Was.
People don’t do much of ‘is’ once they are dead.
"He's not really dead. As long as we remember him."
What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
- Thread starter Amasov
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"He's not really dead. As long as we remember him."
Lol, I've had that in my "draft" for a while
I'll counter though
I'll counter though
I think Jellico comes off well in comparison to how Riker acts in those episodes, which is more like how a petulant child responds to a stepparent than how an accomplished professional officer should react to their new CO. Everyone has had to deal with a new boss replacing the old boss that you really liked. Things are going to be different, but you can’t pout about it. And a lot of what happens in those episodes with Riker is him pouting.
Jellico is kind of a dick, but nothing he does is out of line for what you’d expect in a professional military. And, in the end, his strategy both stops the Cardassians and gets Picard back.
Jellico is kind of a dick, but nothing he does is out of line for what you’d expect in a professional military. And, in the end, his strategy both stops the Cardassians and gets Picard back.
Well Starfleet isn't a military, certainly not the drill-camp type of military 21st century earth is full of.
I've seen new people come in and completely destroy teams and even organisations by trying to make their mark.
Jellico's top priorities were
* causing significant personnel problems
* going to his quarters and not talking to his first officer
He then prioritised
* redecorating the ready room
* looking at drawings from his kids
And finally
* security training (fine -- fire Worf while you're at it as he's objectively awful at keeping the ship secure)
* doing excess engineering work (but by taking the engineers away, presumably in case the ship is boarded and they have to fight hand-to-hand?)
That's not how you get things done.
I mean seriously, Data explained that if everyone in engineering worked 24/7 for two days (thus leaving them exhausted for the coming battle) they could do something. OK, maybe that's worthwhile (I'd struggle to believe that, but I'll go with it)
Jellico then reassigned half of Engineering to shooting targets, leaving Geordi unable to accomplish the task in the time. Terrible management.
He also failed to explain to Riker and the senior crew the importance and what might be happening. If Geordi was aware of the likelihood of battle he wouldn't be worried about science labs. That's another failure of Jellico.
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Exactly, Jellico was assigned to the Enterprise knowing that he'd go into battle... and then created personnel problems by changing the number of shifts l, which also made it likely that people might not be at their 100% due to having their sleep scedules disrupted, and then started to redecorate. It was pretty stupid.
As I said on many other threads, if Jellico had remained captain and had changed the number of shifts and redecorated after the imminent threat had passed, that would have been fine and good, but doing it during a crisis was stupid and showed little leadership skill.
As I said on many other threads, if Jellico had remained captain and had changed the number of shifts and redecorated after the imminent threat had passed, that would have been fine and good, but doing it during a crisis was stupid and showed little leadership skill.
Geordi and what’s left of the senior staff just watched Picard, Worf, and Crusher get transferred and train for a secret mission. They’re on the border of Cardassian space and Nechayev had briefed Riker about the possibility of an incursion by the Cardassians into Federation space when she explained why Jellico was being given command of the Enterprise. That’s why it was silly for Geordi to worry about science labs when the entire work schedule was shifted to do multiple battle drills.
Would things have gone better if Jellico gave an explanation for his orders? Probably and especially in establishing trust. But Jellico probably feels like he shouldn’t have to explain a legitimate order to a subordinate, and in any crisis situation there’s not going to be time to have a discussion and debate of orders on the bridge.
Jellico’s style wouldn’t be my cup of tea, but I don’t think it’s out of bounds either.
I’m with you on redecorating (really arrogant given that he had to know this was a temporary situation) but I always reasoned the 4 shift rotation to both be a test of Riker and the rest of the staff’s ability to adapt to his orders, and he wanted every shift to be able to go through battle drills in the short time they had.
Thanks. It's been a REALLY long time since I've seen the episode. I mainly remember that Jellico was a hard-ass and Our Heroes acted like whiny children.
Picard wasn't exactly sunshine and niceness when welcoming Will Riker and the crew on board in Farpoint.
What kind of activities were the Enterprise and Picard engaged in in these episodes?
Picard was doing an off the books CIA style mission. The Enterprise was dealing with diplomacy. With a big stick.
Jellico was either a Cardassian spy or completel unsuited for a ship like the Enterprise -- a ship and crew that had saved the Federation from the Borg, preventing the Klingons from falling into civil war, and I think at that stage had prevented a Romulan invasion of Vulcan.
The biggest problem with Chain of Command was not putting Riker in charge while Picard was off ship and having Jellico as a specialist. The Riker who had been offered a command of ships including the Melbourne -- Excelsior class like the Cairo -- several times years earlier, proven himself as captain during the Borg attack, and as Jellico agreed had very good reasons for staying on the Enterprise.
It's unclear why an Admiral (Nechayev or someone else) wasn't on the Enterprise -- the literal flagship. Keep Jellico or Nechayev on board as the mission commander, like in Too Short a Season, but have Riker run the ship.
Riker was a far better captain than Jellico as he chose Shelby as his first officer in BoBW, he knew he needed people operating exactly as they were -- "But this is not the time for change. I need you all where you are, where Captain Picard always relied on you."
Jellico's command style is not one I particularly like, but he didn't do or order anything that was out of line.
Despite the Enterprise having been in some battles in the past, none of them were sustained conflicts that went on for a protracted length of time. Jellico was getting the ship ready for that possibility, because if the talks failed, the Enterprise would have been the command ship of that area and would almost certainly be doing many battles in a row for a good while. As good as that crew is, they were not ready for a war... they didn't really have the mindset for it.
Side note: switching to 4 shifts. I wonder if the change was made permanent. Kira suggested the same thing in DS9's season 4, and after trying it for a while, Sisko made the change permanent. She stated one of the reasons was to give the officers a bit more flexibility in their schedules and they would be happier, and thus perform better. Could this be why Jellico ordered this?
Despite the Enterprise having been in some battles in the past, none of them were sustained conflicts that went on for a protracted length of time. Jellico was getting the ship ready for that possibility, because if the talks failed, the Enterprise would have been the command ship of that area and would almost certainly be doing many battles in a row for a good while. As good as that crew is, they were not ready for a war... they didn't really have the mindset for it.
Side note: switching to 4 shifts. I wonder if the change was made permanent. Kira suggested the same thing in DS9's season 4, and after trying it for a while, Sisko made the change permanent. She stated one of the reasons was to give the officers a bit more flexibility in their schedules and they would be happier, and thus perform better. Could this be why Jellico ordered this?
Season 2 had the most promise of any in the series but ended up being the worst season of any Star Trek since TNG's first. Damn, there was no excuse for it to get that bad but it did.
Fully agreed. I like PIC in general, but the second season went from "very promising" to "horrific" in record time.
I liked it better than that, but I can absolutely see why some people wouldn't. It had a lot of warts and so much potential. I can see how that would be massively frustrating.
I understand that sentiment, but ultimately "it is what it is." And it really was shockingly poor, unfortunately.
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