Fans joke about Harry Kim never being promoted on Star Trek: Voyager, but even he got fed up at one point.
Harry Kim was the lovable, sad sack, Eore of Star Trek: Voyager. He was a giant dork, who played a very uncool instrument, could never get a date, until he did and nearly started an intergalactic conflict, and of course, could never get promoted past the rank of ensign.
To be fair, no one really got promoted on Voyager during their time in the Delta Quadrant. Aside from the members of the Maquis getting ranks and roles on the ship after the destruction of the Caretaker and his array, no one that I can remember got promoted past their current station.
And why not, there was nowhere to promote anyone, or anyone to fill the roles of those promoted. But that didn’t make Kim’s perpetual status as an ensign any less funny. Yet, the one time someone did get a promotion, Kim did speak up about his lack of upward motion.
Harry Kim did in fact make his feelings known once on Star Trek: Voyager
In the sixth season finale of Voyager, “Unimatrix Zero Part 1”, we see what may be the lone promotion on Voyager (correct me if I’m wrong in the comments). Tom Paris arrives for his shift to find a box on his chair. It’s lieutenant pips. Paris, who was demoted in the season five episode “30 Days”, was getting reinstated as a lieutenant (junior grade). A mark of his fine work on the ship, and an acknowledgment by Captain Kathryn Janeway that he’s done a lot of good to make up for his previous failings.
While his captain, commander, and even wife look on in joy, ole’ Harry “Eeyore” Kim looks on and sullenly remarks, “I didn’t notice a little box on my chair.”
The saddest moment about that line isn’t that he isn’t promoted…it’s that he doesn’t even have a chair at his station.