Who is the better captain Picard or Jellico

He was ready to declare Picard dead at the beginning of the episode, I don't think it would be out of character for him to focus on protecting the planets and write him off completely

 

Or he was just using the necessary words to force Riker to stop focusing on what was not the priority at the moment. At best, Picard's status is a POW, which they can do nothing about until they have the upper hand. At worst he's dead, which they can't even determine, let alone do anything about, until they have the upper hand. Jellico is focusing on getting the upper hand, because that's the play. Riker is falling right into the pitfalls they have laid out for them, because he's a dupe. We're talking about a guy who's pecker nearly got the whole ship taken over by jerkwads with an addictive candy crush game. Riker needed to be told to back off on the Picard issue, & the best way to make him hear it was to slam the door on it

It's out of character for any right minded Starfleet officer, which he does nothing but prove he is. People want to overlook that Jellico is a Starfleet line officer in top standing. He is ONE of them. In all likelihood, he would be VERY much like all the others. Leaving a fellow officer to burn, when you can do something about it, goes against everything they stand for. Hell, it's not even sound logic for keeping a strong fleet, if you just abandon one of the fleet's best officer's once you have the upper hand you've been jockeying for.

Honestly, I could see some later events where if the Cardies are holding other POWs, Jellico gets back on his own ship & keeps hounding that booby trapped fleet, until all of them are released

 

Jellico probably felt the same way.

 

The other thing people overlook about Jellico in their default zeal to defend our regular cast, is the narrative in which he's presented. He was not presented like any other Starfleet Officer prior. In almost all cases for Star Trek, especially on TNG, any opposing Starfleet officer, who's actions might be wrongful, questionable, or corrupt, those characters are brought to some kind of justice in the narrative. Whether they are arrested like Pressman or Maxwell, die like Jameson or Dougherty, get stripped of their authority, like Norah Satie, are proved wrong like Dr. Toby Russel, OR find enlightenment, like Haftel & Maddox, the narrative displays them for their wrongness.

In Jellico's case, while he does have to make an insignificant amends & accept he might need Riker for a part of his mission, he isn't shown to be wrong about removing him as XO. He isn't proved wrong in any way whatsoever, beyond Riker proclaiming that he's not fun to work for, as ridiculous as that sounds in a time of potential war. Jellico doesn't get any tangible comeuppance, because he doesn't really deserve any. He was sent there to do a job & he did it, & it worked

The narrative presents him on equal footing with our regulars, & that means we ought to objectively view the scenario as if it were Picard & Riker having this dispute, or some other 2nd in command, who we don't know, & who's side would we all fall on if that were the case? You'd side with Picard, because Riker is the one being wrongful, whether he's personally satisfied with his captain or not

 

You know I never thought about that.

 

I don't like it when the deck is stacked against a character that no matter what he does we're supposed to find his actions wrong. I sort of feel like that's how we were expected to judge Jellico.

 

Right in a way it’s rigged. Hmm I thought Star Trek was above that. Lol

 

Riker's last jab and the fact that he ultimately needed to work with him is the comeuppance the narrative was expressing and it's not meant to be brushed off like it's being here. Maybe the guy who gets offered ships repeatedly knows a thing or two about when a new captain is not working well with the crew.

Why else would the writers choose to have him be the pilot Jellico needed? They needed a way to tell the audience, yeah he actually needed to work with the guy he just discarded in order to accomplish he mission.

The best way was to realize Riker needed to hear there was an avenue of action to help Picard. If Jellico had said he intended to gain an advantage and then use it to bargain for Picard like he actually ended up doing, there would have been no conflict. He spends more effort on the shift rotations and getting the fish out of his ready room than getting them past the loss of the captain and confident in him. He had weakness in that area as a captain which the writers pointed out through Troi and Riker.

I think the message of the episode is lost if we conclude Riker & crew were just whining Jellico was a badass and leave it at that.... Even if one looks at it and says the crew acted poorly from a rank/duty perspective, there is still something there to be said about Jellico.

I'd say if they got over the Picard issue then Riker & Jellico would have worked well together and that would be a stronger team than the resulting one where he fires Riker in front of Troi. The guy can work with Shelby and a Klingon crew I'm pretty certain he would have adapted to Jellico's style. Frankly Riker's style isn't far off when you look at how he deals with Barclay and Geordi

 

Because they certainly wouldn't want you to think Riker is as worthless as he was presently being. That scene is hardly comeuppance for Jellico. It's much more redemption for Riker, who otherwise was sitting on his pimply white butt, doing nothing, while Picard's life hangs in the balance, & he's literally out there being tortured

At worst, that scene is just a smattering of humble pie for Jellico, easily forgotten, and he chose to take it. He chose to go to Riker & offer him the chance to help & improve their chances of success. You don't get to choose comeuppance. It just "comes up" on you to collect, like all those other examples I previously cited. He could've assigned it to Geordi, who'd said he technically could do it. He's just not the best... So maybe it doesn't pan out as well.

Hell, he could've given it to Data. I have a hard time buying that Riker is a better shuttle pilot than Data anyhow, & that's really all that's on the table here, Riker's ability as a shuttle pilot, bloody Wesley's job. Nothing is spoken about his command ability, which is what he was removed from. Jellico is not proven wrong there by anyone or anything, save the other guy himself admitting that the only real issue was there wasn't enough joy in his work to prevent war

So if Riker had been less of a moron, who needs every superior's directive justified & explained... In other words a babysitter, then things would've been great? Should he have to explain to Troi how to put on her standard uniform too, or can she just figure that out on her own without causing a shipwide rebellion?

 

Riker had no reason to assume Jellico was going to make a play for Picard after he consistently said let it go. Just being a Starfleet officer is no guarantee since he was already shown to put the mission above the crew at all times, and the mission is not to save Picard. There's no other reputation mentioned about Jellico other than he's good at negotiating with Cardassians. So wouldn't the smart thing be to take a minute to get Riker on board, fully utilizing the team instead of having a resource sit in his quarters? He was too far wound up his own ass to see the best move to make there

 

By the time Riker was confined to quarters he'd already shown that he lacked the interest and/or ability to be a good resource for what Jellico needed him to be to that point in time: an XO who would facilitate, rather than complicate, relations between the captain and the crew.

I would have been more impressed with Riker if he'd recognized this within himself and tried to discuss it with Jellico.

 

The mission IS more important than the crew. It's why Picard was sent on a unlikely infiltration to begin with, but that doesn't mean it's reasonable to assume a command officer is going to be completely derelict about offering aid, without reason

It's the same thing as Data commanding Worf. Just because it looks like he's doing nothing to YOU, doesn't mean that's what going on, pal, & maybe he don't have the time to spoon feed you everything, & he isn't required to do so anyhow. Just take his command... & work withing those confines, or find a new line of business

 

That's not really true because after the probe notification thing they seemed to have gotten over their miscommunications and were working together fine until the blowup about Picard.

 

I'm very late to this discussion but I always liked Jellico. I actually had a boss like him in a restaurant once. He was a very structured guy and not touchy feely by any means, but once things were running, they ran very smoothly. At one point, I transferred to a different location and he ended up transferring as well shortly thereafter. When he first started and presented his expectations, the staff grumbled at his expectations for cleanliness and organization and (even for a guy used to him) it was a pain in the butt at first to get things to a level at which he expected them. However, once everything was brought up to his standards, the grumbling stopped as people began to realize that maintaining the standard was far easier than getting to that standard to begin with. As I saw it, at least in some ways, Picard ran a casual ship, allowing a lot of freedom for people like Geordie and Deanna. Jellico was a more "by the books" captain. In that episode, the crew's complaints are mostly because he makes them do things differently than they are used to, including things as simply as wearing standard uniforms. While Picard is of course a solid captain, I would imagine that once the crew had a chance to adapt to Jellico, he would have been a perfectly acceptable captain as well.

 

Really? You're arguing that a career officer (who at first claimed he wanted to make Captain before 30 <--- At least that's what he told Deanna when he ultimately broke up with her) - and who TURNED DOWN 3 SUCH OFFERS - knows what it takes to be a Captain? Again . From his performance in not carrying out his new Captain's FIRST order (IE Taking the ship to a 4 shift rotation); and the lame excuse of "Hey the department heads said it's just not what they want to do..."; I wouldn't call Riker an expert on what it takes to be a Captain; because if he knew that, HE WOULD HAVE ACCEPTED ONE OF THE THREE OFFERS HE GOT IN THE 6 YEARS LEADING UP TO THIS ENCOUNTER,

Because he's one of the 7 main characters of the show and the second most senior officer of the ship. (Remeber Geordi said he could do it too; but that Riker was the best pilot on the ship.)

The problem is: The crew WAS whining (Especially Geordi when he asked Riker to get Picard to intercede. But I'll give theRiker character this: At least once he saw what Picard was going through; he was at least smart enpough to realize it would be stupid totry and saddle Picard with his and Geordi's issues.)

Picard should have been a non-issue from the start and Riker should have realized Jellico WAS CORRECT in not giving the Cardassians a political bargaining chip that would cost the Federation colonies OR lead to an all out war, just for one man who KNEW it was a suicide mission. (A team od 3, and maps that were two years old...yeah, the Federation really expects Picard to come back. No. They expected him to take out the weapon. Survival was secondary.)

As to how the crew treated Barclay - that wasn'tr Riker being "like Jellico" - that was Riker and Co. being hypocrites in that theuy had this nice 'clique' that worked well together, and here was this different person whom they just expected to be like them. No one really bothered to look into why Barclay was the way he was UNTIL PICARD ORDERED THEM TOO... and even Geordi was at first like: "Really, do I have to...?" Hell, they treated Scotty the EXACT SAME WAY (until Geordi needed him to save the 1701-D of course.)

 

Barclay was late to shifts and not doing his job worse than Riker, Jellico would take one look at that and blow him out the airlock

 

Riker called Barclay by a nickname behind his back. I can't picture Jellico doing something like that.

 

True, but compared to what the 1701-clique did:

- Riker wanted him transferred off the ship because he 'didn't fit in'.

- Geordi wanted NOTHING to do with him (Gee a Supervisor who doesn't even want to ask a subordinate IF there's some reason/problem -- IE Can I/we help? And instead joined the rest of the clique in using a derogatory nick-name); and ONLY started such an interaction (IE seeing what the issue(s) might be) because Piacard ORDERED HIM TO.
^^^
Yep, Very 'enlightened 24th century attitudes' displayed by the 1701-D clique here.

 

I really enjoyed Ronny Cox’s performance as Jellico and I was disappointed that the role could not be reprised in DS9 during the Dominion War. It just was not ment to be.

 

That would have been pretty cool, especially if we got to see a side of him that CoC didn't allow for.

...just imagine if they'd used him as Sisko's CO instead of Admiral Ross...