Well, the age of years settles in my bones and I find myself trapped in TV land. Why not look at Star Trek's Yamcha?
OR
Nobody screws Harry Kim but Life
Seriously, how much did the writers hate Garrett Wang? Would an extra pip eat too much of the budget? You'd think he'd be a Lieutenant at least, but no. Ensign from the start to end. Now, this would just be a nitpick if that was it, but after five seasons:
-He's shown to have ZERO grasp of Earth history, which isn't so terrible except that is his area of expertise.
-He's outwitted by a 3 year old
-Any character growth he has is only in episodes that get reset or else never gets mentioned again.
-He's gets demoted to Ensign Junior Grade at one point
Seriously, I'm starting to think this entire show was some kind of psychological test conducted on the actors. I'm shocked no one did a Hary Kim Owned Count yet.
Ok, you say, what would you do? Honestly anything would have been an improvement. Maybe have him stand up to the crew? I do like him as an everyman. Maybe he got assigned to the ship via a paperwork error, like he was supposed to go to maybe a smaller research vessel.
So, average guy gets thrown into something out of his depth. Maybe he could be a voice of reason, pointing out the insanity of Janeway's orders? Seriously, anything would have been better. I heard they were even going to kill Kim off but Wang had the (mis)fortune of getting named one of People's 50 Most Beautiful People so the producers opted to keep him around. Nothing else mind you.
I think the thing to do with Harry Kim is lean into him not being interesting, but force him to have to be. Like say he's just some quiet, unambitious ensign who wanted to rise no higher than stellar cartographer, but when his shipmates started dying, he was forced into more and more important roles where he has to learn on the job. And despite his constant resistance to both harder work and strange situations, he surprises himself and everyone else by being good at most things. He becomes the ship's jack of all trades, which is useful when you have a dearth of officers and no way to replace those who die. He'd be great on away missions too, despite how much he openly hates them. In his personal life, he should enjoy things that are charmingly bland, like stamp collecting and sousaphone music, but he should have all these utterly insane stories about his adventures that contradict the person he wanted to be. He should also have an occasionally surprising temper and be able to stand up to Marquis types who think they can push him around because he's so quiet.
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