So I'm Watching "Chains of Command"

I don't think the writers were trying to get the audience on the crew's side. They obviously wanted us to see both sides making mistakes. Funnily enough, Jellico turned out be the person that got a lot of support from the audience.

 

That would be a cool scene. Has there ever been a scene in TNG where Picard reprimands Riker (aside from alien illusions / manipulations)?

 

Something thats seems to bite him in the ass here. It seems that Riker at some point decided that he wants command of the Enterprise, nothing else ( notice that in " Future Imperfect" he sees himself as captain of the Enterprise ). As such he clearly believes if Picard is not captain it should be him, notice that he tells Necheyev he doesn't see why Jellico should assume command to conduct negotiations and his reaction to her dimissing him ( in fairness she was pretty nasty about it).

Actually I can see Necheyev telling Jellico about that little exchange, which might explain why, although initially congenial, Jellico seems to dismiss Riker as a bad officer so quickly.

 

I'm remembering Deanna's conversation with Wyatt Miller all the way back in season one's "Haven." She said something to the effect of "what he wants most in life is to Captain a starship." Somewhere along the way "a starship" turned into "this starship" and he appeared content to wait out Picard. (Until Nemesis)

 

Yeah, Necheyev was so undiplomatic when dismissing Picard and Riker. I get it, she's a commanding admiral but could have handled both those instances a lot better.

As I recall, in the early drafts of First Conatct Riker had become captain of the Enterprise-B and Picard was a commodore/admiral.

In the alternate All Good Things future, Riker has taken the Enterprise-D as his flagship and he tells Picard at the end of Enterprise-D he always thought he'd have a chance at that chair. Picard finally outlasted him in keeping the Enterprise.

 

He actually threatens to reorganize his command structure in The Pegasus. That's the only time I recall. Frankly, Riker wasn't an interesting enough character to be involved in something that would get him reprimanded, like Worf for example

 

About Riker's career stagnation: Surely starfleet would be used to this sort of thing. There would be a lot of people who would rather stay on a certain ship. And the enterprise was the best in the fleet right? I'd think it would happen frequently on a ship like that.

A desire to captain the ship seems like a good quality in a first officer to me, since they'll be doing it a lot "You have the bridge number one"

 

Think about how many people Riker held back by squatting on the Enterprise XO job.

I really loved the character in seasons one and two. Season three (especially after "The Best of Both Worlds") his character had no real reason to be there and I think the show suffers because of it.

 

thing is, for a lot of officers the Enterprise IS the dream job, its at the forefront of scientific research and on what remains of the frontier ( which doesn't seem to be much since it seems to be at a starbase every other week!)
For a first officer however, well ... it seems like the job would be a stepping stone to command, a first officer should not want to stay there forever as far as Starfleet is concerned. Hell Shelby certainly saw it as the place to be to prove her mettle ( and as an aside look at Rikers treatment of her in comparison to Jellicos treatment of him )
Note that Picard told Riker that he was making a mistake staying on Enterprise in " Best of Both Worlds" I imagine that Starfleet might speculate that given his refusals of a command he might prefer to stay as a first officer ( Imagine how THAT would have screwed him if Jellico remained in command of Enterprise!)

An additional thought about Jellico, its not beyond belief that once he established his command style that he would have softened a bit- its easy to forget but Picard was more curmugenly that avuncular in the first season of TNG.

 

Part of me thinks that Starfleet wanted Riker there for a little while following Picard's abduction by the Borg to use him as something of a safety net to make sure the Captain was really recovered. Of course as years go by his reason for staying on becomes more and more ridiculous. When the Enterprise D went down in flames that should have been it for Riker's tenure as the XO whether he wanted it or not. The ship he was holding out for was gone. Time to put on the Captain's pips.

 

I think that would have made sense. Keep Riker around Picard for the next year while the fleet is being rebuilt. If Picard isn't overcome by the trauma he suffered, then it's time to transfer Will to one of the rebuilt starships.

 

He did. Once onboard, he implemented the changes that he expected, dealt with resistance appropriately, & once he removed Riker, who was clearly out of line, everything on that ship was just fine. In fact, the very next scene is Geordi, Data & Jellico putting the pieces together magnificently. He listens to them, takes their suggestions, uses their input, & drives the team to success

Data's info led to them knowing Picard was the target. Jellico deduced the bit about the sector's strategic defense plans. Geordi linked it to Minos Korva. Jellico hatched the offensive, & Worf armed the offensive. It was even Geordi's suggestion that they use Riker as pilot. They operated like a well oiled machine, those officers. All Riker did was pilot the shuttle well, & instead of volunteering he made Jellico grovel.

Jellico: "I won't order you to go on this mission"
Riker: "Then ask"

Seriously? You're not going to volunteer? You already know we need the best pilot we can get, to save Picard & prevent war, & you sit there in your commander's uniform, waiting for someone to come along with their hat in their hand & ASK you if you'd like to do something about it, instead of swallowing some pride the way Jellico did in coming to you in the 1st place & agreeing to drop ranks for the sake of the mission?

In my opinion, you've just now proven Jellico right, & your crew should be disappointed in you

 

Q made a comment about thinking that Riker was going to get command of Voyager. So it possibly was offered to him.

 

And then he turned it down. To think that we were burdened with seven years of Neelix because of Riker! If that isn't a reason to hate the man, I don't know what is. Because there's no way Riker would have destroyed the array before Voyager could return to the Alpha Quadrant.

--Sran

 

Great points! Jellico was willing to do whatever had to be done to "get it done". If that meant alienating some crewmembers to get the ship on a war footing, so be it. If that meant swallowing his pride and grovelling to an XO who should have been reprimanded (if not court-martialled) for his conduct, he was willing to do that, too.

 

Lucky for Riker that Picard was in the whole... recovering from torture mode to bother with dealing with Riker, or caring about what happened while he was gone.

 

Well we could also chalk that up to Jellico's professionalism. He probably considered the insubordination as something between him and Riker and declared the matter closed on his way out. Jellico obviously didn't feel the need to tattle on Riker on his way out. It was his problem and he handled it, no need to bring in Picard. Very interesting episode and probably not for the reasons the writers anticipated.

 

Interesting that people speak of the Enterprise crew reacting negatively to Jellico's style of command with Data being the obvious exception. We never see Worf object in any way upon his return from the mission he and Dr. Crusher were on with Picard. If Worf had problem with Jellico, you bet your whatever that he'd let him know.

 

Worf is a warrior. He would probably prefer serving under Jellico than Picard (if he didn't already become a softy by this time).

 

Many have called Worf a softy. All of them are dead now. Want to join them?