Bigger Douchebag: Captain Jellico or Commander Riker?

[A beaker full of death]

Trekker4747 said:

I'll admit that I've watched a whole hell of a lot of TNG the last couple weeks. Tell you what, I'll start in on re-watching TOS tonight. :thumbsup:

Cool. In all seriousness, I'd be interested in hearing what you see when you look for the military aspects. Look for the subtle things, like officers expressing concerns to the captain only behind closed doors (rather than ever contradicting him on the bridge), or the wonderful touch in The Naked Time when Kirk orders Spock to clear the corridors so the crew won't see the captain impaired.
Lots of little touched of protocol, half of them simply conveyed through body language. Just watch Scotty's interactions with Kirk. His bearing at every moment says "I'm reporting to my commanding officer."

And, of course, there's the wonderful scene in Obsession when Spock and McCoy almost relieve Kirk of command.

 

[Trekker4747]

Cool. In all seriousness, I'd be interested in hearing what you see when you look for the military aspects. Look for the subtle things, like officers expressing concerns to the captain only behind closed doors (rather than ever contradicting him on the bridge), or the wonderful touch in The Naked Time when Kirk orders Spock to clear the corridors so the crew won't see the captain impaired.

Oh sure, I remember all of that without having to rewatch it and some of it stuff that did annoy me on TNG (questioning the Captain on the bridge strikes me as a bit of breach of the CoC.

Anyway. I'm watching the first epiosde on the TOS DVDs now the one with the salt vampire. Forgotten how "meh" this one was.

 

[nx1701g]

A beaker full of death said:

Salinga said:

When I am watching the TNG crew I rarely think about seeing a military organisation but more seeing an enterprise, where all play out their creativity as a team to accomplish a goal. That the ship is called "USS Enterprise" should be also a hint it's mostly about a group of people in an enterprise of some sort.

My brain hurts now. I think it's bleeding.

For the first time ever I agree with you.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

Turd Ferguson said:

So, what do you think? Which is the bigger douchebag of the two? Jellico or Riker? The choice is yours.

Riker by far. But then, Riker was often a douchebag. LaForge was also a pissy, whiny, annoying piece of shit in this episode--iirc, he bitches and moans just like he did when Kurn took over as first officer.

TNG could have been a great show if so many of its main characters (Riker, LaForge, the Crushers, Troi) weren't so goddamned annoying.

 

[Anwar]

You mean if they were a bunch of background yes-men, like everyone in TOS aside from McCoy, Scotty (to an extent) and Spock were?

 

[Brutal Strudel]

Anwar said:
You mean if they were a bunch of background yes-men, like everyone in TOS aside from McCoy, Scotty (to an extent) and Spock were?

Nah. I mean simply decent, well-written and well-acted characters in a mature enemble tv show from the late 1980s, like the characters of Hill Street Blues, say. Since the "background yes men" (by which I suppose you mean military men and women who follow the orders of competent officers--like James T. Kirk--without whining) hail from a time before the ensemble-style shows we are used to, the comparison is pointless.

And when "Kirk" did start issuing wrong-headed orders, his "yes men" did respectfully question him ("The Enterprise Incident") and even passively mutiny (the otherwise execrable "Turnabout Intruder") and so your point is what exactly?

 

[Spider]

I'm thinking this is turning into nothing but a slug fest and nothing good will come out of this thread. I'll check in on this tomorrow, and if I find the same sort of bullshit carping about instead of actual discussion, I'll lock it.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

Vasquez Rocks said:
What do you guys think of Riker when he argues with Jellico about giving Picard the protection of some treaty (can't remember the exact name of it). This was the thing that got him relieved of duty.

I agree that the other stuff he did was childish, but with this point I agree with him about protecting Picard. It might have saved him from being tortured. Jellico's answer was that it would show weakness on their part.

The nature of Picard's mission was such that he could not be protected by that treaty. Remember, this was one of those "should you be captured yatta yatta Starfleet will disavow yatta yatta" situations. Picard knew this going in. Riker's reaction damn near gave away the game and could have provided the Cardassians with the fig leaf for war they obviously wanted. Again, Riker should have landed in the brig.

But Jellico is the douchebag because he brought no "sense of joy" to an Enterprise teetering on the brink of interstellar war at the forefront of a Borg-weakened Starfleet... Yeah, I'll but that for a dollar.

 

[Trekker4747]

Riker's biggest douchebaggiest moment in this episode is when he was all, "No I'm going to make you ASK me to fly this mission. Hahahahahah!!!"

 

[Brutal Strudel]

Timo said:
The events as such seem to show that Jellico did the right thing, every step down the path from "Cardassians are emitting theta rays" to "You might want to return one Jean-Luc Picard to us now". But the story still culminates in every character hating him. Is that "villain" or not?

Thankfully, not quite the stereotypical villain of TOS fare; not a stilted bureaucrat who comes to see wisdom in the end, but rather a hardass who out-heroes the heroes and still thinks he's the better man at the end. The audience can for this rare once choose by themselves what to think of the guest star. Which I think is why this issue remains so popular...

Timo Saloniemi

Now this is one of the first "TNG was more sophisticated than TOS" arguments I've heard that actually holds water. I'm gonna be chewing on this one. This actually makes sense.

A beaker full of death said:

Trekker4747 said:
Well, this thread has given me a lot to think about.

But, in the end, I've made a decision on my fan-fic I'm working on. The captain is going to be "the non-military military" Picard-like type who dosen't regard Starfleet as a strict military organization and is a little more laid-back (much like every, single, captain we've seen in the franchise.)

You've GOT to watch more TOS.

And DS9, for that matter. Sisko was a bit of a hard-ass, much more Kirk (and Jellico) than Picard.

 

[A beaker full of death]

Anwar said:
You mean if they were a bunch of background yes-men, like everyone in TOS aside from McCoy, Scotty (to an extent) and Spock were?

Nonsense. On the contrary, the characters in TOS often had legitimate differences of opinion, rooted deeply in each one's respective philosophy - and which they stuck to throughout the episode. It was modern Trek that adopted the "you were right, I was wrong" after-school special mentality.

 

[Salinga]

If the TNG crew were organized under a Captain Jellico from the first season I would never be a fan of the show and couldn't care less about it.

That's irrelevant.

LOL - I bet you were hard while you wrote that, eh?

 

[nx1701g]

Ok let's all calm down and start talking about the episode Chain of Command again.

 

[Spider]

Salinga said:

If the TNG crew were organized under a Captain Jellico from the first season I would never be a fan of the show and couldn't care less about it.

That's irrelevant.

LOL - I bet you were hard while you wrote that, eh?

Thank you Salinga for putting the final nail in the coffin for this thread.

Instead of handing out any warnings, I'll just lock this puppy. I was looking forward to watching this episode tomorrow and contributing to this thread something other than telling yall to calm down.