As for GTtS, I disagree, I think this did much to try to redeem them. T'Lana especially.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. The fact that the two characters who remained unapologetic about their actions were shooved out the door. Only Kadohata who borderline wussed out of taking the blame remained on the Enterprise.
As I've said before, T'Lana's departure was established at the end of
Before Dishonor. I would've kept her given my druthers; but the choice had already been made, so all I could do was try to redeem her in the single scene I could manage to include. And after the way Leybenzon behaved in BD, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that he'd never be able to work alongside Picard and the others. Heck, I went easy on Leybenzon by establishing that he'd stayed with the ship for three months after BD rather than immediately being kicked out or requesting a transfer. At least he
tried to make it work for a while. Which is actually softening him from the extreme insubordinate behavior he showed in BD.
I might be alone, but that felt like a cop out. The sheer fact that there were some crewmembers on the Enterprise that weren't behaving like a cosy family and who were willing to go up against Picard was a refreshing change, and something that felt largely dropped in GTTS.
There's a difference between healthy disagreement among a crew and outright hostility and insubordination. It's got nothing to do with being a "cozy family" -- the way Leybenzon behaved toward his commanding officer was simply unacceptable in a rank-based organization. It went too far. It's possible to disagree with one's commanding officer without showing outright contempt or disobedience, but Leybenzon and T'Lana both crossed that line. Kadohata only removed Picard from command because she was following the admiralty's orders, but those two did it because they didn't respect or trust Picard, and they couldn't work with him without respect or trust.
And I disagree that the GTTS crew lacked people who could stand up to Picard. Guinan sure as hell put him in his place, and Beverly was pushing him to question his assumptions and attitudes throughout the book. Of course, those were more as a friend and a wife than as members of his crew, and Guinan's gone now. But Picard has always been a captain who invites the opinions of his crew, and I'm sure that Worf has it in him to be his own man and disagree with Picard when he feels it's right. But he would disagree
respectfully and within the bounds of duty.
IMHO, if Picard was willing to seperate First Contact Specialist from the position of Counselor (T'Lana's job taken over by T'Rys and Hagel) and to change the duty specifications of someone else (Kadohata's duties now carried out by her and by Elfiki), it was perfectly viable for T'Lana to stay onboard purely in capacity as a counselor and for T'Rys to come onboard anyway in GTTS as a Contact Specialist.
No, it wouldn't have been viable, because T'Lana's behavior in BD proved, even to her, that she was no longer qualified to be a counselor. She lost her ability to question herself, and counseling is all about helping people learn that skill. She couldn't be competent to counsel others until she overcame her own borderline clinical narcissism.
Then again, I did have three months between BD and GTTS, so maybe I could've brought her back after three months of intensive therapy. But that would've meant forcing Dave to change his
Destiny outline to re-include her, and that would've made his already difficult job harder, and I didn't want to do that.
