10 Weirdest Decisions In Star Trek History

10. Janeway Not Promoting Harry Kim

Harry Kim remained an Ensign throughout Voyager's entire seven-year journey trapped in the Delta Quadrant. This wasn't brought up often, but, in the episode Nightingale, Kim said that he understood that Voyager was in a unique situation stranded thousands of lightyears from home, and that there wasn't much room for promotion on the ship.

Despite this though, in the same time-period Tuvok was promoted to a Lieutenant Commander in the episode Revulsion, and Tom Paris, a literal ex-convict, was reinstated as a Lieutenant after getting stranded with the crew in Caretaker, then demoted to an Ensign in Thirty Days, and eventually promoted back to a Lieutenant in Unimatrix Zero (not to mention the fact that he was seen wearing the pips of a junior grade lieutenant in the episode Faces, which could imply that yet another demotion and promotion happened off camera).

Beyond that, Harry's low rank didn't actually make that much sense. He was the head operations officer aboard Voyager, a fairly important job that oversees a huge number of people and projects. Janeway could've easily given him a customary promotion as appreciation for everything he sacrificed to keep the crew alive, and not much about the ship's command structure would've had to change.