Ride or Die: Defend Your Favorite "Bad" Episodes

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Of the roads to promotion, taking a standardized test with the resulting paperwork, reviewboard, commanding officer scrutiny, etc., whatever is needed, is an established pathway. Achieving great things in the field isn't as quantifiable as a standardized test.

Think of it as the difference between completing school by moving through the grades and acquiring an equivalency certificate, loosely (not a perfect analogy)

 

[Dropship]

I've just remembered another episode i feel uncomfortable with, it's the one where Picard is told to find out why a fellow starship captain (he played the warden in Shawshank) destroyed a (Cardassian?) freighter even though they weren't at war.
The captain's excuse was that he strongly suspected the ship was violating a treaty by transporting weapons to somewhere.
But to preserve the fragile peace, Picard washes his hands of the matter and doesn't look into it any further, and let's Star Fleet deal with him.
However, Picard admits at the end that the freighter was almost certainly carrying arms.
My beef is that Picard threw the captain under the bus rather than stand by him and investigate his claims..

 

[Mojochi]

On paper I wouldn't want Picard flying the ship either - his training isn't aligned with that

Oh no no no. I couldn't let this go. Picard single handedly pilots the ship on 2 thrusters alone, in Booby Trap, & surprised everyone with some deft maneuvering to boot, & also takes the helm in the finale of Yesterday's Enterprise. That guy is top notch on a ship & I'll hear nothing to the contrary

My main issue with Troi in Thine Own Self is that if it's a test of metal, to see if someone has the character to order a person to die, and furthermore realize it when it matters, then she didn't do that! Riker held her hand & then gave her a wink wink clue to get her there. The episode itself manages to be quite good & entertaining though despite that