between Ensign and Jr. Grade, while Tuvok started out as a Lt. Commander. I think they just fouled up by giving him Lieutenant pips and kept him there, and fixed/retconned it later.

I figured since we didn't see anyone else ever get promoted, they decided to leave everyone where they were at, and if/when they got home, the ranks could be adjusted. I mean, if it were to actually be 70 years to get home (as originally postulated), who'd care what your rank was when you retired on the generational ship? That was how I thought of it anyway. :)

Have a Great Day Everyone... RT

It was a good premise to work with, and an un-stupid setup to address the idea of a true command for Harry, with real responsibility and consequences. The script even directly addressed the eternal ensign’s seven years without promotion, which should have seemed like at least an ironic sop to viewers who have felt either that HK is a character without promise (which is not the case - anyone remember how smash-face green and naive Julian Bashir was in the beginning, and HE certainly got growths, or has been badly underserved by the writers (my view).

Alas, they underserve him again. They didn’t HAVE to make him an indecisive, micro-managing, arrogant and unsympathetic middle manager. Those characteristics do not naturally emerge from earlier shows where he’s been shown to have more judgment and maturity. He could just as believably - and more rewardingly - have been allowed to demonstrate more ability here. The writers pranked him.

And they made it worse by saddling the episode with the unmotivated, unmitigated, and unconvincing B-plot.

Did the writers have it in for Garret Wang because he’d been proclaimed as beautiful, or was he a prima donna jerk to them?

I’m often an advocate for the underdog installment, but there’s little to redeem this snooze-fest.

Garret as beautiful? I figured he just didn’t share generously or something.

The story goes that the reason why they axed Jennifer Lien instead of Wang (Harry was all set to die, after all) for Season 4 was because Wang was included in that year's People's 50 Most Beautiful People (those pants! https://puzzleddaily.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/garrey-wang-50-most.jpg). If you take that story at face value, it seems his additional publicity value outweighed how unhappy the producers were with him.

I also dimly recall an interview where Wang said that they wouldn't let him direct an episode when he asked, in contrast to every other cast member (Trek was generally pretty generous with allowing cast members to direct). For whatever reason, they did seem to maybe have it in for him. Most of us here seem to think his performances weren't really great, so it might be that the producers didn't think he had the artistic chops or something, but I don't know if that fully explains it.

"Alas, they underserve him again. They didn’t HAVE to make him an indecisive, micro-managing, arrogant and unsympathetic middle manager. Those characteristics do not naturally emerge from earlier shows where he’s been shown to have more judgment and maturity. He could just as believably - and more rewardingly - have been allowed to demonstrate more ability here. The writers pranked him."

Yeah. I think part of the problem is that the writers wanted to make "a command episode" for Kim which is *only* about his command abilities, and so that necessarily means they have to have some kind of arc about his command abilities, and so the arc they settled on is "he is bad at it but learns," and then they went about it in a hamhanded way. They might have done better if they'd made Kim commanding part of an episode about something else (as they did in season five sometimes).

It's nice that Garrett was in a beauty magazine and all, but Lien herself was a beautiful woman in her own right. It sounds like the problems with Kess go beyond the aesthetic.

I don't think the idea is that Lien was fired instead of Wang because Wang is better looking (both are good looking people), but because Wang got more positive press that year (related to his good looks). It seems as if the producers weren't particularly happy with either of them and then pivoted from firing Wang to firing Lien so they could capitalize on the publicity for Wang. That it seems Lien had some big personal problems is probably another factor.

Strictly speaking, the "character bible" versions of Kim and Kes were some of the characters who would have the most obvious arcs over the course of the series, as the youngest, the naifs who would be expected to change the most over the seven-year journey. It's sort of a shame that one's story was truncated by her leaving the show and the other was kept in a semi-artificial stasis. I say sort of because it's hard to know how much the show could have really done for the characters given the possible limitations of the actors (either in terms of range or in terms of personal problems getting in the way, or maybe both). In fact the best episode (arguably) for each character is one which jumped ahead in time (Before and After, Timeless) to a "fully developed" version of the character, even though in principle we could have seen some of this development in real time. (I know that we did, a bit -- Elliott I'm sure will talk about what Kes development actually did happen in season 3, especially.)

If Lien’s current situation is relevant, then potentially problems started even back then. I’d always thought this - at what point did those problems really first materialize, and as I always have Voyager on rotation I’m looking for the turn.

Have tractor beams ever worked in this series? It seems they always get broken out of somehow.

I'm sad there weren't more episodes like this in VOY, because it really is a character development plot with highly convincing elements. A classic journey, driven by gut feeling and ideals; haunted by flaws that has to be overcome for the success of the mission.

Seeing Harry pulling himself together after some pretty serious incidents was believable and quite impressive. Have to admit that I got a tad disappointing not seeing any holodeck rock climbing (they teased about it 2 times!), which I feel would have added to the otherwise rather bleak b-story.

Anyway, seeing as I was quite amused through the whole episode - with it's exciting twists keeping the viewer guessing - it's in order to award it with some praise.

3 Solid ones

Did anyone notice Seven was sleeping in a bed before Harry came in and woke her up? That was weird; it must have been one of those Borg regeneration mattresses.

Both storylines needed a stronger conclusion (like say, a promotion), but i found this to be a decent attempt to reckon with the problem of Voyager's oft-forgotten Ensign. 3 stars.

Harry's character was disastrously handled from start to finish.

* As a newly commissioned ensign, he had no business being anywhere near the senior officer table. There were at least five lieutenants on Voyager other than the main cast, and as many Starfleet ensigns who would have more seniority than him. He should have earned that place at Janeway's "grown-up table".

* He seemed to vacillate between being an excellent and capable officer and being a green ensign. Instead of having him grow from "lower decks goldshirt who doesn't have a clue" to "seasoned and competent senior officer", they just stuck him with the former's rank and the latter's duties and left him to stagnate.

* With the sole exception of Data, every single character on TNG and DS9 either ranked up in situ or was offered a promotion elsewhere (Picard to rear admiral and commandant, Riker to captain of his own ship). Voyager forgot how to do this. Harry is not the only victim of this (B'Elanna was stuck at JG for 7 years), but he's the worst. A competent ensign is supposed to be promoted to lieutenant, full stop. The rationale was "someone has to be the ensign", but that was false. TNG only had a commissioned ensign in its main cast briefly (Wesley), and DS9 never had one at all.

Harry seems to be an impossible contradiction, mainly because the writers wanted him to be the perennial newbie. That's why they locked him at ensign for 7 years, which was insufferable stupidity on their part and an insult to the viewer's intelligence. They knew that an ensign is supposed to make lieutenant... they just hoped that we were too stupid to notice.

Moreover, they also wanted Harry to be intelligent and capable. They had him leading a department on a starship and sitting at Janeway's "grownup table" almost from the start. Janeway would not tolerate an incompetent officer there, and she would not have left one in command of any shift. Further, look at Harry's alternate timeline in "Non Sequitur". He is eight months out of academy, and his colleague says that his work could get him promoted to lieutenant before the day is out. Bottom line: the overwhelming evidence is that Harry is a well trained, intelligent, and extraordinarily capable officer, but the scriptwriters think that we'll ignore that if they keep his nominal rank unchanged. Sadly, given what Jammer has said in his review, it would seem that they managed to fool him.

@Adara:

))One thing that really bugged me that no one else brought up is the idea that flying a ship automatically equals a chain of command. If I ask someone else to drive my car home, that doesn't mean I'm going to call them "sir" and let them bark orders at me.((

Driving a car is only a very remote analogy to "captaining a starship." There was literally no one else there - except for a green cadet - with any idea how to run a starship.

))I thought that was very presumptuous on Kim's part, to make the jump from chauffeur to captain.((

It wasn't "presumptuous" of Kim. He *was* the most-qualified person there, on the spot. And the aliens *asked* him to take command (or at least, *accepted* his offer).

))I would drive home blind before I'd let someone I just met boss me around.((

One can, of course, question the aliens' judgement in inviting Kim to take charge (but again, there was no one else around with even an hour of command experience) - but they were duplicitous anyway, and had a hidden agenda. They probably also needed and respected the combined *technical* experience which Kim and Seven "brought to the table."

The only legitimate grievance / objection that I will let stand is the extremely reckless decision of Janeway to allow a Starfleet officer to become involved in a tense - and opaque (what with the deception the aliens were pulling) - military situation. After Kim reported back on the Voyager bridge, Janeway could have *forgiven* Kim's interference up to that point in time - but in view of the obvious complex military / political / ethical situation and the possibility that there impression of the aliens' true motives was mistaken, Janeway should have ordered Kim to return to his usual post at Communications. The situation was even exacerbated by the fact that Voyager was hamstrung by the maintenance work and wouldn't be able to intervene, if necessary (or to protect herself in the event that the other aliens took offense - which is exactly what happened).

This was an overdue episode for Kim. While some moments were cringeworthy such as Harry with his feet on the captain's desk, it is not implausible to see him as a captain of a small vessel. He has 7 years of experience on a large starship and a technical background, so he is capable of the job. He makes some missteps as captain, but that is the point of the episode.

The Icheb story was interesting but took a weird twist with his misinterpretation of Torres' interest in him. But in general, he is the first successful Star Trek kid with a recurring role. Wesley Crusher was annoying but did improve, and Jake Sisko was awful. Icheb is intelligent, humble, and generally likeable.

I don't see what the big deal is with Harry not getting promoted. It doesn't really detract entertainment value from the show. Anyway didn't he become captain in the future in "Endgame"? It would have been great to see a race between Icheb and Paris but I guess the budget didn't allow for it.

Over all score for "Nightingale" is: 5/10

Harry Kim comes in for a huge amount of criticism on this site, but I enjoyed this story. Of course it was easy for everyone but Harry to see the Kraylor as downright creepy, but without that blindspot, we wouldn't have a show.

Seven's brief reality check and dress-down about his micro-managing was terrific. The mutiny was painful to watch.

The "non-growth" problem with Harry does exist and it is really hard to see it as anything other than a kind of bias against the actor. Brings to mind that old SNL character Mr. Bill.
'Oh no'.

Oh, it's very easy to see it as something besides bias against the actor. Torres was getting "I'm super angry!" stories in Season 5. Paris was getting "I'm a rebel who just wants to be a pilot, man!" stories in Season 6. Neelix was getting "Why won't Tuvok be my fweind??" stories in Season 6. The simple answer is that the writers didn't care about character development outside of the breakout stars (Seven and the Doc). Ron Moore even commented on this problem as endemic to the writing staff when ruminating on his brief stint on Voyager. It's not animosity towards Wang.

And while we're on the subject, it occurs to me... In the pilot, the writers set up a special little relationship between Kim and Torres, what with the two of them being isolated from each other and her giving him the pet nickname of "Starfleet". This relationship went nowhere and was eventually dropped. Torres, of course, eventually ended up dating Paris. Then in Season 3, the writers let Kim get interested in the Vulcan chess game thingy. This could have led to a development between him and Tuvok, perhaps a mentor/mentee type relationship to reinforce Tuvok's role as an elder and reinforce Kim as the bright, upcoming Starfleet officer. That went nowhere (but did get a callback or two), and Tuvok later went on to mentor Kes and even Torres to some extent. Then in Season 4, Kim was the first one to have lengthy interactions with Seven outside of Janeway. This could have led to a friendship, but was abandoned. Seven later went on to have a close friendship with the Doctor (and even Naomi!).

Basically, I have a hard time seeing the writers having an agenda against Kim when they kept TRYING to give him new stuff to do, and it just not going anywhere. Was that due to their attempts being bad, or was it due to Wang's acting? I'm not going to judge that, but the only other person who didn't gain new relationships after the pilot (Kim obviously still kept his "Tom's sidekick" role) was Chakotay, and it's well known that Beltran mentally checked out of his role pretty early on. If everything keeps happening to you and you alone, maybe that means you're the problem.

@Skeptical "The simple answer is that the writers didn't care about character development outside of the breakout stars (Seven and the Doc). Ron Moore even commented on this problem as endemic to the writing staff when ruminating on his brief stint on Voyager. It's not animosity towards Wang."

Thanks for taking up this topic. You've presented a nice review of some of the tribulations different characters endured over the seasons.

However, the expression "bias toward the actor" as I used it, does not equal "animosity toward Wang". No animosity is at work here and it was not my intention to allege that there was.

The problem is, I think closer to one of age-misidentification or underestimation of the actor's gravitas. It's subtle, but it's there. It may have worked as follows: The writers do not see Wang aging significantly (even after 6+ seasons). He is therefore given episodes in which his character is the 'young one' long after he should have advanced to a new stage. Harry has to experience scenarios where he is still 'wet behind the ears' no matter how much experience he has. His character is often exposed as a light-weight, who cannot handle new responsibilities. Or if he does handle them, he remains under a cloud.

Garrett Wang looks young; therefore, I contend that the writers insert Harry Kim into trope-filled 'coming of age' episodes. This is a form of bias from which he cannot escape. He is a servicable actor... but if perpetually given nowhere lines, or scenes in which he 'cannot get a lock', or ends up having to run away from an over-sexed Klingon female in cartoon fashion so that Neelix of all people gets the girl, what is he supposed to do?

The thing I couldn't let go of the most in Nightingale was that the Prime Directive was virtually non-existent, and not even for a good reasons.

Prime Directive violations:
1) Harry's initial interference with the opening battle between the Kraylor and Annari. Ok, maybe only a quasi violation because he was trying to save lambs from slaughter.
2) Janeway approving Harry's captaincy while she was in the middle of trade negotiations with enemies of the Kraylor, while keeping the whole thing secret, while knowing that the Kraylor and Annari were at war. Yes, she knew, because Harry briefed her. Then Janeway let Harry choose a side, while acting like Voyager was neutral.
3) Harry continuing to help the Kraylor even after he found out their mission was military and would likely shift the balance of power in an ongoing war. "Kraylor ships all over their fleet are now being equipped with cloaking devices", thanks Starfleet!

To add insult to injury, none of Voyager's senior staff really contested this matter whatsoever and instead sent Harry on his merry way.

Another minor aspect of the episode that was mind boggling was the premise that Voyager would set down on a planet to do a maintenance overhaul without knowing if they'd have the materials to complete repairs. Wouldn't you gather those materials first in space and *then* set down, instead of vice versa while hoping your away teams will find what you need? This is very akin to "Demon" when they somehow ran out of every last ounce of deuterium with no foresight. How?

Add in the milquetoast "Harry Kim" is green plotline that had no real payoff, consequences, or evidence that the character learned anything about himself, and this episode is a 1 star for me.

Harry kim represents a pretty good illustration of why so many people find voyager underwhelming as a show. Here we have a character who started off as a blank canvas, the show could have done anything with him, unlimited potential. Yet by season seven literally nothing of consequence had been drawn on that canvas, no major changes or developments. Just a few roundabout jokes pertaining to his sad love life and stagnant career. He’s basically the same guy we met in “caretaker”, which is a very weird creative choice. When people complain about the lack of continuity in voyager, this is one of the kinds of things I think they’re referring to; it’s difficult to connect with a character when they don’t seem to respond to the events of their own life.

This was a very odd episode. So many flaws. First, Kim-I get the plotline of him being inexperienced, and chomping at the bit to be in command. But why would he help the ship he was on after he realised that they lied about their motive? And that wasn't even a naive choice-it was Seven who convinced him to do it! That makes no sense to me!

Also, Ichib's plotline. This shows why it is completely inappropriate for a married woman to engage in recreational activities with someone not their husband! What else would the boy think? I am glad he at least didn't pursue her (which would be egregious). I know B'lanna wasn't trying to lead him on, but did she think first?? I don't understand that type of behaviour!

I think a lecture from Janeway at the end would have been appropriate. As much as people say they don't like the Prime Directive (myself included sometimes), this episode is a good example of a beneficial use for it. In the course of this episode, Harry picked a side in a fight (I can at least understand why), and worse, when he found out the ship he was captaining wasn't a medical ship, he still helped them! What if the people he was helping were the aggressors (let's say "Space Nazis") and after a LONG war of conquest, they were finally pushed back by the peoples they oppressed and blockcaded to remain on their one planet? And then Kim comes along and helps them get cloaking devices so they can leave and start terrorizing the area again? (Granted, I don't think this was the intention of the writers, but we know NOTHING about this conflict, and Kim just heavily got involved in it!)