Voyager Re-Watch: Non-Sequitur

Oh man, ok well I've been putting off writing this post because I felt like I didn't have anything really interesting to say about it but here we go.

Non-Sequitur is an episode that always kind of sticks with me in spite of the fact that I feel it's not a very strong outing for Voyager. Harry Kim is body snatched (for the THIRD time and it's only the beginning of the second season, people) and taken to an alternate reality earth where his girlfriend is all, "You ready to get married, sweetheart?" and he never boarded Voyager and neither did Alternate Tom Paris and now they're both here and Harry's trying his damndest to get back.

Ok, Harry is the whiniest of the Voyager crew (outside of Seska and with her it's less about whining and more just deadly mischief) about getting back to the Alpha Quadrant so it seems both a great and terrible idea to put him on Earth. Great because it should be amazing to watch him struggle with what he ought to do--terrible because that's a pretty big thing to justify. Even in the Trek-Verse where everyone in Starfleet is Level 9000 honorable and duty-bound etc, I buy that Harry will try to go back I just don't... really... care. His reasoning for going back is that he feels guilty firstly about him not being there for Voyager (sorry Harry, I'm not sure that would... uh... matter) secondly, he feels bad about Tom Paris who, in this universe, is shooting pool and wearing a vest and basically spending his days giving no fucks about anything. In actuality, Vest Paris is my favorite thing about this episode.

In my imagination he has a whole closet of these vests. Like Doug.

In Harry's mind, this is a terrible thing. So, I guess he feels like he needs to get back so he can be there for his own Tom Paris? Why doesn't he just stay there with his girlfriend and his Vulcan mocha and give Vest Paris some (apparently) much needed Harry-Time? I suppose this is a case of not an alternate reality but an altered one. Only one can exist I guess? So Harry has to make it right? All this comes out of Harry mocha-dealing friend in about one line of dialogue wherein he's also all like, "Btw, if you super want to fix things you can just fly a shuttle into the space-time-fold..." So that's what he does and then Vest Paris (sadly) no longer exists.

I don't know. I'm just not feeling it. And I guess that's why this episode never really did it for me. After I re-watched this one, I sat around imagining other Voyager crewmen thrust into Harry's position. What would Non-Sequitur have been like had it been a B'Elanna-sode instead? Or Paris himself?

Bonus Points:
-At first I commended Harry Kim for not playing his damn clarinet because his girlfriend was asleep and then, about five seconds later, he's reading the computer screen OUT LOUD. At this point, if I were Harry's poor girlfriend I'd go from, "I'm worried about you sweetie," to "GTFO you turd and go back to the Delta Quadrant!"
-I need my sleep.