Non Sequitur (episode)

Harry Kim is placed in an alternate timeline where he was never assigned to Voyager.

Teaser
As Harry Kim wakes up, he can hear the distant voice of Captain Janeway, who says something about an emergency transport. She calls out his name several times as her voice transitions into that of his girlfriend Libby, who wakes him gently. Kim stares out the window of his apartment as he discovers that he is back on Earth, in the city of San Francisco.

Act One
A disbelieving Kim can't believe that he is back on Earth, with Libby. She reminds him he has an important meeting and rushes a still stunned Kim to shower and get dressed. Kim emerges from the bathroom dressed in his standard yellow uniform and is obviously still trying to process exactly what happened. He asks her the stardate: 49011. He realizes it's not the past, but the present, and that he isn't dreaming. He runs through the other possibilities: holodeck? hallucination? Libby, exasperated, tells him they both have long days ahead of them and they need to get to work. He responds to her like he would if he were facing an alien interrogation, and tells her he is from USS Voyager. She is not amused, telling him the memorial service was two months ago and he shouldn't joke about it.

Kim leaves his apartment and continues to look around the area with disbelief. From a coffee shop named Cosimo's he gets what he has apparently been drinking for eight months, a Vulcan mocha, from Cosimo. From him, Kim learns that he is giving the presentation of the new ship design he – Harry Kim – has created. Kim asks the man how long he has been coming to this shop, and Cosimo tells him that it's been nearly every day since he graduated from Starfleet Academy. Kim also learns that he and Libby are engaged, but before he can ask more questions, Lieutenant Lasca arrives and hurries him to the important meeting.

Lasca and Kim have been working on an experimental runabout, the Yellowstone, but since Kim has no idea what it is, he does not have the warp coil schematic he needed for their presentation to Admiral Strickler and company. Lasca starts to explain the new design of the runabout they have been working on. It has tetryon-based plasma warp nacelles. The admiral interrupts, asking how they will address the dilithium fracture problem, since tetryon plasma can disrupt subspace. Lasca confidently introduces Kim to answer that problem, while Kim sits in his chair with a panicked look on his face – he has no idea what Lasca is talking about.

Act Two
The admiral and his staff wait impatiently as Kim struggles to come up with an answer. He finally feigns illness and asks if the presentation can be continued at a later date. The admiral, however, is leaving on a three-week tour of the Cardassian border in a few days, so the presentation will have to wait until after then. Lasca leaves, disgusted with Kim for blowing the meeting.

Kim enters what is apparently his office in headquarters. He sees his diploma from Starfleet Academy and the design schematics for the Yellowstone. Kim looks up information on himself and Voyager. He finds that, perhaps in an alternate timeline, his request to transfer to Voyager was denied. Instead, Kim joined Starfleet Engineering Corps. He learns that he has had a short but so far distinguished career with the engineering corps. He asks the computer if any temporal anomalies have been reported in the last 48 hours, and finds that there were none. He also tries to find information on the loss of Voyager, but that information is classified security level 3 or above. Kim, however, has no problem accessing the information since he was a member of Voyager's crew, or at least he thought he was. He finds that his friend Danny Byrd took what would have been his place as operations officer of Voyager. Kim leaves his office more confused than ever. He returns to his neighborhood, but forgets where his apartment was. Cosimo points him in the right direction, and tells him everything will be fine. However, after Kim leaves, Cosimo watches him with a concerned yet knowing look – there appears to be more to the middle-aged man than meets the eye.

Returning "home", he finds Libby there and she asks if he is okay, and she is concerned when he is still confused about what is going on. He asks her to tell him she loves him, like they haven't seen each other for months. He spins her a story much like what happened to Voyager. Their conversation becomes more intimate as the two kiss passionately.

Later, it has grown dark and Libby sleeps in Kim's arms. He is lying awake and finally gets out of bed and smiles upon finding his familiar clarinet. He goes to the computer and looks up information on Tom Paris, unaware that Libby has awakened behind him and is coming over to investigate. He finds that Paris was paroled on stardate 48702 and is now living in Marseilles, France. Libby wants to know what is going on. He tries to tell her nothing is going on, but she tells him he is a bad liar, and that he is acting strange, even to the point where Lasca called and wanted to know if something was going on. Kim tells her to trust him. and then tells her that he shouldn't be here (in this reality). She thinks that he is getting cold feet about getting married, and thinks he should talk to a counselor or a neurologist. Kim tells her he has something to do first and leaves for Marseilles to find Tom Paris, leaving a confused and hurt Libby behind.

In Marseilles, Kim finds Paris wearing civilian clothes and playing pool in the real-life Chez Sandríne's. Kim greets Paris as a friend, but Paris doesn't even recognize Kim.

Act Three
Kim tries to convince Paris that they served together on Voyager, but Paris tells a different story. After he got to Deep Space 9, he was involved in a bar fight with Quark, and was arrested by Odo. Starfleet revoked his parole, and Paris never went on Voyager. He isn't sorry about that, considering what happened to it, but Kim remembers the story differently. He was the one who was nearly swindled by the Ferengi over the Lobi crystals, and Paris did lead Voyager into the Badlands. Paris, of course, remembers no such events. Kim wants Paris to return to Starfleet HQ with him and run a simulation of what happened during his shuttle accident. Paris laughs at the idea, and tells Kim to go back to Starfleet and tell his superiors that he is not interested in being a pawn in their game.

Kim tells Paris that Paris once told him he treated life as one big game, and he never worried about the rules until he lost the game. He then tells Paris what Paris had told him what he thought would have happened if he hadn't gone on Voyager: that he would have become a loser and a drunk – and that is exactly what has happened. Enraged, Paris takes a swing at him, but in his half-drunken state Kim is easily able to subdue him. Kim storms out, leaving an embarrassed Paris face down on the pool table. As he leaves, Kim doesn't notice one of the bar patrons who watches as he leaves – it is Cosimo.

Kim returns to his apartment, but there are security personnel in his apartment, and Lasca informs him that Starfleet knows what he had been doing – breaking into classified files using forged security access codes (his own, from Voyager). Kim tries to explain, but he is ordered to go to Starfleet HQ under escort.

Admiral Strickler questions how Kim can have access to Voyager's information, and is skeptical about Kim's claim that he was assigned to Voyager since he is on Earth. Kim tries to explain that reality has been altered somehow and he needs to attempt to restore it, but nobody is willing to believe him. The admiral wonders why he went to see Tom Paris, a convicted traitor and Maquis sympathizer. Kim finally realizes that they think he is a Maquis spy, and he refuses to answer any further questions without counsel present. Kim is placed under house arrest, and is then given an anklet and is informed he is prohibited from off-world travel. Kim is dismissed with a warning from the admiral.

Act Four
Returning to his neighborhood, he meets Cosimo, who reveals that Kim is not imagining that reality had been altered. He, Cosimo, was sent to Earth to watch Kim and make sure everything was all right, but now it is clear that it's not. He tells Kim that his people exist in what Kim would call a temporal inversion fold of the space-time matrix. He informs Kim that his shuttle collided with their timestream, causing some of reality to be altered. Kim asks for help in restoring the proper reality, but Cosimo admits that they don't know how. The events happened by accident and the conditions that existed before the accident may be impossible to re-create and that there is no guarantee what will happen if he does – he could end up anywhere in the space-time continuum. Cosimo asks him if he really wants to give up his life here – he has a successful Starfleet career and a beautiful woman who loves him. Kim asks him what about Danny Byrd and Tom Paris, whose lives were changed for the worse as a result of the altered timeline. Cosimo relents and gives him coordinates of the time stream in this region of space, and wishes him luck if he goes through with his plan.

In his apartment, Kim attempts to remove the anklet. Libby catches him, and asks him if he wants to go to prison. She tells him she hardly knows him any more, but he assures her that he is still the guy who was in her seat at the Ktarian music festival, and the guy who took three weeks to work up the courage to ask her out, and who still wakes up at night calling her name. She wonders, then why he is trying to get away from her. He tells her he wants to stay more than anything, but that he needs to restore the correct timeline, and that he wouldn't be the Kim she loves otherwise. Suddenly, the tampering alarm on the bracelet goes off, and Starfleet Security is alerted, Two security officers beam in, and Kim escapes out the window while Libby closes it behind him and blocks them. Kim runs down the fire escape, almost getting caught in the process. He is chased across the plaza by a security officer who tackles him to the ground, but this reality's Tom Paris punches the security guard and they both walk away quickly.

Act Five
After their escape, Paris and Kim take temporary shelter in a service alleyway. Kim tells Paris that he has a plan to restore the correct reality, but he will need a ship and a good pilot. They can break the Yellowstone out of spacedock, and Paris can fly it. Paris beams them to Kim's office using a hand-portable site-to-site transporter.

In Kim's office, Kim accesses the runabout's access codes, and they beam to the Yellowstone. Paris flies them through the rapidly closing spacedock doors, and they head for the time-stream coordinates. A starship is pursuing them, thinking the two are trying to steal the prototype runabout. The starship fires, knocking out their shields with just a few shots. The prototype was not yet complete, and many of the safety interlocks were not installed. The ship begins to lose anti-matter containment. Kim gets the idea to vent the tetryon plasma, which disrupts subspace, from the ship's warp nacelles, which would cause the pursuing ship to stall when it hit the resulting plasma cloud. They do, and the pursuing starship is slowed, but their joy is short-lived when the warp core begins to overload.

Kim desperately tries to recreate all the conditions that were in place before his accident as best he can remember. They impact the time stream, but nothing happens, and Kim remembers that he was in the midst of an emergency transport. The ship loses antimatter containment, and the core will breach in twenty-five seconds. Paris orders Kim to get onto the transporter pad, but Kim doesn't want to go until they can contain the breach. Paris tells him that if this works, everything will be back to the way it should be and he'll find Paris back on Voyager. He then shoves Kim onto the transporter pad and beams him into the time stream, just as the ship explodes.

Kim opens his eyes and finds he is back in his correct reality, and Captain Janeway is still hailing him, telling him to drop the shields of his shuttle and prepare for emergency beam-out. Voyager manages to beam Kim out of his shuttle just before it suffers a hull breach, and Kim, back on Voyager, is relieved to find Tom Paris alive and on the bridge. He tells Paris he owes him one, much to Paris' bewilderment.

Memorable Quotes
"Where are you going?"

"Marseille, France."

"What for?"

"I've got to see Paris."

"But you just said you were going to Marseille."
 * - Libby and Harry

"Excuse me... Ow! There goes my bank shot!"
 * - Tom Paris, as he punches a Starfleet security officer

"Anyway, I got as far as Deep Space 9, where I got into a bar fight with a Ferengi and I was thrown into the brig by a very unpleasant shapeshifter."
 * - Tom Paris

"Harry... you better be dying."
 * - Lasca, to Kim after he cancels an important meeting claiming to be sick

"Why does everyone say relax when they're about to do something terrible?"
 * - Harry Kim

Title, Story and Script

 * This episode's title derives from the Latin, "It does not follow". The phrase is often used in English to refer to someone saying something off-topic, with no segue. This episode is one of seven Star Trek episodes with Latin names. The others are, , , , and.
 * This installment originated with complaints from Kim actor Garrett Wang. He recalled, "The episode 'Non Sequitur' was the result of me going into the production office and saying, 'You know what? You guys have tortured Harry and done all of these things to him. I would like once to have a day where I'm shooting and they need a stunt double for me.' I mean, even Kes had a stunt double! I [hadn't] had anything dangerous to do [....] I went in and said, 'When is Harry gonna get the girl? When is he gonna have the action?' [Episode writer] Brannon Braga told me, 'Don't worry about it.' And he wrote an episode. I asked him to do it throughout that year and he put it all in one episode." (The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine, issue #17) Wang also recounted, "What happened was I came into the office with Brannon Braga and I said, 'I have to ask you something. Are you guys ever gonna plan on having Kim doing any type of action, whatsoever, just any action?' Because up until that point, every other actor on Voyager had had a stunt double. Kim hadn't had one. So I said, you know, 'It'd be great if, you know, Kim could have a scene where he's kicking some butt, you know? And maybe during one of the episodes during this year, maybe you could have Kim having a little romance, too.' 'Cause up until then, it hadn't happened. And this was a meeting at the beginning of the year that I had with him. Well, lo and behold, he threw every suggestion I had into one episode." (Voyager Time Capsule: Harry Kim, VOY Season 4 DVD special features)
 * The admiral who interrogates Kim was originally to be Counselor Deanna Troi. Brannon Braga recollected, "I had actually written Counselor Troi into a big scene where Kim is being interrogated. It's the admiral now, but it was Troi working for Starfleet, where she really grills Kim. But we couldn't work it out with Marina [Sirtis ], so I rewrote it." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages)
 * One motive for the development of this episode was to feature the setting of Earth. "This is not a show we would have done the first season," executive producer Jeri Taylor said, "but we felt in the second season we could tantalize people a little bit with a glimpse of home." (Cinefantastique, Vol. 28, No. 4/5, pp. 80 & 82)
 * Another goal in the writing of this episode was to create a particular type of tension. Executive producer Michael Piller recalled, "I had always envisioned a,  type of tension in this show." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages)
 * The episode's final script draft was submitted on.

Cast and Characters

 * After the script of this episode was released to the cast, Garrett Wang made a telephone call to Brannon Braga about the episode. The actor recalled, "Non Sequitur' came about, and there was action, there was romance, you know, this and that. And I read the script and I called him up. I said, 'Thanks! I just thought you could maybe spread it out, you know, throughout the season, instead of giving me everything in the first episode for me!" (Voyager Time Capsule: Harry Kim, VOY Season 4 DVD special features)
 * Nevertheless, Garrett Wang was ultimately very appreciative of this installment. He noted that the episode "pretty much had all the elements I had been missing." Moments later, he remarked, "That's a really big episode for me." (, p. 88) Wang also described this installment as "the big Kim episode for Season 2" and considered the facts that the episode includes Wang's first stunt of the series as well as the first time Kim "got to kiss the girl" to be major milestones of Voyagers second season. (Voyager Time Capsule: Harry Kim, VOY Season 4 DVD special features) The actor also cited this episode as one of three examples, from each of the first three seasons, that he considered to be "a progressively higher jump for me acting-wise" (the other such episodes being and ). (, p. 34) Directly regarding Kim, Wang stated, "In 'Non Sequitur' he gets some more color (background stuff touched upon) and more confidence, which is great." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages) Of the episode in general, Wang opined, "Non Sequitur' was pretty good." (The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine, issue #17) He also proposed that it could have been combined with the less action-packed "Emanations" to result in "a two-fisted punch of an episode," (Starlog #222)
 * By the time this episode was cast, Libby actress Jennifer Gatti had become known to the team who cast her here. "They knew me and they knew my work," the actress remarked. "When the part of Libby came up, they still made me work for it. I went in about four times. I read for the same people four times. They're very particular about what they want. They're very thorough." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages)
 * Having had to portray a scene of while virtually naked, Jennifer Gatti found that the role of Libby here also required her to be scantily clad. "I always seem to have my clothes off," the actress laughed. "I guess now I'm a Star Trek babe, huh? [....] I get Libby and I realized: I'm never dressed till the very end. I'm in a pajama top, and I'm in a towel, and then finally I'm in this phenomenal raspberry Solid Gold dancer outfit and I'm like, 'There's a pattern going on here.' I have to feel a little complimented, after all, because apparently somebody likes me without my clothes on." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, )
 * The storyline was generally confusing for Jennifer Gatti. She admitted, "Frankly, I still don't really know what happened [....] I can't figure it out: Is Libby still waiting for [Kim], or, if there are two Libbys, is one of them now wondering where he went while the other believes he's on Voyager? That episode fascinates me because I still think about it and I'm not sure what happened." The actress speculated, "I don't think it was another reality. I think it was the present. He changed the past and he changed the future in terms of the present. When he went to San Francisco, he completely changed everything that happened in the present. I'm figuring this out as I talk to you. So I guess Libby went back to believing Harry was on Voyager." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages)
 * Both Jennifer Gatti and Garrett Wang had some concerns about Kim's desire to find a way back to Voyager when he was clearly so homesick aboard the ship. Gatti remembered, "Garrett and I had a lot of discussions about that, actually. Here he is: he's home. I guess the reason he can't stay is because Paris's life had been affected by whatever it was that happened [....] [Kim] wouldn't be able to live with the guilt. And I think that he has a certain confidence that they are going to get home." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, ) Regarding the reasoning for Kim's eagerness to return to Voyager, Jeri Taylor commented, "Kim gets back [home] and realizes that it is not where he is supposed to be, as ideal as it is. The big thing is finding his friend Tom Paris is dissolute, because of this whole change. 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." (Cinefantastique, Vol. 28, No. 4/5, p. 82)
 * Brannon Braga was critical of the way Kim's relationship with Libby was depicted. He remarked, "I didn't think the chemistry between Kim and his girlfriend was very good." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages)
 * The character of Cosimo may have been named after Cosmo Genovese, the script supervisor on Star Trek: Voyager.
 * Admiral Strickler's name is given in the episode's end credits but is never established in episode dialogue.
 * Among other Star Trek appearances that Jack Shearer (Strickler) made were as Admiral Hayes in as well as the Star Trek: Voyager episodes  and . The fact that Strickler's name is never said aloud during this episode caused considerable confusion among some fans due to Jack Shearer's appearances as Admiral Hayes in later episodes of the series.
 * Robert Picardo (The Doctor), Ethan Phillips (Neelix) and Jennifer Lien (Kes) do not appear in this episode. In fact, with the exceptions of Paris and Kim, none of the main cast appear in this episode until the final minute (although Janeway's voice is heard in the beginning). This is the first episode of the series in which Kes does not appear.

Reused Footage

 * The exterior footage of Starfleet Headquarters near the Golden Gate Bridge was recycled from.
 * A shot of San Francisco at night with the Golden Gate Bridge is taken from the beginning of.
 * When Harry returns from Marseille, France, the shot of the shuttle entering Starfleet Command is taken from the original version of, when Kirk arrives in San Francisco.
 * The spacedock door was a reuse of the door of the Dyson sphere from.
 * The shot of the runabout exploding is taken from the DS9 episode.

Other Production Notes

 * The scenes set on the streets of San Francisco were filmed on Paramount's New York Street backlot. The regular blacktop there was painted over to represent red brick streets which were washed away after filming ended. (Star Trek: Voyager Companion)
 * According to the unauthorized reference book Delta Quadrant (p. 72), the scene in which Paris explains why he is helping Kim was cheaply filmed "in the alley between two sound stages."
 * Also according to Delta Quadrant (p. 70), the monitor incorporated into the headquarters briefing room set was actually the same monitor from the observation lounge of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D).

Continuity and Trivia

 * In the alternate timeline, Tom Paris (who refers to both Quark and Odo) was apparently with Voyager as far as Deep Space 9, where the ship left without him. This is consistent with our timeline, as seen in Voyager's pilot episode,, wherein Tom interrupts Quark's attempt to make a profit off of Harry and subsequently becomes friends with the ensign; had this not occurred and Voyager left Tom behind, the two would likely have never known each other.
 * Due to the recycled footage of Starfleet Headquarters from Star Trek IV, this episode is the only time a Tellarite appears on Star Trek: Voyager.
 * When Harry comes up out of the subway, there are three colored shapes on the railing: a circle, triangle and square. These were the original logo shapes for UPN and Star Trek: Voyager was one of the first flagship shows of that network.
 * When Kim picks up his clarinet while Libby is sleeping, there is a brief clarinet motif in Jay Chattaway's soundtrack.
 * Libby states the stardate in this episode, which makes Harry realize he is still in the present. They establish that it has been eight months since the events of "Caretaker." The stardate Libby tells Harry (specifically, Stardate 49011) is also used as the stardate in a log entry that Captain Sisko voices at the end of, indicating that the events of this episode are chronologically set after that episode.
 * This episode marks the only appearance of a runabout on the series. The runabout in this episode appears both with and without its structural rollbar.
 * The crew roster of the alternate timeline Voyager shown on Harry Kim's desktop monitor repeats the same crew members on the same page.
 * Harry's office is in the Main Complex, Level 6, Subsection 47.
 * Voyager loses a second shuttlecraft, the Drake, in this episode, the first being lost in.
 * One of the possible theories of Harry's actions by Starfleet Command is that he is impersonated by an alien, which foreshadows the threat of Changelings infiltrating Earth in and  later in the same year. Although not directly stated, it seems that Starfleet Command is already cautious about a possible Changeling threat.
 * This episode has the shortest teaser of Voyager's second season, being one of three second season Voyager installments whose teasers are less than a minute long (the other two such episodes are and ).
 * There is a brief glimpse of a banner advertising the Old Town Festival in the Mission District of San Francisco as occurring on August 14th. This is one of the few instances of a month (rather than a stardate) being mentioned in a 24th-century episode.

First Airing and Reception

 * Ultimately, Brannon Braga was admittedly disappointed with this episode. "If you're going to do alternate reality, make sure it's just a very good story," he advised, before adding, "and this one just didn't turn out very well [....] There's always some cool stuff, but it didn't work as an episode." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages)
 * Michael Piller was similarly unsatisfied with the episode. "I felt that this was a great premise that didn't live up to its potential," Piller stated. "I felt production-wise it was quite good, and I felt that there were some good scenes in it." About the sought-after Hitchcockian tension, Piller opined, "I don't think we ever achieved [it]. There were long, languid scenes that cut the tension." Another problem that Piller perceived was that Kim managed to solve the episode's conundrum too easily. "I felt the resolution was too easy," he remarked. "I didn't know personally how to recommend a solution, but having the alien sit down and say basically everything you needed to know about this show and more in one scene, and here's what you do to get out, didn't work. It just felt like we didn't earn our way out of it." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages)
 * This episode achieved a Nielsen rating of 6 million homes, and a 9% share. Along with the episodes and, this was the joint fifth most watched episode of Voyagers second season (on first airing), with all three episodes having the same viewing figures.  This particular episode, however, has repeatedly failed to appear in the top five of fan polls testing the popularity of episodes in Star Trek: Voyagers second season. (, p. 18; )
 * In common with, the reason why this episode aired when it did was to capitalize on the location work involved in the installment, because – of the first six episodes in the season's final airing order – three (, and ) were bottle shows held over from the previous season. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 28, No. 4/5, p. 76)
 * Cinefantastique gave this installment 3 out of 4 stars. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 28, No. 4/5, p. 80)
 * The unauthorized reference book Delta Quadrant (p. 73) scored the episode 6 out of 10.

Video and DVD releases

 * UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 2.1,.
 * CIC Video released the four Season 1 "hold-over" episodes in their production order, as part of the first season release. This is the second episode in the second season release, volume 2.1 having begun with . Volume 2.2 begins with .


 * As part of the VOY Season 2 DVD collection.

Starring

 * Kate Mulgrew as Captain Kathryn Janeway

Also starring

 * Robert Beltran as Commander Chakotay
 * Roxann Biggs-Dawson as Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres
 * Robert Duncan McNeill as Lieutenant Tom Paris
 * Tim Russ as Lieutenant Tuvok
 * Garrett Wang as Ensign Harry Kim

Guest stars

 * Louis Giambalvo as Cosimo
 * Jennifer Gatti as Libby
 * Jack Shearer as Strickler
 * Mark Kiely as Lasca

Co-star

 * Majel Barrett as Computer Voice

Uncredited co-stars

 * Irving E. Lewis as a Starfleet security officer
 * Tom Morga as a Starfleet security officer
 * Unknown performers as Inhabitants of San Francisco