Never really noticed this about dr. Pulaski before ....

... but she seems to be the only regular cast member that refuses to be deferential to Picard. I saw Samaritan Snare yesterday, and she bluntly orders Picard to report to starbase 515 for a medical examination. She's the only one who really seems to treat him as an equal, not a superior.

Even Beverly (who has the fullest right to do the same thing as Chief Medical Officer) would probably hesitate strongly before ordering Picard to do such and so - she'd much rather suggest he do so. Riker would probably also make d*mn sure and triple check with his fellow officers before relieving Picard of duty. (Of course, he would need a more exceptional case than Beverly to overrule Picard.)

Why is that? Is Pulaski just a selfconfident character? Or does age also come into play? ( Pulaski seems closer in age to Picard than of any the other regular cast members?)

Also, could this be an in-universe reason that Pulaski isn't on board for longer than a single year? (I know we have a reason Beverly came back, but I don't think we're ever given an in-universe reason for Pulaski leaving?)

 

Oh, there was this guy from Internal Affairs who took Pulaski aside and said "You the Doctor Pulaski? The only one in Starfleet who can make a memory wipe stick? See, I'm not really from IA - there's this little-known organization that draws its legitimacy from the ancient scrolls of United Earth Starfleet Charter. We have really cool initiation ceremonies and all. Anyways..."

Timo Saloniemi

 

She could have gone to work for the DTI wiping time traveler's minds. The again, according to the SCE books (so I've heard), even Sarjenka's memory erasure didn't stick...

 

That's fabulous. Going in the head canon. I can totally picture some eventual Pulaski vs. Bashir Section 31 story, where she's reading him the riot act about his naivete...

 

It's a nice idea. but I don't know whether she would actually fit in with section 31. She doesn't strike me as the type that can easily juggle her sense of ethics.

 

I don't know that I'd call giving him a valid medical directive qualifies as not respecting him as the superior. It's more about the fact that in this instance she DOES have final say. I always took her attitude towards Picard as being based in trepidation. She is new, and doesn't know if her superior might be one to trample HER authority yet. I imagine that over time they'd have scaled that back, once she realized that Picard wasn't going to bully her in medical matters

Bev never had that issue. She knew Jean-Luc. She didn't have to constantly puff up like Pulaski thought she needed to. I also like to give Kate some benefit of the doubt, like maybe she's had a few bad assignments where the captain devalued her role

 

I personally just think she's strong in her convictions. Rank in those circumstances are just inconsequential.

 

Not the fact that she does it, she has that authority. But the fact that she seems to do it so casually after Picards very first refusal (at least that we see on screen).

But I read your post with interest as it is an entirely different way of interpreting the same screen material. I'll have to think about it

 

I do see what you're saying, and like I said above, something about her whole posture with Picard makes me think she's more on the defensive, in trying to establish her own authority with a new captain... kind of a (I'll tell you what's what, Mister") vibe. It's the kind of thing you tend to see, when someone wants you to know they aren't going to be your "Yes man". In those situations, a person is even going a little overboard to make the point, but ultimately, it's still a defensive posture

It's hard to build a profile on a character who was ditched so quickly. While I do tend to go against how she behaved with Data, I try to be a bit more forgiving about her attitudes with Picard. It's pretty obvious that Picard is a rather foreboding figure

 

Well, there is a novel with her assisting Bashir in helping the Andorians through a crisis with information taken from Section 31, seriously.

 

It was kind of Pulaski's whole remit. As an 'outsider' to the clique that is the regular characters, she has a license to come in and shake things up a bit. That includes Picard, with whom she has a much less close relationship than did Crusher. Bear in mind that Pulaski was also never credited as a regular cast member either, further cementing her outsider status.

More bizarre to me is that, on joining a ship where his son is the first officer, she didn't go out of her way to tell Will, "Oh, by the way, I know your father Kyle." Even if she leaves out the more..... intimate details.

 

One thing that kind of sticks out in the HD episodes for me is Pulaski's uniform. It's kinda of a pseudo-dress uniform. I can't recall seeing any other character wearing that kind of duty uniform.

I also got a McCoy vibe from her in some of her mannerisms/tendencies/transporterphobias. It's kind of a shame we never got a follow up to her character post season 2.

(on a side note, I'm watching the TNG bluray extras on season one and one interview with Gates Mcfadden listed her as Cheryl McFadden. Never really noticed that before either.

 

If memory serves me, Diana Muldaur requested to not be billed with the main cast during the title sequence. I forgot the reason, but I think it gad something to do with having it as a favor to Gene, like when DeForest asked to be paid only bare minimum for his cameo when he could easily have gotten a lot more.

 

The uniform she wore was basically a variant of the miniskirt/'skant' seen on various background characters in the first couple seasons, but worn with slacks instead of bare-legged.

The McCoy thing was as far as I'm aware deliberate. I recall Muldaur talking about it at the time, the feeling may have been that the show needed a McCoy-like character to add a little more "bite" to the ensemble.

 

But solid body colored, as opposed to the block of branch color against black, that the skant had, which is why I too think hers bore a much closer similarity to a dress uniform than to the skant... especially because she wore it with slacks

These are the 4 variants of standard tunic, not counting admiral attire, which frankly there are numerous variations of.

 

At some point she decided to start using her middle name of Gates for acting, to separate that from her other works (choreographer, etc) where she uses her first name of Cheryl.

 

Random sniping:

- Some personnel might need a type of clothing facilitating their line of work. Lab coats are worn today because they cover the regular or formal clothing with something expendable or easily cleanable; this is unlikely to be the exact function of Pulaski's tunic, but it may have been McCoy's (which was very shiny, perhaps exactly for its role as a splatter guard), and a tradition could have been born out of that.

- That admirals would have a lot of uniform variety could be attributed to their long careers, in two complementary ways: some of those old codgers wear 1) a style out of style since their active days 2) just because they can.

- In contrast, with the statistical evidence mounting, we could well surmise that phobia of transporters is not a sign of eccentricity at all: it's just that all doctors know the thing is bad for you, and some refuse to do the grin-and-bear-it routine even though they have agreed to join Starfleet where personal safety is not paramount or even particularly desilable.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Bev wears one constantly. I assume pockets has a lot to do with it. If Pulaski's tunic had pockets that might give it a special functionality, but it doesn't, so it's probably a throwback style maybe. She's not as young as Bev. I just happen to think they fly loose in Starfleet. I'm sure everyone's noticed the completely random mix of TNG & early DS9 uniforms that are strewn about the 1st TNG movie

It could be a lot of things, branch related, varied ranks of admiral, personal preference, officer's age being old enough to have seen fashion changes, etc...

 

I guess you bring with you what you've gotten used to wearing/are allowed to wear. But you find out pretty quickly whether your new commanding officer will tolerate/welcome/reject it.

*Can you make a good case for it (other than the Phoebe (Magic School Bus) excuse - "at my old posting we always/never ___")?
*Are your intentions defiance or purely motivated?
*Does it impact your job negatively?
*What's your commanding officer's style?
*Where are you posted? Backside of the federation outpost where nobody will see or care, big important ambassadorial ship where protocol is stringent?

 

Yup. In light of certain later events, we could argue Picard was running a tight ship during the series, insisting that everybody wear the (by 24th century standards) smart Class A and never the more relaxed Class B familiar from DS9 and VOY. But the nonstandard working clothes of Troi, both Crushers and Pulaski may suggest otherwise...

Timo Saloniemi