Retroactive justification for Riker's friction towards Jellico?

[fireproof78]

The change of command was handled poorly. Everyone had a manner of unprofessional behavior throughout the scenario.

Honestly, Picard should have been a mission advisor, and trained the commandos, rather than be a commando. Jellico should have been the mission commander, senior to Picard, and utilize that dynamic to create the drama. Send Riker if you must have a main character held by the Cardassians.

But, all of smacks of deep unprofessionalism.

 

[Pumpkin Bread]

Jellico was more or less right about the mission, about what needed to done... it's just the how it should have been done that he fell down on.

Exactly. If you've inherited a ship that does things a certain way, then you let them keep at it if there's combat in the immediate future.

Honestly, Picard should have been a mission advisor, and trained the commandos, rather than be a commando.

This. The only person who should have been on that strike team was Worf.

Send Riker if you must have a main character held by the Cardassians.

Or if it has to be Picard, have him captured some other way.

 

[Takeru]

Jellico was more or less right about the mission, about what needed to done... it's just the how it should have been done that he fell down on.

This is exactly why I dislike the crew so much in this episode. Jellico was right, he just wasn't nice. If the crew cannot or does not want to see that then maybe they're not that great.

This. The only person who should have been on that strike team was Worf.

Sure but as usual the main characters do things because they are the main characters. Technically senior officer should rarely be on away teams for example, "beam down and check something out" is not a job upper management usually does.

 

[Pumpkin Bread]

This is exactly why I dislike the crew so much in this episode. Jellico was right, he just wasn't nice. If the crew cannot or does not want to see that then maybe they're not that great.

Jellico was right... about some things. Not all. If the Enterprise had had to actually fight when Delta Shift was on duty, it probably would have wound up in fifty million pieces because the crew didn't know their jobs/weren't used to working together/were exhausted from overwork and jet lag. That's the reality of making a change like that without sufficient adjustment time. It doesn't disappear just because you said "get it done", "make it so", "do it", or "pretty please with whipped cream on top".

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

This is exactly why I dislike the crew so much in this episode. Jellico was right, he just wasn't nice.

He appears to have been right about the Cardassians (and the politics of the mission in general) but he was wrong about the Enterprise and its crew.

 

[Riley]

For me, it's more that they just didn't know what to do with him. He was essentially throne insurance: if Picard's diplomatic and cerebral approach didn't sit well with the fans, they still had a Kirk type as backup. But once Picard did become popular, and Data became a breakout character, Riker got a bit lost in the shuffle.

I agree. BoBW was the perfect chance to retire him, because his overall arc in that episode had him emerging as a worthy captain in his own right. Having him take his own ship was the logical conclusion.

He did indeed, just like his "predecessor" did a century earlier when Kirk retook the Enterprise. The end of TBoBW proved that Picard was right at the beginning: Riker was ready to "work without a net." Keeping him around in the net was a terrible idea that destroyed the likability and charm of the character.

This is exactly why I dislike the crew so much in this episode. Jellico was right, he just wasn't nice. If the crew cannot or does not want to see that then maybe they're not that great.


Sure but as usual the main characters do things because they are the main characters. Technically senior officer should rarely be on away teams for example, "beam down and check something out" is not a job upper management usually does.

They aren't that great. I was eleven when TNG debuted and have rewatched it countless times over the decades. The capable and likable crew that emerged over the course of the first three seasons became dull, uninteresting, saccharine, preachy, and even whiny at times. Picard coddled them and none of them grew, though that's primarily because of Berman and the actor contracts. If there wasn't a push to put TNG on the big screen, season seven would have been the perfect time for a big shakeup. Put Picard and Beverly together and get them off the ship, give Riker command, move Data up as XO, create a new CMO who isn't a sleeping hypo in a Starfleet uniform.

 

[CoveTom]

Or if it has to be Picard, have him captured some other way.

And let's go real world here for a moment: I like Jonathan Frakes a lot, but I don't know if he has the acting chops to pull off the torture scenes the way Patrick Stewart did.

 

[flandry84]

Maybe it was a sign of Jellicos’ ultimate insecurity.
With a lot riding on his shoulders he probably needed to assert some measure of control and he chose to exert it on his crew.
Poor judgment IMO.

 

[Pumpkin Bread]

Maybe it was a sign of Jellicos’ ultimate insecurity.
With a lot riding on his shoulders he probably needed to assert some measure of control and he chose to exert it on his crew.
Poor judgment IMO.

It was clear that he was expecting combat, which is why he did all those drills and modifications, most notably increasing phaser power. I've never had issues with the fact that he made the crew work extra-hard, sometimes a captain's got to do that.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

My take isn't so much that he "made the crew work hard" as he didn't work with the crew so that they worked as smartly and efficiently as possible which is always the best place to start IMO.

 

[Pumpkin Bread]

My take isn't so much that he "made the crew work hard" as he didn't work with the crew so that they worked as smartly and efficiently as possible which is always the best place to start IMO.

Precisely. It was only through good fortune and the crew's skill that he was able to resolve the situation without combat and without needing to rely on Delta Shift to actually do anything.

 

[DonIago]

Ironically, if Jellico pushed the way he did in part because he felt Picard had been coddling the crew to some degree, then while his methodology may have been flawed, his concern wasn't baseless.

Maybe he did have preexisting issues with Riker because he knew Riker had been offered commands that he kept turning down and Jellico felt that wasn't just Riker hurting his own career but hurting the career of whoever might have become Number One if he had accepted his own command (if you feel that's silly, consider that Saru resented Burnham in part because her actions meant he never got to be XO under Georgiou).

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Ironically, if Jellico pushed the way he did in part because he felt Picard had been coddling the crew to some degree, then while his methodology may have been flawed, his concern wasn't baseless.

Even with legitimate concerns, "time and place" still applies... he's messing around with the crew in potentially very dangerous ways at a time when they most need to present a strong, united front.

Maybe he did have preexisting issues with Riker because he knew Riker had been offered commands that he kept turning down and Jellico felt that wasn't just Riker hurting his own career but hurting the career of whoever might have become Number One if he had accepted his own command (if you feel that's silly, consider that Saru resented Burnham in part because her actions meant he never got to be XO under Georgiou).

Again, there are right and wrong ways of addressing that and right and wrong times to do so, and Jellico dropped the ball on both fronts IMO.

 

[DonIago]

Even with legitimate concerns, "time and place" still applies... he's messing around with the crew in potentially very dangerous ways at a time when they most need to present a strong, united front.



Again, there are right and wrong ways of addressing that and right and wrong times to do so, and Jellico dropped the ball on both fronts IMO.

I don't believe I argued against any of that in my post? It seems a bit as though you're just reiterating concerns you've already expressed?

 

[Takeru]

What I don't get it why people act like delta shift are a bunch of noobs, "It's a good thing the cardassians didn't attack during delta shift" as if they aren't experienced officers.

And I think it would make sense if the crew changed shifts every other week under normal circumstances so that everyone works with everyone and people actually know each other. They are one crew after all not three crews who take turns running the ship. So if everyone knows everyone in their department, why does it matter if they create an additional shift.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

And I think it would make sense if the crew changed shifts every other week under normal circumstances so that everyone works with everyone and people actually know each other.

There are some shift systems that change the time of day that personnel stand each day (though neither of the systems in play appear to) but pretty much every shift system that has teams at all (which starship crews would need to) keeps all but the most senior officers on the same team for extended periods of time for the simple reason that centuries of experience has shown that this is the most efficient approach for any "team work" environment.

Maybe he did have preexisting issues with Riker because he knew Riker had been offered commands that he kept turning down and Jellico felt that wasn't just Riker hurting his own career but hurting the career of whoever might have become Number One if he had accepted his own command

Honestly, it wouldn't entirely surprise me if either Jellico, Necheyev or both went into the situation with the specific intention of "breaking up" the senior staff of the E-D for "the good of the service".

It's difficult separate whether Jellico has no respect for "independent" XOs (perhaps the Cairo's is a Vulcan or militaristic Human, Andorian et al) or had no respect for Riker himself from the outset, but it's clear that it's one or other... possibly both.

 

[Pumpkin Bread]

What I don't get it why people act like delta shift are a bunch of noobs, "It's a good thing the cardassians didn't attack during delta shift" as if they aren't experienced officers.

"Experienced" doesn't mean "experienced at doing a given job" or "experienced at working as part of a given team". Remember that, in general, a four-shift rotation was considered a positive change. Undoubtedly, Sisko and Kira planned it, discussed it with their department heads, set it in motion during a period of routine operations, gave it a proper shakedown period, evaluated the results, and made it permanent when said results proved positive. Jellico just shoved it down everyone's throats with little warning, taking no notice of his department heads' objections when Riker DID HIS JOB by bringing their concerns to him.

 

[CoveTom]

Remember that captain who joked with Riker about getting soft aboard a "luxury liner"? Is it possible that while the Galaxy class was no doubt impressive and the Enteprise the flagship, that other captains viewed it as kind of a cushy assignment and the crew as not being used to the rigors normal to other ships? Even though Jellico comments on a Galaxy class ship being something special, is it possible he actually looked down on the Enteprise crew at first for that reason?

 

[DonIago]

I think it may be more possible that Jellico looked down specifically on Picard's command style (by that point in the series) than that he looked down on the Galaxy class. I think it would be a neat bit of metacommentary (though likely unintended), if things like the regular cast not changing and rarely being promoted, and Riker choosing to stay on the E-D versus accepting his own command, were things that Jellico thought reflected poorly upon Picard as a captain.

 

[Riley]

Remember that captain who joked with Riker about getting soft aboard a "luxury liner"? Is it possible that while the Galaxy class was no doubt impressive and the Enteprise the flagship, that other captains viewed it as kind of a cushy assignment and the crew as not being used to the rigors normal to other ships? Even though Jellico comments on a Galaxy class ship being something special, is it possible he actually looked down on the Enteprise crew at first for that reason?

That's a distinct possibility and would have made for some interesting conflict, though that wasn't allowed between Starfleet officers on TNG. Maybe someone could have given O'Brien and Worf a hard time for serving on a Galaxy Class...I could maybe see Sisko doing that!