From Paris, With Glug: The Alcoholic Star Trek Episode That Gave Us Hope

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 1 hour ago

As a franchise, Star Trek is full of episodes that are hard to understand. Sometimes, this is because of all the weird technobabble. You can only hear someone mention tachyons and deflector dishes so many times before you zone out. More often, though, it’s hard to understand an episode because you don’t understand why a character made a surprising decision. This can make Star Trek feel like a horror movie because you find yourself screaming at the screen, wondering why supposedly smart people are making nothing but dumb decisions from beginning to end.

A prime example of this is “Non-Sequitur,” a Voyager episode where Harry Kim wakes up back on Earth. Instead of being stranded in the Delta Quadrant, he’s engaged to the girl of his dreams and generally living his best life. However, he risks it all to restore the timeline so that his best buddy, Tom Paris, can have meaning in his life again. Kim’s decision to ruin his own life for his friend was baffling to everyone, including the actors. But Kim’s shocking choice perfectly defines what Voyager is all about: standing fast to your ideals, no matter the cost.

The Man Who Had It All

“Non-Sequitur” is an episode where Harry Kim seemingly has it all. After his shuttlecraft starts shaking, he suddenly wakes up in a different timeline where he never joined Voyager’s crew. Instead of enjoying a happily ever after with his old flame (and now fiancée) Libby, however, he becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to him. That obsession reaches a fever pitch when he finds out that Tom Paris never made it to Voyager and has become a drunk, bitter has-been. After getting Paris’ reluctant help, the two restore the timeline and rejoin Voyager on its 70-year mission to get home.

It’s a standout episode of Star Trek: Voyager and arguably the first really great Harry Kim episode. However, it can be hard to suspend your disbelief when watching “Non-Sequitur,” especially if you put yourself in Kim’s shoes. For most people, being separated from all their friends and family for the better part of a century is one of the worst things that could ever happen to them. This is an episode where Harry seemingly got a second chance at living an infinitely happier life, but he ultimately threw it away to return to the bleak status quo of his existence in the Delta Quadrant.

From Paris, With Glug

Interestingly, both Ensign Kim actor Garret Wang and Libby actor Jennifer Gatti had the same questions about why the heck Kim would ever want to return to Voyager. Eventually, producer Jeri Taylor revealed the answer in an old interview with Cinefantastique: “The big thing is finding his friend Tom Paris is dissolute, because of this whole change,” she said. “Kim may be living a lovely life with his girlfriend, but it is at the cost of his friend’s happiness, and it just isn’t right. He is too much a young man of principle and integrity to indulge himself when it is at the expense of others.”

Arguably, this perfectly encapsulates the values of Star Trek: Voyager. As an idealistic and principled Starfleet officer, Harry Kim couldn’t screw over his best friend just to make his own life better. Just like Janeway couldn’t use the Caretaker to take her ship back home because she knew it would doom the Ocampa. Kim’s moral dilemma isn’t all that unique. In the finest Trek tradition, he must choose between happiness and duty, and he doesn’t hesitate to choose duty.

Is that message more than a bit cheesy and impractical? Of course. But let’s face it: we watch Star Trek because these characters are aspirational. They give us hope that, hundreds of years from now, humanity will have evolved beyond petty selfishness in the collective pursuit of bettering ourselves.

Harry Kim did something that none of us would have done in his place, and that’s the point. He’s modeling how to be a better man. In this way, “Non-Sequitur” is more than a solid Voyager episode: it’s also the embodiment of this franchise’s greatest ideals, perfectly defining everything that fans love about Star Trek.