The Most Overrated Episodes

[T'Girl]

Jerkico was a horrible captain.

Jellico was initially polite with Riker until he realized that his new first officer wasn't going to co-operate with the new captain and execute his (Riker's) duties like a professional. Only then did Jellico turn into a "asshole."

Horatio83 compare Jellico with the way Picard acted and spoke during the first season of TNG, Picard corrected his subordinates, spoke harshly when needed and on occasion even raised his voice to a yell, until the Enterprise was running the way he wished it to.

How many Chief Engineers did Picard go through before Picard finally settled on LaForge? Given that we never saw them again, I believe Picard was firing and replacing them, one after another. Which is what Jellico did at one point with Riker.

Watch the way Jellico talks with Troi when he tell her to begin dressing like a Starfleet officer, he is reasonable and uses soft correcting tones. He has no problems with Worf. And, even through LaForge also disagrees with him, because LaForge isn't constantly flipping him shit, the two do get along in a superior/subordinate relationship.

One of TNG's reappearing themes was that Starfleet is not an old-school military

Now compare the command styles of Kirk and Sisko against Jellico, during military events and combat maneuvers. In those situations both Kirk and Sisko treated their ships and crews as military units. Just as Jellico did.

Kirk's style was to attack or to maneuver his opponents into an inferior position, then (and only then) offer them options ... like surrender or retreat. Which is what Jellico did with the Cardassians, in the nebula.

question authority and disobey their superior officers if they behave irrationally

In the VOY episode Scorpion, when Chakotay questioned Janeway's plan of action too vehemently, she relieved him of duty.

He ordered a change of the shift schedule in a crisis situation

He instructed Riker to change the shift patterns aboard the ship (which Riker screwed up) prior to the the beginning of the crisis situation, reorienting ship wide crew work assignments would be one of the prime jobs of any first officer.

.

 

[horatio83]

How many Chief Engineers did Picard go through before Picard finally settled on LaForge? Given that we never saw them again, I believe Picard was firing and replacing them, one after another. Which is what Jellico did at one point with Riker.

This very chief engineer, surely one of the best in Starfleet, is really the last guy to complain about orders that make sense. Arbitrarily forcing things upon a crew without caring about the status quo is bad leadership and lunatic during a crisis. If you wanna rearrange your house do it after the storm.
Unlike Picard Jellico did not choose a crew and start from scratch, he joins a crew which works like a well-oiled machine and disrupts its smooth functioning just in order to point out who the boss is.

LAFORGE: Commander, he's asked me to completely reroute half the power systems on the ship, change every duty roster, realign the warp coils in two days, and now he's transferred a third of my department to Security.
RIKER: If it makes you feel any better, you're not alone. Captain Jellico has made major changes in every department on the ship.
LAFORGE: Yeah, well, I don't mind making changes and I don't mind hard work, but the man isn't giving me the time I need to do the work. Someone's got to get him to listen to reason.

question authority and disobey their superior officers if they behave irrationally

In the VOY episode Scorpion, when Chakotay questioned Janeway's plan of action too vehemently, she relieved him of duty.

I said it's a TNG theme, not a general Trek theme. By the way, Janeway's mood swings don't make her qualify for good leadership.

 

[TrekAlliance92]

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who finds "The Inner Light" overrated. Frankly, I find it dull, boring, and not very Trek-like at all. But, that's just me...

Others I find overrated:
"Tapestry" - Also boring, dull, and really off-kilter, IMO.
"Darmok" - Simply meh. Nothing special. And, really, a phaser out of the photon tube?
"Elementary, Dear Data," and "Ship in a Bottle" - I never got the appeal of these episodes? At least, say, Captain Proton on Voyager had some real fun with its concept.
"All Good Things..." - It's not bad, but as a finale its underwhelming.

 

[Mysterion]

The Inner Light and Darmok.

 

[BillJ]

Arbitrarily forcing things upon a crew without caring about the status quo is bad leadership and lunatic during a crisis. If you wanna rearrange your house do it after the storm.
Unlike Picard Jellico did not choose a crew and start from scratch, he joins a crew which works like a well-oiled machine and disrupts its smooth functioning just in order to point out who the boss is.

You're making the very wrong assumption that he is merely changing things to be changing things. The Enterprise is going to be on the front line in a possible conflict with very little time to prepare not investigating the intelligent fungi of Beta Whothehellcares VIII.

Jellico is already a starship commander, a combat veteran and an expert on the Cardassians. Those three things are why he's given command of the Enterprise and inaction on his part could cost members of the crew their lives.

JELLICO: Power transfer levels need to be upgraded by twenty percent. The efficiency of your warp coils is also unsatisfactory.
LAFORGE: Coil efficiency is well within specifications, Captain.
JELLICO: I'm not interested in the specs, Geordi. The efficiency needs to be raised by at least fifteen percent.
LAFORGE: Fifteen percent.
DATA: That is an attainable goal, but it will require realigning the warp coil and taking the secondary distribution grid offline.
JELLICO: Very good, Data. That's exactly what I want you to do.
LAFORGE: If we take this grid offline, we're going to have to shut down exobiology, the astrophysics lab and geological research.
JELLICO: We're not on a research mission. Get it done in two days.
DATA: I believe that is also an attainable goal. If we utilise the entire Engineering department, there should be sufficient manpower available to complete the task.
LAFORGE: Sure, if everybody works around the clock for the next two days.
JELLICO: Then you'd better get to it, Geordi. It looks like you have some work to do. Data.

What exactly were Picard and Riker doing that a guy fresh from an Excelsior-class command knew of all these upgrades that needed to be done? Picard and Riker were complacent and not ensuring that the Enterprise remained the top of the line.

If I was Jellico, that would be enough to make me grumpy.

 

[Maxillius]

What exactly were Picard and Riker doing that a guy fresh from an Excelsior-class command knew of all these upgrades that needed to be done? Picard and Riker were complacent and not ensuring that the Enterprise remained the top of the line.

If I was Jellico, that would be enough to make me grumpy.

I didn't like Jellico the first time I watched that episode, but after watching a crap-tone of Stargate, I saw Jellico's changes made sense and the Entrprise crew were being whiny little b--ches about everything.

Shouldn't the Federation flagship be crewed by people who know what they're doing and can take orders?

 

[sonak]

Arbitrarily forcing things upon a crew without caring about the status quo is bad leadership and lunatic during a crisis. If you wanna rearrange your house do it after the storm.
Unlike Picard Jellico did not choose a crew and start from scratch, he joins a crew which works like a well-oiled machine and disrupts its smooth functioning just in order to point out who the boss is.

You're making the very wrong assumption that he is merely changing things to be changing things. The Enterprise is going to be on the front line in a possible conflict with very little time to prepare not investigating the intelligent fungi of Beta Whothehellcares VIII.

Jellico is already a starship commander, a combat veteran and an expert on the Cardassians. Those three things are why he's given command of the Enterprise and inaction on his part could cost members of the crew their lives.

JELLICO: Power transfer levels need to be upgraded by twenty percent. The efficiency of your warp coils is also unsatisfactory.
LAFORGE: Coil efficiency is well within specifications, Captain.
JELLICO: I'm not interested in the specs, Geordi. The efficiency needs to be raised by at least fifteen percent.
LAFORGE: Fifteen percent.
DATA: That is an attainable goal, but it will require realigning the warp coil and taking the secondary distribution grid offline.
JELLICO: Very good, Data. That's exactly what I want you to do.
LAFORGE: If we take this grid offline, we're going to have to shut down exobiology, the astrophysics lab and geological research.
JELLICO: We're not on a research mission. Get it done in two days.
DATA: I believe that is also an attainable goal. If we utilise the entire Engineering department, there should be sufficient manpower available to complete the task.
LAFORGE: Sure, if everybody works around the clock for the next two days.
JELLICO: Then you'd better get to it, Geordi. It looks like you have some work to do. Data.

What exactly were Picard and Riker doing that a guy fresh from an Excelsior-class command knew of all these upgrades that needed to be done? Picard and Riker were complacent and not ensuring that the Enterprise remained the top of the line.

If I was Jellico, that would be enough to make me grumpy.

um, except that they weren't upgrades that "needed to be done," which was the whole point. Plus, they ended up shutting down large portions of their science departments. The Enterprise-D wasn't the Defiant, it was a ship designed to support multiple missions, including primarily scientific ones.


Why during normal operations would Picard have wanted to make upgrades like that?

 

[horatio83]

You're making the very wrong assumption that he is merely changing things to be changing things. The Enterprise is going to be on the front line in a possible conflict with very little time to prepare not investigating the intelligent fungi of Beta Whothehellcares VIII.

Jellico is already a starship commander, a combat veteran and an expert on the Cardassians. Those three things are why he's given command of the Enterprise and inaction on his part could cost members of the crew their lives.

What exactly were Picard and Riker doing that a guy fresh from an Excelsior-class command knew of all these upgrades that needed to be done? Picard and Riker were complacent and not ensuring that the Enterprise remained the top of the line.

If I was Jellico, that would be enough to make me grumpy.

Since when does working within specifications equal complacency?
Disrupting the working routine of a team you join during a crisis can indeed cost lives.

Jellico was meant to be a jerk, simple as that. To portray other captains as weak, incompetent or stupid in order to let THE captain shine out the brighter is the oldest cheapo in Trek. That's not at least why Chain of Command is not one of TNG's finest. If it weren't for the important point this episode made about torture, namely that torture does not achieve anything, it would not be particularly memorable.

I didn't like Jellico the first time I watched that episode, but after watching a crap-tone of Stargate, I saw Jellico's changes made sense and the Entrprise crew were being whiny little b--ches about everything.

Shouldn't the Federation flagship be crewed by people who know what they're doing and can take orders?

There is a difference between being an automaton who blindly follows orders and a good officer. Watch "Allegiance" to learn the difference.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

I don't think Jellico was meant to be a jerk, just a different kind of captain.

 

[Trek Survivor]

Jellico was meant to be a jerk, simple as that.

Not at all. There's a Jeri Taylor quote from one of those Captain's Logs books that says they tried very hard not to make Jellico out to simply be "booed" or "hissed" at e.g. a 2-dimensional "not Picard so he sucks!!" kind of character. They just wanted to present a very different style of captain - but arguably just as effective with end results - to help propel an engaging sub-plot.

And they succeeded.

 

[Jonesy]

Very easy for me - Cause and Effect.

 

[Mojochi]

Most overrated? I'd say Yesterday's Enterprise tops my list. Denise Crosby is just not a very good actress, & the other guest actors weren't all that great either. Don't get me wrong, I liked the premise, but were it not for Stewart & Goldberg, the acting would have driven it right to crap

Another one that people seem to rave about that I don't think deserves it is Tapestry. Again... the premise is admirable, but the execution seemed a bit plodding. I actually feel the same way about it that many folks have been writing about "The Inner Light". Frankly, Stewart's brilliant versatility saved both those episodes from failure



As for Chain Of Command. I fall in with the folks who love it, & think Jellico was one of the ballsiest characters they ever attempted. I think the folks who don't like him or it are likely misreading the whole thing, which is easy to do, because it's hard to be objective about the main cast, when you like them

The title of the episode says it all. The fact is, Jellico is being thrust into as difficult a mission as Picard is. He's being placed atop a team that another man has assembled & seasoned in his way for several years. That is being completely busted up. They are not on that Enterprise anymore. Jellico is charged with the daunting task of making an exploration cruiser manned by an explorer's crew, into a ship of war... immediately

The man knew everything he needed to know before he even stepped off the transporter pad, including the fact that he'd meet some resistance for being the guy upsetting the status quo. That alone would have snapped my ass into shape. "Time to shake out the cobwebs! This guy ain't F###ing around!"

I would even argue that he was as tactful as he could have been, in his situation. He openly told them, more than once, that he wished he could have the time to hold their hand through this change, second chances, a honeymoon, etc... & had likely done so with his Crew on The Cairo, which he admits to already missing... probably for that fact

That is not a luxury he has. His one flaw is that he should have found someone, like Troi to get the message through to clearly, on a personal level, that everything he's saying is non-negotiable. He is in no position to bend, & that though he could never expect to have the kind of trust they have in Picard, on such short notice, they DO have to trust him. They wear the same uniform, (At least they would be if she had hers on) & he is in charge of doing something that none of them can be completely informed of or totally understand.

Troi would've been a good choice for that, which is why he puts her in charge of morale. He wants it to go smoothly, & it isn't, but the bottom line is that smoothly or agitatedly, it is going to happen. It would be better if they were all on the same page though. He should have found someone on that tub to break rank with & get that point across to

Making Data the #1 was harsh, but it was also the right move, & quite literally could have been the reason the mission was a success. Things moved a butt load more efficiently once Data was there to get shit done. He does have to eat some crow with Riker, for the sake of the mission & that's really the only comeuppance he had coming, for failing to prevent a full blown adversarial relation from developing, in a situation where he'll most likely have to depend on everyone at his disposal

For wartime stakes, the man was given Swiss cheese, & told to make a Swiss watch, & at the end of the day, saves Picard's life, & received a rather stoic farewell, from what had been a rather whiny bitchass crew, which quite frankly, I don't have a problem with, because so often people piss all over TNG for having an overly perfect cast of characters, when this is yet another example of how that just isn't so

 

[BillJ]

Why during normal operations would Picard have wanted to make upgrades like that?

So upgrades like that would only have military applications? Increased fuel efficiency and better acceleration would be two things you'd likely gain. That wouldn't come in handy in case of a disaster on a colony or ship in distress?

Picard and Riker are suppose to be commanding the best of the best. They're suppose to be blazing trails not waiting for others to do it for them.

EDIT: Well said Mojochi.

 

[RAMA]

Why are you randomly advertising that blog?

I, Borg - The weapon didn't need to work but they needed to show that Picard had the balls to use it.

Except that's clearly not the direction they wanted to go with his character.

Inner Light is good but its kind of ruined by showing us Picard lying on the bridge- way to completely ruin the mystery.
I'm not sure if Voyager's "Memorial" is that much better, but at least they didn't give away the twist at the beginning and then expect us to still love the show.

Anyway, the most overrated for me:

Booby Trap - I almost find this unwatchable, its just full of ENDLESS technobabble crap. Its awful.

Best of Both Worlds - Dark Frontier was a much better Borg 2 parter.

Darmok - wasn't that entertaining to watch for me,

is "booby trap" really a highly-rated episode among TNG fans? I've never seen it in those "top ten" fan polls they used to run, and I've barely seen it mentioned at this site. I thought it was regarded as a mediocre-decent episode.

It's very popular but even if it's in someone's top 40 its pretty good, considering there are 176 episodes!!!

 

[Mojochi]

EDIT: Well said Mojochi.

Thanks

I think people just fail to be objective about it. Take Picard. Were he given the same mission, of going onto a ship with an established crew & getting told to make it something completely different than it was, & had only days to do it, he would have come off as being just as difficult

Ironically, something very similar to that happened in "All Good Things...", when Q returns Picard to day one on the Enterprise, & Picard has to save the day with a crew that does not know him, while he made unorthodox changes & gave difficult orders. The main benefit that Picard had there, that Jellico does not, is that Picard still knew who the crew were & what they could do. All Jellico had were service records, mission reports & rumor. In that situation, a certain amount of "Just be the boss & get the job done" is required, because it's all you've got to go on

 

[horatio83]

EDIT: Well said Mojochi.

Thanks

I think people just fail to be objective about it. Take Picard. Were he given the same mission, of going onto a ship with an established crew & getting told to make it something completely different than it was, & had only days to do it, he would have come off as being just as difficult

Ironically, something very similar to that happened in "All Good Things...", when Q returns Picard to day one on the Enterprise, & Picard has to save the day with a crew that does not know him, while he made unorthodox changes & gave difficult orders. The main benefit that Picard had there, that Jellico does not, is that Picard still knew who the crew were & what they could do. All Jellico had were service records, mission reports & rumor. In that situation, a certain amount of "Just be the boss & get the job done" is required, because it's all you've got to go on

What utter nonsense, I don't agree with Riker because I like him as a character, I actually dislike him, I agree with him because he uses his brain and thinks about whether an order makes sense or not. He has learned this from Picard who wants his officers to be free thinkers and not enslaved automatons.
Talking about lacking objectivity. You admire that Jerkico has the balls to boss his crew around? What about Riker daring to say no to his captain? That's not ballsy but "whiny bitchass"? Yeah, I can see how objective you are.

All you Jerkico fans claim that he has to convert the ship into something totally different which is wrong. The Enterprise D is a multi-purpose vessel perfectly suited to handle military conflicts.

"All Good Things"? Bad comparison, they think that Picard is senile.

 

[Mojochi]

"All Good Things"? Bad comparison, they think that Picard is senile.

You're in the wrong timeline. I said the Day One Enterprise timeline, where he goes back to day one & has to change the mission to Farpoint, & starts calling random red alerts at his address

All you Jerkico fans claim that he has to convert the ship into something totally different which is wrong. The Enterprise D is a multi-purpose vessel perfectly suited to handle military conflicts.

Multi-purpose yes, perfectly suited to handle military conflicts yes, spent 5 years primarily on exploration missions and not as a front line battle cruiser, in a war, yes. It's perfectly reasonable to suggest that in their time they've tempered their staffing & vessel to suit their primary mission, which isn't Jellico's primary mission at all.... completely different, & none of the changes that Jellico makes are all that abstract, just new & rushed, rushed because they are days away from suddenly being a front line battle cruiser, in a war. Think it's wrong? All you need to do is look at the ENT-E & see all the changes made after Borg conflicts, & during Dominion war time

What about Riker daring to say no to his captain? That's not ballsy but "whiny bitchass"? Yeah, I can see how objective you are.

Saying no to his captain is not exactly new to Riker. It's balliness is debatable, being that the man in question lost his entire ship & crew because he didn't stand up to Pressman on the Pegasus. That was a hard learned lesson, that stuck. He stands up to captains now, not because he's ballsy, but because he knows 1st hand what happens if you don't. He didn't learn it from Picard. Picard hired him because of it

What utter nonsense, I don't agree with Riker because I like him as a character, I actually dislike him, I agree with him because he uses his brain and thinks about whether an order makes sense or not. He has learned this from Picard who wants his officers to be free thinkers and not enslaved automatons.
Talking about lacking objectivity. You admire that Jerkico has the balls to boss his crew around?

I don't like Jellico because he's bossy & ballsy. I like that the writers were ballsy enough to write him. I like Jellico because when the chips are down, he gets the job done, & is not afraid to ruffle some feathers on the flagship, to do it.

You may not like Riker, but you obviously like how the ship runs & Riker is a major component of that. Jellico is only upsetting how the ship runs (Because he has no choice). Riker's duty is to follow his orders, unless he is convinced that the orders are mistakes or wrongful choices, that jeopardize the mission and/or the vessel & crew's safety. Whether they make sense to him or not is irrelevant.

Nothing Jellico does jeopardizes those things, & the main reason Riker gets relieved is because he refuses to let the issue of rescuing Picard drop. He outright demands that Jellico implicate Starfleet in Picard's mission, which in this case would serve to plunge them into war. He deserved to be relieved, when you couple that with the fact that Riker has been nothing but willful & conflictual with every command his captain has made, likely because he views it as his ship & crew, & therefore he knows how best to operate it, but apparently the admiralty disagrees, in this situation

He's not being ballsy. He's being insubordinate, & it could have been diffused at any time along the way, but was not. Ultimately, he needed to be relieved, & unfortunately, Jellico still needed him to complete the mission, which means Riker actually did a disservice to his crew & mission, because he allowed himself to be relieved, at a time when he would be needed. Luckily, Jellico, as strict as he is, was willing to eat some crow & get Riker back in the mission

 

[horatio83]

Of course Jerkico had a choice. He had the choice to not interrupt the smooth functioning of the crew shortly before a crisis. You don't need to have managerial experience to realize that if you do implement some significant changes there there are long-run benefits but short-run costs.
Timing these changes is thus crucial, before a crucial situation they are counterproductive whereas during calm times they are beneficial.

 

[Mojochi]

Captains aren't autonomous. Sometimes they have no choice as to how they proceed. Nechayev points out that the Enterprise is chosen solely for namesake value, because it's an historic ship that's name carries weight throughout the galaxy. Jellico was ordered to take command & conduct a negotiation that everyone predicted would end in a lengthy war erupting

Therefore Jellico had to take a capable ship & crew, & REoutfit them such that they would no longer be geared to their existing mission of standard negotiations & exploration, but rather as a full-time tactical vessel at the forefront of a longstanding fleet war.

Jellico was in a position of having to make necessary changes to that end, before he even beamed aboard. Whether the changes were his call or a joint understanding with HQ is unknown, but one thing is certain, if the standard "Smooth" operations of the ship were enough, then they could have just put Riker in command & brought Jellico in as a negotiator

There would have been no one better than Riker to keep the ship & crew at their peak standards, but clearly that was not what HQ wanted, which is why they handed the whole ship & mission over to Jellico. It's evident that everything Jellico did was to give Starfleet what they wanted, & not to merely to be a douchebag. Why would anyone chosen to prevent a war, or begin the initial stages of one ever behave in such a manner?

No, the problem was that Jellico was in a hard spot where he had to do something that if it were Picard doing it with the ENT crew, then no one would ever give a second thought. They'd just bust ass, & do everything he asked, because they have implicit trust in him, from years of service together, & though I figure Jellico has that trust on the Cairo, he had no such luxury on the Enterprise, nor did he have any time to build it. As such, he just had to push for it, knowing they could deliver, whether they liked him or not, & expecting that they wouldn't.

 

[BillJ]

Maybe this was a message that Starfleet simply wasn't happy with the way the Enterprise was running. If not, then like Mojochi said, they would've simply assigned Jellico to negotiate with the Cardassians while leaving Riker in operational command. We've seen a similar arrangement in Too Short a Season.

What we do know is that the technological improvements made by Jellico wouldn't be rolled back (it would be idiotic to do so) and Troi remained in uniform for the rest of the series and films. What we don't know is whether or not the Enterprise went back to a three-shift rotation. But given the extent that Riker fought over it, it would seem like it would get a mention if it were again in force.

So Picard obviously would've evaluated the changes made yet we see no evidence of any of Jellico's 'irrational' orders being countermanded. With the exception of Riker returning to the XO post. Which was a mistake, they has so many opportunities to show Frakes the door yet never pulled the trigger.