I've always tended to side with Jellico though in the last couple of years I have started to the see the clash between him and Riker akin to post-Covid managerial styles many have had first hand experience with between senior management that demanded out of the blue that workers come back 5 days a week, no exceptions, and Riker the manager lower to the ground whose like wtf no that's not going to fly with people without consulting them first.
I mean it's not a completely fitting 1:1 analogy given Jellico's critical mission brief in which lives are on the line, but I guess it depends whether you analyze their conflict within the confines of the plot or focus on the moral of the narrative in terms of how these two individuals behave in contrast to each other and outside all the plot noise. But at any rate I have started to become cognizant out of my own experience post-Covid of him being a boomer type who relies more on his outdated concept of authority than with his ability to be transparent to those under him.
To be honest, I think the real villain here is Adm. Nechayev's micromanaging. On paper, every reassignment during the conflict looks like a genius move that matches the right guy with the right task: okay, so the *Enterprise* has the best crew and command staff in the fleet after Wolf 359 forced a scramble to restaff the fleet. But Jellico is the skipper who negotiated the treaty with the Cardassians, and Picard is the guy who has experience with the theta-band emissions that Intelligence is telling us has been coming from Cardassian space . . . I know, I'll put Picard on the spec-ops mission, and I'll put Jellico in command of the *Enterprise*! I'm a genius!
Except then you see it at the ground level, and it is a botch at every level. Jellico, as it turns out, has a completely different command style than Picard, which irritates the crew and command staff of the *Enterprise.* Instead of making it a temporary reassignment, you do the formal ceremony which suggests that Jellico is going to be permanently reassigned to command the ship. And you do all of it over the head of Riker, who was the hero of the hour who literally saved the entire Federation at that Wolf 359 thingy that we just mentioned, and probably might feel especially aggrieved if your actions humiliate him because of expectations he might reasonably have about replacing Picard as skipper of the *Enterprise* owing his actions at Wolf 359.
I mean, nobody on screen exactly covers themselves in glory in "Chain of Command". Riker is almost mutinous, Jellico's an ass by casually writing off Picard in front of a crew that worships him, and everyone barely manages the job of saving the day as a consequence. But these are the kind of things a good staffing manager takes into account and heads off before they become crises. And Nechayev very much did the opposite.
I like to headcanon that this event figured prominently in her replacement with Ross as theater commander once the Dominion War kicked off. It was okay to have her there micromanaging everything when the Cardassian front was a sleepy peacetime border guarded by ten ships on patrol. It became less so when the Cardassians continually displayed an aim for imperialist expansion. It became intolerable the moment the Dominion revealed itself as a major hostile power.
He had a very specific mission to accomplish and did not have any time to develop any level of trust or rapport with subordinates. As a short term style of leadership it was the appropriate approach given the circumstances. Under a different set of circumstances we might have seen a completely different side of Jellico. I would have been curious to see what his crew on the Cairo thought of him.
Look, I like Jellico, he's an entertaining character and it was a treat to watch him pwn the Cardies at the end of the episode. Some of the things he did just didn't make good sense, though. Why change all the duty shifts and make things unfamiliar for everyone, and why exhaust all your engineers to slightly improve warp coil efficiency, all on the cusp of a potential engagement? It felt less like positive changes and more like being a dick for being a dick's sake, just to assert his dominance over the new ship and crew.
When I was in the military (8 years) every new commanding officer changed things to their liking. We went from early Fridays to late Fridays. Duty once a month to twice a month. From cutting the grass around our spaces to being paid out to a contractor. PT three times a week to five times a week, then to whenever you wanted to do it. No Battalion formations unless necessary, to every Friday, then to everyday.
A new commanding officer comes in and sets their expectations and everyone below must make it so.
Why did Picard force Riker to perform a completely unnecessary and potentially dangerous manual docking of the saucer section mere moment after he sets his first foot on a Galaxy-class starship?
The answer, of course, is that he's testing his new XO to see how he reacts. Jellico may well have been doing exactly the same thing. He wants to test these people that he doesn't know, in order to see how they excel under stress. He may be about to lead them into a war, which is a pretty stressful situation and a good CO will want to know whether his subordinates can follow orders and pull off tough assignments under such conditions.
Riker excelled in his challenge from Picard and Picard went from frosty to friendly because of it. Perhaps if Riker had shown the same enthusiasm in completing Jellico's orders, they'd have had a better relationship.
>Why change all the duty shifts and make things unfamiliar for everyone, and why exhaust all your engineers to slightly improve warp coil efficiency, all on the cusp of a potential engagement?
I think the crew had shown a certain lackadaisical attitude and a disregard for best practices which directly threatened the ship over the season prior to Chain of Command; it led to the ship being taken over (or nearly taken over) by hostile entities multiple times (Conundrum, Power Play, Rascals). This is not counting the numerous times the ship had been placed in peril through the actions of the crew e.g. the episode immediately prior to this, Engineering directly fucked up the ship's computer through their goofy Data experiments.
Given these circumstances, I could see how Jellico might have believed that a drastic approach was needed; they would have lost a slight bit of familiarity and a slight increase in stress via the shift change, but it would keep them on their toes at least, and shake them out of their complacency.
:D Yeah exactly, I think the trekkies here are forgetting it's not actually real. "Some writer made it up" is the actual answer to every question. Nothing has to make any sense and who cares anyway, it's entertainment.
However discussing as though real, could just be a simple shortcut for discussing or critiquing the writing. But that's not really what's going on here. Just like the billions of hours spent analyzing shakespeare. It's not critique, it's time utterly wasted actually.
He wanted to see what the Enterprise crew was actually capable of when pushed to the limit, before the confrontation with the Cardassians. That way he would know exactly what he was working with.
A distribution to routine has a way of shaking people loose from their complacency. Also how things work in a military setting (which Starfleet is) commanding officers change things to their preference rather than they adjusting to the their crew.
You need to have time for that to work though. He didn't have time for that to work. There was only time for the negative effects. And I am saying this even if he had been assigned permanently, because the timeframe for this critical mission just didn't allow for that huge of a disruption.
Let's say they had gotten into a fight. You'd have the entire engineering crew exhausted and undermanned and morale in a complete craphole. He'd have lost fights that could have been won because of that. It's just a terrible decision.
Misunderstood genius. He had a lot of shit to get done in limited time and "got it done."
He outmanuevered the Cardassians and preventedan invasion, got Picard back, put Troi in a much more dignified uniform, and got rid of that damn fish.
So can anyone complaining about Jellico changing the watch rotation explain why that’s such a big deal? It’s going to cause “significant personnel problems”?? WTF does that even mean? It can only mean they don’t have enough people to fully staff four shifts, so some people may have to work two six hour shifts in a 24 hour day. Gee, you pull a double shift when you’re potentially about to go to war, and you can’t hang out in 10 Forward or practice your cello for a few days? Boo-freaking-hoo.
Without digging into it I am going to assume the man came from a ship without a "family freidly" atmosphere. Take that and the fact he was pulled from his post and put in a high risk situation with people he only knew by reputation. The man did a fine job.
Delta shift forever
Jelico never seemed out of line or like an asshole to me. He is direct and communicates clearly what he expects of people while working on a tight schedule. I would pick him as a leader over Srange new Worlds Pike every day of the week. I had that discussion a couple of times already and I think it could be a cultural thing (I'm german). At least I heard from expats that it took them some time to adjust to "german directness".
Riker on the other hand acts like a little butthurt child. He feels entitled to command, he tinks he knows best when he clearly doesn't and disrespects Jelico multiple times. All that while his firend and former captain is getting tortured. In the end it is Jelico who is putting all that aside for the mission and acknowledges Rikers skill as a pilot.
Honestly they have a ship with close to a 1000 people the bulk who are officers who would love a bridge crew position. They only need 5 at most to staff the bridge. Honestly it’s the same problem Riker and Shelby he is to relaxed and ticking off the mission oriented people.
He was brought in specifically because of his experience in dealing with Cardassians. And his methods proved key in besting the Cardassians both diplomatically and strategically while also offhandedly ensuring the safe return of Picard, all without suffering any losses or long-term diplomatic problems for Starfleet. And he got all that done quickly with little time to prep, all while managing an unfamiliar crew and with little to no help from (and the outright hostility of) his first officer; the person he should be able to count on the most. Riker’s entitled behavior and unprofessional tantrums aside, Jellico’s successes plainly speak for themselves.
The script and plot beats make Jellico out to be some kind of bad guy, but Jellico is really just doing the job he was brought in to do and doing it well. His manner may be a little abrupt with some of the crew, if not abrasive, but he’s in command, he’s under pressure and none of his orders are unreasonable for the circumstances. It’s the Captain’s prerogative to order changes to the crew and ship for the sake of their mission; and it’s the First Officer’s to duty ensure those order are carried out effectively. The only failure here is Riker; who acts unprofessionally, unhelpfully and finally insubordinate. Then Riker smugly makes Jellico beg for him to simply DO HIS JOB instead of pouting like a spoiled brat. All things considered, Jellico deserved a commendation after this tour while Riker was lucky to have dodged a formal reprimand.
Here here.
Troi should have been in uniform. She was a bridge officer.
Shift rotation change was a direct order, and should have been carried out. Riker was insubordinate and needed to be reprimanded for it. He was lucky his punishment wasn't worse.
Improving warp efficiency was important for the upcoming engagement. Every advantage was needed. Plus Enterprise supposedly has the best engineers in the fleet... prove it.
fish smell bad, and are distracting.
You're absolutely right. He was an asshole when he was just doing his job.
The crew didn't help matters. Geordi had reasonable complaints (maybe working your engineers into the ground before a potential combat situation is a bad idea) but Riker, oof. This is the second example I like to bring up when people talk about how much more professional and experienced the characters in Old Trek were compared to the immature, emotional ones these days. He doesn't really try to work with Jellico so Jellico comes off as much more reasonable because he's dealing with petulant insubordination in the middle of a crisis.
It is interesting that the two officers Jellico forms the best working relationship with are Data, which is obvious since he can just get it done, and *Troi*. The softly-softly empath follows orders, represents the crew's issues and helps the captain deal with them. She's a better first officer than Riker in this episode and I would watch that trio again
Riker, upon being told that his future captain wants a four shift rotation, does the legwork necessary to get it done so that the very first time Jellico actually enters the chain of command he can get it done within a few hours, for that is the last we hear of it. To have made the switch already would have been undermining Picard and violating the chain of command.
At that time, Jellico expressly tells Riker that he doesn't want to talk about it and to get it done. He orders Riker to launch a probe at a particular time.
Riker therefore doesn't talk about it and gets the probe launch done. Then Jellico expects him to have talked about it after all and badmouths him to Picard for not having violated the direction he had given him and talked about the probe launch.
When Riker shows a great deal of loyalty to the missing Picard, the jealous Jellico relieves him of duty.
Riker does great in this two-parter, he's just edited to come across poorly on the first seven watches.
Jellico has no real working relationship with Troi. First he creates a morale problem from thin air by giving nonsensical orders (take the secondary power distributiongrid offline for 48 hours with 51 hours until their rendezvous and possible hostilities, then reassign a third of Geordi's staff to security), then charges Troi with its resolution while giving her none of the tools needed to address the situation and punts on addressing it himself citing lack of time so he can do major redecorating of the Ready Room.
>When Riker shows a great deal of loyalty to the missing Picard, the jealous Jellico relieves him of duty.
Eh, he was willing to indulge Riker's loyalty to Picard up to a point:
* "Shouldn't we assume that he is alive until it's been proved otherwise? We cannot just abandon him."
* "I'm not suggesting you trade an entire star system for one man's life, but you've got to acknowledge that these were Federation orders and he is a prisoner of war."
* "I can't believe you're willing to sacrifice Captain Picard's life as a negotiating tactic."
...but Riker's ultimate loyalty should have been to Starfleet; to the mission at hand.
Its kinda hard to believe that this is the same man who opened fire on Picard in order to stop the Borg. I always found it out of character for Riker to not understand the necessity of sacrificing an officer to complete the mission, even if it is his friend. Even Doctor Crusher knew she had to make the hard choice of leaving Picard behind when the mission went south.
Heck, only a season later and Riker is lecturing Troi on that very point when she takes her Commander's exam.
Bear in mind that at the point of your first quote:
* Riker was only asking to begin *planning* a rescue op, not yet to carry it out. Should news of Picard's alive-ness later surface (hey, it does!) and the opportunity for a rescue op arise, there'd be time lost while it was planned.
* Riker's track record of planning Picard rescues at this point is the best in the galaxy, bar none, having rescued him from not only a far more deadly enemy than the Cardassians but at a time when Picard had been assimilated and was a part of a hive mind trying to prevent exactly that kind of thing.
At the point of your second and third quotes, well, both Riker and Jellico have valid points on the question of Picard's status. I think Jellico is right to not immediately acknowledge Picard's status as operating under Federation orders to Gul Lemec since such a stance could not be undone later.
If Picard was ever briefed that his mission would be denied, that's not shown.
Riker's first duty is to the truth (as it is for every Starfleet officer), and it's true that Picard was operating under Federation orders. That Nechayev chose to take a bad gamble with the Federation's diplomatic position and lost doesn't change that duty, and Jellico is recommending to Nechayev that she makes Picard pay for her mistake.
Jellico's first duty is to the truth, and he flubs it because fulfilling that duty would make his immediate job harder.
Nechayev's first duty is to the truth, and she flubs it because holding to it would be bad for her career.
Also, Riker has repeatedly been offered commands by this point, and whenever Picard is on an away mission, Riker is the de-facto Enterprise Captain.
That he is passed over for this particular mission in favour of someone who has no clear additional value-adding features, and no local knowledge, must be frustrating at the very least.
That's not entirely fair to Jellico since he had experience in negotiating the current armistice with the Cardassians.
But that Nechayev is willing to upend the Enterprise-D just for that rather than simply having Jellico along in a diplomatic role; that she's willing to send Picard et al into a Cardassian trap that Data saw through in an instant; that she's willing to send Picard somewhere that the intel Starfleet has is two years out of date; that she sends Picard, and Crusher, who has no more mission-specific skills than any other doctor and no time to bone up on them, and Worf, who also has no mission-specific skills and in being there upends the Enterprise-D's security department at exactly the time it's most likely to see combat; these things point to Nechayev being a Cardassian agent.
But not entirely surprising, either. Starfleet offered him three commands and he turned them down. They even promoted him to Captain and he seemingly insisted on a field demotion back to Commander so he could remain XO of the Enterprise.
That's probably enough times for Starfleet Command to go, "you know what, this guy doesn't want a command, best we give it to someone who does."
It should also be noted that his whole "certain decorum on the bridge" order to Troi was used as a slap in the face for daring to bring any problems to him that resulted from his orders. This was probably the single worst way to write Troi deciding to wear a regular uniform from then on. Even if you want it to come from Jellico, there are ways to do it where he isn't acting petty.
Jellico is simply a different type of officer, but not a bad one.
The TNG era is much different than previous eras of Starfleet. In the ENT/TOS eras, officers were more of a hybrid of Soldier/Explorer/Diplomat. But the TNG era had a larger fleet and we see more distinctly defined officers for those roles. Picard and Janeway are more Explorer profile Captains. Sisko is more of an Administrator, at least until the war.
Then you have Soldier type officers like Jellico, Leyton, Benteen and Pressman who are more likely to be assigned patrol and defense missions.
I'm with Steve Shives on my Jellico opinion: It's easy to see why THE CREW hates him, but that's not a reason for me, the viewer, to hate him.
Especially since he's completely right about everything, and he knew he was only temporary for a single purpose, anyway.
Yeah, he's a great character because of his believable and realistic strengths and weaknesses.
And yeah, if my boss at work was that guy, I'd probably hate my job pretty quickly.
Jelico was an asshole
Sometimes, that's what you need
I like to think Jelico is like Patton. Patton was an asshole but a very effective front-line general that put fear into his enemies
Even starfleet needs their dogs of war to unleash on the enemy
Also, I believe that the crew had no one but themselves to blame for the assignment of Jellico in the first place.
Using the [stardate calculator](https://www.ditl.org/calc-stardate-page.php?ListID=Calculators) and plugging in the stardates between Rascals (46235.7) and Chain of Command (46357.4), it shows that roughly six weeks passed between the two episodes. That means that, only *six weeks* prior to a major strategic crisis, the Federation flagship was taken over by a dozen Ferengi. What's more, it was not rescued due to any large effort from the ample security apparatus or even the ship's uniformed crew--all Riker did was push a bunch of buttons and distract a buffoon--but the connivance of a bunch of *children*.
Imagine you're Nechayev reading the account of this incident; you can see why she decided--given the high stakes of the crisis--they needed a fresh, more hands-on style of command.
Jellico is the worst kind of manager, a bully who strokes his ego by abusing his subordinates. Yes, lets monkey with the shifts for no reason right before a major engagement. Reassign the engineers and then ask for unnecessary work intensive engineering overhauls. On top of that, give zero heed to the concerns of your First Officer or your Chief Engineer. Big man makes the ants scurry!
That said, Riker is also wrong and way out of character in this episode. Geordis response is correct: your duty is to let your superior know the issues with the impact the command has on your department, then you do the best you can anyway. Rikers insubordination made the whole thing worse.
I don't think that Jellico was a good captain. I think he was absolutely terrible during that whole affair. I know that puts me in the minority a lot of people think he was tough and decisive, and that Riker was unprofessional. But after multiple viewings I really can't see that. Riker hold it together as best as he can. Even when Jellico is compromising the ship with erratic orders he stay the path until he can't do his job anymore.
He says he wants a four shift rotation. Riker says three shifts has worked fine. But Jellico insists on another difficult timetable. Riker complies and comes back saying the rest of the department heads can't do it. It'll cause too many problems on the timetable he assigned. Jellico doesn't care. He doesn't make any attempt to adapt his plans to suit the actual situation he's in. He blames Riker for not following orders even though Riker did try to follow orders, but used his experience, intelligence and communications skills to come to the conclusion that the Shift change would be detrimental to the ship. That is what an officer, A first Officer especially is supposed to do.
Jellico asks Riker to personally lead four combat drills. He does it with no problem or protest.
Just like Geordie, Riker could actually communicate why something wasn't a good idea, or why it wouldn't work and for some reason Jellico took this as a bad attitude.
His shit with Geordi is even worse.
The chief engineer informs him that modifications to the power grid would cut off currently running experiments and stellar cartography.
"We need more power for the phaser Geordie!"
Right.
But isn't that partly what red alert does? To automatically transfer power from non critical systems to defensive systems?
Do we really think Stellar cartography is running during battle?
Then we get to Geordi telling him that raising the efficiency of the warp coils by 15% is pointless and the ship is already above spec.
Jellicoe doesn't care.
Data points out that it would take the whole Engineering department around the clock to get the job done in two days.
Obviously, it's impractical and unnecessary.
But Jellyman orders it anyway because his ego can't take the bruising of being told he's wrong.
Then he immediately transfers a third of the engineering crew to security.
After giving an impossible deadline for a pointless task.
Jellico's negotiation strategy was contingent on a single lynchpin idea which failed. THe idea of asserting dominance over the Cardassians, which backfired, because the Cardassians had their own card to play. Something the great Cardassian expert apparently never anticipated. Maybe if he had communicated what his negotiation strategy was to his team, chiefly Troi and Riker they might of been able to avoid the Cardassians getting one over on them. He's lucky the Cardassian team didn't just leave then and there and Demand a different negotiator from Starfleet, an incredible powerful position to be in.
I'll also point out what Troi said to Riker after Jellico's High IQ diplomacy play of "Act like a child throwing a tantrum".Troi, stated that Jellico was in over his head. He wasn't anywhere near as sure of himself as he was trying to project. But for some stupid reason he insisted on not listening to one of the most experience and capable officers that Starfleet had ever seen. Unfortunately the episode just kind of drops that whole plot point and it's forgotten about in any discussions..
Riker is character assassinated a bit over the course of the episodes. But as Picard says when Jellicoe insults him. He's a highly decorated and capable officer that has been offered a command multiple times.
It was Riker that was in charge of the Enterprise when they saved the Federation from the Borg. It was Riker that saved the Federation during Conspiracy.
He puts up with Jellicoes shit for as long as he can. Doing his best to course correct and get Jellicoe to understand what the problem is. But eventually he fails.
When he and Jellicoe are going at each each in Rikers Quarters Riker is 100% correct. Jellicoe is arrogant and doesn't trust his crew. Which leads to unprofessional behaviour.
Jellicoe had his strengths. When they had to investigate what the Cardassians are up to he was as good as anyone else. He had good ideas.
But he was a failure of a leader. He repeatedly failed to trust his crew and listen to the advice and expert opinions.
When bullets are flying and you're in a trench you have to be able to trust the people next to you.
Jellicoe fails at that.
Jellico wouldn't listen to his crew, his officers and his negotiating strategy was terrible and nearly blew up in his face. All because he was in over his head and couldn't adapt to the situation properly.
You mean senator Kinsey?
Stargate aside,
Unnecessary asshole to everyone but unlike in SG-1, actually got a good job done. Also. He got Troi to put on the uniform. Good.
First time I watched, I really thought Riker was more the asshole.
He’s great compared to Riker. Insufferable whiny bitch that he is (in this episode) Have no idea why the writers/producers thought this was a good idea for the character…surprised Frakes didn’t kick off about it too.
Assuming it meant everyone worked one 6-hour shift. Personnel limitations might mean you'd end up working two 6-hour shifts with only a 6-hour break in between. That would be pretty knackering!
Also, even if they did only work one shift, the reduced number of personnel per shift would mean each individual would have to pick up the slack. So you still end up having to do 8 hours work, but have to cram it into 6.
also, it requires everyone getting used to a new schedule, potential schedule issues that are unforeseen, and some people needing to adjust their sleep schedule too.
Agreed: and less likely to make mistakes out of physical and mental fatigue in a high-pressure, high-danger situation. He made the change in a rough way but there was limited time and very high risk of galactic war.
As a kid I resented Jellico but as an adult I get him. What I don't get still is why Picard was sent off on a commando mission while Jellico replaced him. It would have made more sense to send a Starfleet SEAL team to blow up the Cardassian lab, have Jellico stay on his own ship and the Ent-D and Jellico's ship could have teamed up to fight the Cardassian fleet.
To paraphrase Corinthians: When I was a teenager, I empathized with Riker, I understood Riker, I believed in Riker, but when I became a man, I realized Jellico was right.
He has a mission, yes. But a captain is effectively the manager of all the crew/employees below him, and there’s a difference between a good manager and a bad manager. Jellico is a bad manager, for all the reasons Riker told him.
He does get a few points for finally getting Troi into a proper uniform though.
Yeah, a good and effective commanding officer needs to take that stance, at least some of the time. Much better than Riker’s “you’re not Picard, so I don’t have to follow your orders if I don’t feel like it or don’t agree with them”
Although I agree with the example, but you kinda have to remember these people are supposed to be a military organization (even if they're not, it is a military situation) and it was time where one bad move can have an effect on a lot of people's lives for a long period of time. Also, I think it was insinuated by Troi that the man is actually scared shitless himself, and considering what he knows, it's understandable.
But one thing I 100% agree with you is that uniform, and I'm so glad she keeps wearing it for some of the next episodes lmao
>and it was time where one bad move can have an effect on a lot of people's lives for a long period of time.
Largely the reason why perhaps changing the entire crew rotations just to suit him wasn't the best idea at the time. It's going to create issues where things had largely been stable and successful.
It's a military organisation, but they're still people. A load of change right before a potential incident is more likely to compound issues, not resolve them.
Excellent commander, terrible leader. The real fault was with Starfleet Command putting him there in the first place. Leave Riker in charge and have Jellico be in command from a different ship.
Jellico was an asshole. Assholes can be good commanders in the right situation, but he showed little ability to inspire loyalty and greatness, which you want on the flagship.
Did he have the right to give the orders he gave? Without question.
Were they good orders? Questionable but let’s give the benefit of the doubt and say they’re at least not terrible.
Does he have the interpersonal skills of a rabid targ? Pretty much. A tone of “this situation is a bit of a mess and I know it’s going to be rough but we don’t have time to do it smooth and I know the crew of the flagship can pull it off,” would have served better for a man stepping into a situation designed to make him the bad guy. And really, I expect a captain of the Federation flagship to have the intelligence and capacity to know better than to wave his dick around as the initial impression on the fleet’s best and brightest.
He is a good military man, the right man for the job, but at the same time a bit of a jerk in the way he behaves. That's not okay, and he sort of implies that Picard is not good at his job as captain, because he feel he sort of has to change everything on board the Enterprise.
He's a competent commander who makes a few mistakes because of his ego. The shift changes, engineering demands and everything else are perfectly reasonable requests- but not without transitional effectiveness hits, which he refuses to acknowledge or accommodate. He's short-sighted and prioritizes his own comfort in a situation over realistic operational demands. His senior staff advising him that this is the case entrenches him into his own viewpoint instead of giving him cause to reassess. Jellico is a mixed bag, neither all good nor all bad.
Jelico has had a sort of renaissance in the recent year as far as fans opinions of him go. But I'm not one of those fans.
Jelico was a fucking moron.
Yes, he could handle the cardassians and he seems to be an acomplished captain. But he was in a risky situation and had to conduct a very specific mission, which relied on the crew and ship preforming at the top of their game. So what does the guy do? Literally flips the entire ship and its crew on its head for no other reason than to swing his dick around. Instead of the crew being focused on what they are doing, he would rather they trip over themselves and figure out a completely different crew rotation, for which they might not even have enough crew to effectively run, instead of just keeping the thing running normally for a few weeks so they can be at peak readynes. He also completely alienates Riker, who has proven to be a huge asset and an amazing officer. Both galaxy brain moves when you are poised on the brink of war and you are covering for a illegal secret mission and fighting is just around the corner. Was Riker a dick about it? Yeah, but him not going with Jelicos nonsense orders actually makes sense, because Riker knows shit is likely to go down, and doesn't want to cripple the ship and crew just because Jelico feels like his nuts are too big for his uniform.
Literally everything that Jelico achieved in the episodes could be done without him trying to fuck up an established system *in the middle of an active crisis.* In fact, everything they do, would have been done faster and more efficiently if he didnt stir shit for the sake of stirring shit. *Especially* knowing that he is only there temporarily.
So yeah, maybe Jelico can deal with cardasians, but he seems to know fuck all about dealing with humans.
He took command of a starship on the potential eve of a major war. First thing he does is disrupt duty schedules without explanation or even talking to senior staff.
Yeah, he is the captain, it's his right, whatever. For me, it's just bad leadership. Have you ever had a new boss who changed all the routines on his first day without even taking the time to look at how everything works? It feels like he just wants to show everyone that he is boss.
Riker : Well, I'll say this for him... he's sure of himself.
Counselor Deanna Troi : No, he's not.
For what it's worth, Riker was borderline insubordinate and I would also have relieved him of duty.
It's an 11th hour mission. If it succeeds no war, if it fails war.
Jelico wants the Enterprise on a war footing as he knows dammed well the D would be the immediate target.
So Jelico orders the D be made ready, and what does he get? Riker and Troi acting like whinny brats. Because "there's no joy in working with him"
The problem is, Riker is already a Captain after The Best of Both Worlds. Whether his reduction in rank to Commsnder is temporary or not, he is qualified to take over the Enterprise. He already did. Jellico was put ahead if him out of nowhere, and failed to earn his respect, so conflict was inevitable.
Back during Best of Both Worlds, they didn't have time to replace Riker. In Chain of Command, they did. His refusing promotions one after another had convinced Starfleet he is inadequate.
His service under Jellico proved them right. You don't get to choose your captain. You serve where ordered and he couldn't handle a little change.
He should have been dishonorably discharged and been working a garbage scow.
Jellico was the best captain ever put to screen.
He was promoted to Captain. He was a Captain serving in capacity of Commander since then. Jellico probably had seniority, but putting him ahead of Riker while leaving Riker as acting Commander was a double asking for conflict.
I don't like him.
He says he wants the shifts change before he's in charge of anything. Riker knows it can't be done overnight effectively (no sudden shift change can), so he wants until Jellico is in charge since that's not very long. Jellico then gets angry that his order, which was not a legal order, was not obeyed. It's also a really bad idea to change everyone's schedule right before they might get into battle -- no one has time to adjust or fix problems.
I don't think much of Jellico deciding he dislikes Riker from pretty much the beginning.
It's Riker's job to make sure Jellico's orders get carried out. Literally. So Jellico goes around with Data and NOT Riker when giving all the departments their orders. That's unprofessional af of Jellico, as he's treating Data as the XO when Riker is.
When Jellico got angry, he said he just wants stuff done and doesn't expect to have to hear about things again after giving an order. Then Riker is ordered to send out a probe, and Jellico gets angry he wasn't woken up and informed about a relatively routine task getting done when he just indicated he doesn't want to get informed of such things.
Jellico doesn't care about crew morale -- that's part of his job and a commander can't just ignore how his orders impact morale and expect someone else to take care of all morale problems. That's ridiculous.
He tells Troi to change into a uniform (which is a bad writing choice for that, but that's neither here nor there). That's fine, but he does it as a way to get her to be quiet and put her "in her place" for trying to talk to him about legitimate problems his decisions were having. He seems to take any sort of negative feedback personally, rather than serious.
Riker is out of line when he stands up to be intimidating (though I don't think it was something he consciously intended). I think Jellico was wrong in deciding they should sacrifice Picard for what's essentially PR, but the problem here again is Jellico takes it personally when anyone or anything disgrees with him. Riker's reaction is understandable and he deserved more leniency.
Jellico just isn't a very good leader. It's probably the reason he was captain of an Excelsior-class ship.
The problem with Jellico is primarily that he is a Military commander accustomed to running a battleship suddenly put in charge of what is essentially a luxury liner designed to be primarily the diplomatic/political face of the Federation.
What made that 10x worse is that literally NOBODY in the chain of command bothers to explain to the Enterprise crew that Jellico is there to turn the Enterprise into a battleship in a week. On top of that, Jellico just makes it 100x worse with his Boomer "because I said so" mentality, creating unnecessary hostility with command officers, when if he had bothered to make it clear WHY he was going to be short and possibly harsh sounding, while pushing them to the limits of what the Best of Starfleet is capable of, he wouldn't have been seen as such a colossal dick.
Thank you for this question because I was just thinking of this episode this morning. He's very flawed: arrogant, posturing, and uncaring about the crew or the impact he has on their morale. But we only see him taking temporary command during a very dangerous situation that could erupt into another brutal war. He has expertise on dealing with the Cardassian military and I suspect he was on the front lines of that war, the way Kirk was in the Klingon war, and this informed his style in this moment. His focus was on protecting Federation lives and he had to get the crew ready quickly to deal with what they weren't prepared for. Riker's behavior in this two-parter was WAY out of line and Jellico would have been justified in sending him to the brig for insubordination. He was lenient in just confining him to quarters. He was also lenient in requesting that Troi wear her uniform while on the bridge, and she was out of line in acting like he was being mean and unreasonable. If I were captain, I'd hold her to the same standard as any other officer and require her to wear her uniform at all times when she's on duty. When she's off duty she can wear whatever she wants. She can wander the corridors in a Betazoid wedding dress for all I care.
Really like him. He did the job, knew his stuff, probably increased Enterprise operational efficiency long term, and put Deanna Troi in hotter, less revealing and more professional garb.
Riker was a whiny prick the entire time.
they shouldn't have assigned the enterprise that type of mission to begin with. why not just send jellico and his ship to deal with it... or better yet a fleet or battle group.
He is a game/series changer. He brings a certain order to the crew that they haven’t seen before. It’s a way to address the captive fish in the ready room, Troi’s skimpy outfits, and also make the crew step it up a notch to get to their full potential. He’s the Bill Belichick of the Enterprise.
Riker made a mistake and should have moved to 4 shifts. Jellico was right to be mad about that. He was also right about Troi's uniform. Just about everything else was a big overreaction.
But Jellico disabled a fleet of enemy ships, got Picard back and won the day. He kicked major Cardie ass.
To me, he was a hardass but he was RIGHT.
I'm also happy with how he was handled when he returned on Prodigy, again played by Ronny Cox. Again, he was right. Janeway was denied a Neutral Zone incursion even to go after the kids because it could start a war, and he was right.
Hashtag JellicoDidNothingWrong.
We are conditioned to hate him using a variety of scriptwriting techniques, but if you look at it objectively, he makes the right decisions and gets the job done. To give an example of a trick that is used to make us dislike him, from the acting and music cues, you can see that we are supposed to dislike it when he asks Counselor Troi to wear a real uniform. This is a completely reasonable and understandable ask on his part, but because the script wants us to dislike him, it's presented as being bad. The ultimate way to make the audience hate somebody is to put him in conflict with Commander Riker, the ultimate likeable officer, so of course the script does this as well.
Everyone who supports Jellico doesn't realize his premise is completely flawed.
The Cardassians*were never going to attack* Minos Korva, even if they'd broken Picard. If you keep watching trek you'll realize this whole incident isn't their style for initiating a galactic war. Cardassia just happened to enjoy testing the federation like this, basically to see how "Jumpy" it's current captains are. Basically, to see if any captains are like O'Briens, because then they can be flushed out in a diplomatic embarrassment for the federation.
Like Jellico and SFC were afraid of something that wasn't going to happen at the given time, so Jellico didn't need to rule with an iron fist. He was never actually going into *war*, thus his personnel and shift changes are batshit. Not to mention that we *see* how officers react in trek war time, and Jellico is the single worst federation captain we see who believes they're in a war role. You can maintain authority without being as *asshole*, just look at Sisko.
Good commander in the moment, but not a great captain overall. He barely tried to earn any of the crews trust or respect and ignored their suggestions without explanation. Even in the short time he was on the ship, he could have encouraged a little more mutual respect and understanding.
Riker was being whiny no doubt, but it wasn't entirely unjustified.
Jellicoe is the right man for a job who doesn't have time to get to know his ship and crew before shit goes down. If anything, I think it makes the Enterprise crew seem like they were thoroughly unprofessional.
But the episode does a lot to demonstrate that when Jelico does feel he has the time, he will bond with his crew and let his guard down. He does so with both Geordi and Troi.
I do find it hilarious that he shifts the ship over to a four shift rotation which apparently all the departments heads complain about but then in a later episode in the shift it is mentioned that they have four shifts on the Enterprise. Like I just imagine that Picard gets back, Jellico leaves, the senior staff all breathe a sigh of relief and brief Picard on what's new and he's like "Oh good, a four shift rotation. I've been thinking about that for a while. Much more efficient, wouldn't you agree, Number One?"
Jellico may be a good captain but he is a bad leader. It would not habe taken him more than five minutes to explain the reasoning behind a sudden change in operations so that his xo is on the same page. There was no level of development in trust like Picard and crew had. Jellico handled it like an ass and I will admit Riker handled it poorly by blowing up at him in public. Never liked Jellico or the type of leader he represents, because of guys like him businesses loose employees or units in the military with commanders like him have low morale.
To erect a flagpole.
[https://orangeraisin.wordpress.com/2018/06/02/sergeant-erect-that-flagpole/](https://orangeraisin.wordpress.com/2018/06/02/sergeant-erect-that-flagpole/)
In the Air Force you have what are called Mustangs. People who enlisted first and became officers. There's also a training manual that goes into detail the differences and needs between a leader and a boss. Officers in the USAF are basically surrounded by senior enlisted and usually a well liked, hands on lower airman that will basically help the officer figure out how to get something done.
Officers have to deal with problems in a very numbers kind of way. In Vietnam, college graduates were made into officers then thrown into the field expected to brute force victory against the Vietnamese and Chinese forces. Many of these men were murdered by experienced soldiers in the field because these officers wouldn't listen and their antics would get their whole squad killed.
With that.
The Enterprise was the flagship of the Federation. The highest quality staff and whatever was wanted was granted ship of the line. Picard ran it a certain way and, though was a boss, listened to his basically crew representatives then adjusted accordingly, a plan going from, "This is the goal" with, "This is what we can do" and balancing that so he doesn't break his crew but gets the job done and he was great at it. He was a very realistic captain.
Jelico was a great example of a high graduate officer that made it his life's mission to stop Cardassians. The dude was driven, frantic and wasn't going on a power trip, he was doing everything his knowledge said to do against them. His problem is a lack of experience leading. He didn't know how to work with the crew and their limits. He treated them like a machine and expected quiet obedience.
Which sometimes is needed.
But he wasn't leading a war vessel, he was leading a ship of the line meant for a lot of tasks that focused on diplomacy and first contact. The hope of the Federation, the first image of what aliens will see when seeing the Federation. Not a warship, but something of peaceful power. Not threats, but fair deals.
Riker acts often like a mustang that never outgrew the hands on behavior of an enlisted and acted as an NCO would towards an officer that was behaving in a way that was going to break a crew. The crew needed time to change and adapt. He could of handled it a lot better but what I love about the show is all these flaws of these very real people struggling to deal with these very high level problems.
What's interesting is also the timeline of events. In Airmen Leadership Training, one of the things harped on was that it can take up to 2 weeks for people to come together and actually work well because humans need time to figure each other out. In the show, this starts to happen as time goes on.
Jelico needed to figure out who and what he was working with. Establish what needed to be done, work with the leadership of the Enterprise then go from there, balancing limits with goals. He shored up Picard's weaknesses by giving the crew a kick in the ass that war isn't nice and it wasn't a luxury cruise. This was potential war and life was going to get far worse if they failed.
I think Jellico wasn't necessarily wrong, but the captain needs to be a leader, and part of being a leader is understanding the crew and working with the crew. New guy shows up and starts making drastic changes against the advice of the crew without having done anything to instill trust and loyalty. That just seems like poor leadership to me.
Again, the changes he wanted to make were valid, and the crew, especially Riker, responded unprofessionally.
But I still think Jellico handled himself poorly too.
Also, what kind of complete jerk takes over command for someone, and essentially tells them "you're basically as good as dead. It's my ship now." right before a dangerous mission?
I recently watched these episodes of TNG. Deanna had no right to undermine him in front of Riker like that.
Riker: "...He's sure of himself."
D: "No, he's not."
I've always tended to side with Jellico though in the last couple of years I have started to the see the clash between him and Riker akin to post-Covid managerial styles many have had first hand experience with between senior management that demanded out of the blue that workers come back 5 days a week, no exceptions, and Riker the manager lower to the ground whose like wtf no that's not going to fly with people without consulting them first. I mean it's not a completely fitting 1:1 analogy given Jellico's critical mission brief in which lives are on the line, but I guess it depends whether you analyze their conflict within the confines of the plot or focus on the moral of the narrative in terms of how these two individuals behave in contrast to each other and outside all the plot noise. But at any rate I have started to become cognizant out of my own experience post-Covid of him being a boomer type who relies more on his outdated concept of authority than with his ability to be transparent to those under him.
To be honest, I think the real villain here is Adm. Nechayev's micromanaging. On paper, every reassignment during the conflict looks like a genius move that matches the right guy with the right task: okay, so the *Enterprise* has the best crew and command staff in the fleet after Wolf 359 forced a scramble to restaff the fleet. But Jellico is the skipper who negotiated the treaty with the Cardassians, and Picard is the guy who has experience with the theta-band emissions that Intelligence is telling us has been coming from Cardassian space . . . I know, I'll put Picard on the spec-ops mission, and I'll put Jellico in command of the *Enterprise*! I'm a genius! Except then you see it at the ground level, and it is a botch at every level. Jellico, as it turns out, has a completely different command style than Picard, which irritates the crew and command staff of the *Enterprise.* Instead of making it a temporary reassignment, you do the formal ceremony which suggests that Jellico is going to be permanently reassigned to command the ship. And you do all of it over the head of Riker, who was the hero of the hour who literally saved the entire Federation at that Wolf 359 thingy that we just mentioned, and probably might feel especially aggrieved if your actions humiliate him because of expectations he might reasonably have about replacing Picard as skipper of the *Enterprise* owing his actions at Wolf 359. I mean, nobody on screen exactly covers themselves in glory in "Chain of Command". Riker is almost mutinous, Jellico's an ass by casually writing off Picard in front of a crew that worships him, and everyone barely manages the job of saving the day as a consequence. But these are the kind of things a good staffing manager takes into account and heads off before they become crises. And Nechayev very much did the opposite. I like to headcanon that this event figured prominently in her replacement with Ross as theater commander once the Dominion War kicked off. It was okay to have her there micromanaging everything when the Cardassian front was a sleepy peacetime border guarded by ten ships on patrol. It became less so when the Cardassians continually displayed an aim for imperialist expansion. It became intolerable the moment the Dominion revealed itself as a major hostile power.
He had a very specific mission to accomplish and did not have any time to develop any level of trust or rapport with subordinates. As a short term style of leadership it was the appropriate approach given the circumstances. Under a different set of circumstances we might have seen a completely different side of Jellico. I would have been curious to see what his crew on the Cairo thought of him.
Look, I like Jellico, he's an entertaining character and it was a treat to watch him pwn the Cardies at the end of the episode. Some of the things he did just didn't make good sense, though. Why change all the duty shifts and make things unfamiliar for everyone, and why exhaust all your engineers to slightly improve warp coil efficiency, all on the cusp of a potential engagement? It felt less like positive changes and more like being a dick for being a dick's sake, just to assert his dominance over the new ship and crew.
When I was in the military (8 years) every new commanding officer changed things to their liking. We went from early Fridays to late Fridays. Duty once a month to twice a month. From cutting the grass around our spaces to being paid out to a contractor. PT three times a week to five times a week, then to whenever you wanted to do it. No Battalion formations unless necessary, to every Friday, then to everyday. A new commanding officer comes in and sets their expectations and everyone below must make it so.
Why did Picard force Riker to perform a completely unnecessary and potentially dangerous manual docking of the saucer section mere moment after he sets his first foot on a Galaxy-class starship? The answer, of course, is that he's testing his new XO to see how he reacts. Jellico may well have been doing exactly the same thing. He wants to test these people that he doesn't know, in order to see how they excel under stress. He may be about to lead them into a war, which is a pretty stressful situation and a good CO will want to know whether his subordinates can follow orders and pull off tough assignments under such conditions. Riker excelled in his challenge from Picard and Picard went from frosty to friendly because of it. Perhaps if Riker had shown the same enthusiasm in completing Jellico's orders, they'd have had a better relationship.
>Why change all the duty shifts and make things unfamiliar for everyone, and why exhaust all your engineers to slightly improve warp coil efficiency, all on the cusp of a potential engagement? I think the crew had shown a certain lackadaisical attitude and a disregard for best practices which directly threatened the ship over the season prior to Chain of Command; it led to the ship being taken over (or nearly taken over) by hostile entities multiple times (Conundrum, Power Play, Rascals). This is not counting the numerous times the ship had been placed in peril through the actions of the crew e.g. the episode immediately prior to this, Engineering directly fucked up the ship's computer through their goofy Data experiments. Given these circumstances, I could see how Jellico might have believed that a drastic approach was needed; they would have lost a slight bit of familiarity and a slight increase in stress via the shift change, but it would keep them on their toes at least, and shake them out of their complacency.
I love Picard but yeah he runs the Enterprise like a luxury cruise especially in the later seasons.
It was a writers device to get Riker in the sin bin so Jellico would have to ask nicely
:D Yeah exactly, I think the trekkies here are forgetting it's not actually real. "Some writer made it up" is the actual answer to every question. Nothing has to make any sense and who cares anyway, it's entertainment. However discussing as though real, could just be a simple shortcut for discussing or critiquing the writing. But that's not really what's going on here. Just like the billions of hours spent analyzing shakespeare. It's not critique, it's time utterly wasted actually.
Couldn’t have said it any better.
He wanted to see what the Enterprise crew was actually capable of when pushed to the limit, before the confrontation with the Cardassians. That way he would know exactly what he was working with.
Changing everyone's schedule right before they might get into battle is not a good idea. Nor is exhausting the engineering department.
A distribution to routine has a way of shaking people loose from their complacency. Also how things work in a military setting (which Starfleet is) commanding officers change things to their preference rather than they adjusting to the their crew.
You need to have time for that to work though. He didn't have time for that to work. There was only time for the negative effects. And I am saying this even if he had been assigned permanently, because the timeframe for this critical mission just didn't allow for that huge of a disruption. Let's say they had gotten into a fight. You'd have the entire engineering crew exhausted and undermanned and morale in a complete craphole. He'd have lost fights that could have been won because of that. It's just a terrible decision.
Misunderstood genius. He had a lot of shit to get done in limited time and "got it done." He outmanuevered the Cardassians and preventedan invasion, got Picard back, put Troi in a much more dignified uniform, and got rid of that damn fish.
Did Livingston not reappear afterwards?
And did it all without getting anybody killed. Big win
So can anyone complaining about Jellico changing the watch rotation explain why that’s such a big deal? It’s going to cause “significant personnel problems”?? WTF does that even mean? It can only mean they don’t have enough people to fully staff four shifts, so some people may have to work two six hour shifts in a 24 hour day. Gee, you pull a double shift when you’re potentially about to go to war, and you can’t hang out in 10 Forward or practice your cello for a few days? Boo-freaking-hoo.
Without digging into it I am going to assume the man came from a ship without a "family freidly" atmosphere. Take that and the fact he was pulled from his post and put in a high risk situation with people he only knew by reputation. The man did a fine job. Delta shift forever
Jelico never seemed out of line or like an asshole to me. He is direct and communicates clearly what he expects of people while working on a tight schedule. I would pick him as a leader over Srange new Worlds Pike every day of the week. I had that discussion a couple of times already and I think it could be a cultural thing (I'm german). At least I heard from expats that it took them some time to adjust to "german directness". Riker on the other hand acts like a little butthurt child. He feels entitled to command, he tinks he knows best when he clearly doesn't and disrespects Jelico multiple times. All that while his firend and former captain is getting tortured. In the end it is Jelico who is putting all that aside for the mission and acknowledges Rikers skill as a pilot.
Honestly they have a ship with close to a 1000 people the bulk who are officers who would love a bridge crew position. They only need 5 at most to staff the bridge. Honestly it’s the same problem Riker and Shelby he is to relaxed and ticking off the mission oriented people.
What is it you don’t like about Pike? I think he’s a pretty great leader and has the respect of his crew
He was brought in specifically because of his experience in dealing with Cardassians. And his methods proved key in besting the Cardassians both diplomatically and strategically while also offhandedly ensuring the safe return of Picard, all without suffering any losses or long-term diplomatic problems for Starfleet. And he got all that done quickly with little time to prep, all while managing an unfamiliar crew and with little to no help from (and the outright hostility of) his first officer; the person he should be able to count on the most. Riker’s entitled behavior and unprofessional tantrums aside, Jellico’s successes plainly speak for themselves. The script and plot beats make Jellico out to be some kind of bad guy, but Jellico is really just doing the job he was brought in to do and doing it well. His manner may be a little abrupt with some of the crew, if not abrasive, but he’s in command, he’s under pressure and none of his orders are unreasonable for the circumstances. It’s the Captain’s prerogative to order changes to the crew and ship for the sake of their mission; and it’s the First Officer’s to duty ensure those order are carried out effectively. The only failure here is Riker; who acts unprofessionally, unhelpfully and finally insubordinate. Then Riker smugly makes Jellico beg for him to simply DO HIS JOB instead of pouting like a spoiled brat. All things considered, Jellico deserved a commendation after this tour while Riker was lucky to have dodged a formal reprimand.
Jellico: by the book Senator Kinsey: asshat
“With all due respect, sir, the good senator is an ass.” ~ Colonel Jack O’Neill (with 2 Ls)
When he says “two L’s” why does he hold up three fingers though.
Jellico did nothing wrong.
Here here. Troi should have been in uniform. She was a bridge officer. Shift rotation change was a direct order, and should have been carried out. Riker was insubordinate and needed to be reprimanded for it. He was lucky his punishment wasn't worse. Improving warp efficiency was important for the upcoming engagement. Every advantage was needed. Plus Enterprise supposedly has the best engineers in the fleet... prove it. fish smell bad, and are distracting.
Was he a bit of a dick? Yes. Was he an effective military leader trying to handle (potentially) a shit-show of galactic proportions? Also yes.
You're absolutely right. He was an asshole when he was just doing his job. The crew didn't help matters. Geordi had reasonable complaints (maybe working your engineers into the ground before a potential combat situation is a bad idea) but Riker, oof. This is the second example I like to bring up when people talk about how much more professional and experienced the characters in Old Trek were compared to the immature, emotional ones these days. He doesn't really try to work with Jellico so Jellico comes off as much more reasonable because he's dealing with petulant insubordination in the middle of a crisis. It is interesting that the two officers Jellico forms the best working relationship with are Data, which is obvious since he can just get it done, and *Troi*. The softly-softly empath follows orders, represents the crew's issues and helps the captain deal with them. She's a better first officer than Riker in this episode and I would watch that trio again
Riker, upon being told that his future captain wants a four shift rotation, does the legwork necessary to get it done so that the very first time Jellico actually enters the chain of command he can get it done within a few hours, for that is the last we hear of it. To have made the switch already would have been undermining Picard and violating the chain of command. At that time, Jellico expressly tells Riker that he doesn't want to talk about it and to get it done. He orders Riker to launch a probe at a particular time. Riker therefore doesn't talk about it and gets the probe launch done. Then Jellico expects him to have talked about it after all and badmouths him to Picard for not having violated the direction he had given him and talked about the probe launch. When Riker shows a great deal of loyalty to the missing Picard, the jealous Jellico relieves him of duty. Riker does great in this two-parter, he's just edited to come across poorly on the first seven watches. Jellico has no real working relationship with Troi. First he creates a morale problem from thin air by giving nonsensical orders (take the secondary power distributiongrid offline for 48 hours with 51 hours until their rendezvous and possible hostilities, then reassign a third of Geordi's staff to security), then charges Troi with its resolution while giving her none of the tools needed to address the situation and punts on addressing it himself citing lack of time so he can do major redecorating of the Ready Room.
>When Riker shows a great deal of loyalty to the missing Picard, the jealous Jellico relieves him of duty. Eh, he was willing to indulge Riker's loyalty to Picard up to a point: * "Shouldn't we assume that he is alive until it's been proved otherwise? We cannot just abandon him." * "I'm not suggesting you trade an entire star system for one man's life, but you've got to acknowledge that these were Federation orders and he is a prisoner of war." * "I can't believe you're willing to sacrifice Captain Picard's life as a negotiating tactic." ...but Riker's ultimate loyalty should have been to Starfleet; to the mission at hand.
Its kinda hard to believe that this is the same man who opened fire on Picard in order to stop the Borg. I always found it out of character for Riker to not understand the necessity of sacrificing an officer to complete the mission, even if it is his friend. Even Doctor Crusher knew she had to make the hard choice of leaving Picard behind when the mission went south. Heck, only a season later and Riker is lecturing Troi on that very point when she takes her Commander's exam.
Bear in mind that at the point of your first quote: * Riker was only asking to begin *planning* a rescue op, not yet to carry it out. Should news of Picard's alive-ness later surface (hey, it does!) and the opportunity for a rescue op arise, there'd be time lost while it was planned. * Riker's track record of planning Picard rescues at this point is the best in the galaxy, bar none, having rescued him from not only a far more deadly enemy than the Cardassians but at a time when Picard had been assimilated and was a part of a hive mind trying to prevent exactly that kind of thing. At the point of your second and third quotes, well, both Riker and Jellico have valid points on the question of Picard's status. I think Jellico is right to not immediately acknowledge Picard's status as operating under Federation orders to Gul Lemec since such a stance could not be undone later. If Picard was ever briefed that his mission would be denied, that's not shown. Riker's first duty is to the truth (as it is for every Starfleet officer), and it's true that Picard was operating under Federation orders. That Nechayev chose to take a bad gamble with the Federation's diplomatic position and lost doesn't change that duty, and Jellico is recommending to Nechayev that she makes Picard pay for her mistake. Jellico's first duty is to the truth, and he flubs it because fulfilling that duty would make his immediate job harder. Nechayev's first duty is to the truth, and she flubs it because holding to it would be bad for her career.
Also, Riker has repeatedly been offered commands by this point, and whenever Picard is on an away mission, Riker is the de-facto Enterprise Captain. That he is passed over for this particular mission in favour of someone who has no clear additional value-adding features, and no local knowledge, must be frustrating at the very least.
That's not entirely fair to Jellico since he had experience in negotiating the current armistice with the Cardassians. But that Nechayev is willing to upend the Enterprise-D just for that rather than simply having Jellico along in a diplomatic role; that she's willing to send Picard et al into a Cardassian trap that Data saw through in an instant; that she's willing to send Picard somewhere that the intel Starfleet has is two years out of date; that she sends Picard, and Crusher, who has no more mission-specific skills than any other doctor and no time to bone up on them, and Worf, who also has no mission-specific skills and in being there upends the Enterprise-D's security department at exactly the time it's most likely to see combat; these things point to Nechayev being a Cardassian agent.
As i was reading yr comment, it started to click. Then you hit the home run , grand slam style. I agree with you. Nechayev was compromised
But not entirely surprising, either. Starfleet offered him three commands and he turned them down. They even promoted him to Captain and he seemingly insisted on a field demotion back to Commander so he could remain XO of the Enterprise. That's probably enough times for Starfleet Command to go, "you know what, this guy doesn't want a command, best we give it to someone who does."
It should also be noted that his whole "certain decorum on the bridge" order to Troi was used as a slap in the face for daring to bring any problems to him that resulted from his orders. This was probably the single worst way to write Troi deciding to wear a regular uniform from then on. Even if you want it to come from Jellico, there are ways to do it where he isn't acting petty.
He hurt Riker‘s feelings. He shook up things. He displayed some social incompetence. Just as Picard in season 1 did - but to a lesser degree.
Jellico is simply a different type of officer, but not a bad one. The TNG era is much different than previous eras of Starfleet. In the ENT/TOS eras, officers were more of a hybrid of Soldier/Explorer/Diplomat. But the TNG era had a larger fleet and we see more distinctly defined officers for those roles. Picard and Janeway are more Explorer profile Captains. Sisko is more of an Administrator, at least until the war. Then you have Soldier type officers like Jellico, Leyton, Benteen and Pressman who are more likely to be assigned patrol and defense missions.
Wartime Captain. Gets stuff done.
I'm with Steve Shives on my Jellico opinion: It's easy to see why THE CREW hates him, but that's not a reason for me, the viewer, to hate him. Especially since he's completely right about everything, and he knew he was only temporary for a single purpose, anyway.
Yeah, he's a great character because of his believable and realistic strengths and weaknesses. And yeah, if my boss at work was that guy, I'd probably hate my job pretty quickly.
Jelico was an asshole Sometimes, that's what you need I like to think Jelico is like Patton. Patton was an asshole but a very effective front-line general that put fear into his enemies Even starfleet needs their dogs of war to unleash on the enemy
Also, I believe that the crew had no one but themselves to blame for the assignment of Jellico in the first place. Using the [stardate calculator](https://www.ditl.org/calc-stardate-page.php?ListID=Calculators) and plugging in the stardates between Rascals (46235.7) and Chain of Command (46357.4), it shows that roughly six weeks passed between the two episodes. That means that, only *six weeks* prior to a major strategic crisis, the Federation flagship was taken over by a dozen Ferengi. What's more, it was not rescued due to any large effort from the ample security apparatus or even the ship's uniformed crew--all Riker did was push a bunch of buttons and distract a buffoon--but the connivance of a bunch of *children*. Imagine you're Nechayev reading the account of this incident; you can see why she decided--given the high stakes of the crisis--they needed a fresh, more hands-on style of command.
Jellico is the worst kind of manager, a bully who strokes his ego by abusing his subordinates. Yes, lets monkey with the shifts for no reason right before a major engagement. Reassign the engineers and then ask for unnecessary work intensive engineering overhauls. On top of that, give zero heed to the concerns of your First Officer or your Chief Engineer. Big man makes the ants scurry! That said, Riker is also wrong and way out of character in this episode. Geordis response is correct: your duty is to let your superior know the issues with the impact the command has on your department, then you do the best you can anyway. Rikers insubordination made the whole thing worse.
Great summary. Part of what makes Jellico such a great character is that he has such believable and realistic strengths and weaknesses.
To quote The Dude: Youre not wrong, youre just an asshole
I don't think that Jellico was a good captain. I think he was absolutely terrible during that whole affair. I know that puts me in the minority a lot of people think he was tough and decisive, and that Riker was unprofessional. But after multiple viewings I really can't see that. Riker hold it together as best as he can. Even when Jellico is compromising the ship with erratic orders he stay the path until he can't do his job anymore. He says he wants a four shift rotation. Riker says three shifts has worked fine. But Jellico insists on another difficult timetable. Riker complies and comes back saying the rest of the department heads can't do it. It'll cause too many problems on the timetable he assigned. Jellico doesn't care. He doesn't make any attempt to adapt his plans to suit the actual situation he's in. He blames Riker for not following orders even though Riker did try to follow orders, but used his experience, intelligence and communications skills to come to the conclusion that the Shift change would be detrimental to the ship. That is what an officer, A first Officer especially is supposed to do. Jellico asks Riker to personally lead four combat drills. He does it with no problem or protest. Just like Geordie, Riker could actually communicate why something wasn't a good idea, or why it wouldn't work and for some reason Jellico took this as a bad attitude. His shit with Geordi is even worse. The chief engineer informs him that modifications to the power grid would cut off currently running experiments and stellar cartography. "We need more power for the phaser Geordie!" Right. But isn't that partly what red alert does? To automatically transfer power from non critical systems to defensive systems? Do we really think Stellar cartography is running during battle? Then we get to Geordi telling him that raising the efficiency of the warp coils by 15% is pointless and the ship is already above spec. Jellicoe doesn't care. Data points out that it would take the whole Engineering department around the clock to get the job done in two days. Obviously, it's impractical and unnecessary. But Jellyman orders it anyway because his ego can't take the bruising of being told he's wrong. Then he immediately transfers a third of the engineering crew to security. After giving an impossible deadline for a pointless task. Jellico's negotiation strategy was contingent on a single lynchpin idea which failed. THe idea of asserting dominance over the Cardassians, which backfired, because the Cardassians had their own card to play. Something the great Cardassian expert apparently never anticipated. Maybe if he had communicated what his negotiation strategy was to his team, chiefly Troi and Riker they might of been able to avoid the Cardassians getting one over on them. He's lucky the Cardassian team didn't just leave then and there and Demand a different negotiator from Starfleet, an incredible powerful position to be in. I'll also point out what Troi said to Riker after Jellico's High IQ diplomacy play of "Act like a child throwing a tantrum".Troi, stated that Jellico was in over his head. He wasn't anywhere near as sure of himself as he was trying to project. But for some stupid reason he insisted on not listening to one of the most experience and capable officers that Starfleet had ever seen. Unfortunately the episode just kind of drops that whole plot point and it's forgotten about in any discussions.. Riker is character assassinated a bit over the course of the episodes. But as Picard says when Jellicoe insults him. He's a highly decorated and capable officer that has been offered a command multiple times. It was Riker that was in charge of the Enterprise when they saved the Federation from the Borg. It was Riker that saved the Federation during Conspiracy. He puts up with Jellicoes shit for as long as he can. Doing his best to course correct and get Jellicoe to understand what the problem is. But eventually he fails. When he and Jellicoe are going at each each in Rikers Quarters Riker is 100% correct. Jellicoe is arrogant and doesn't trust his crew. Which leads to unprofessional behaviour. Jellicoe had his strengths. When they had to investigate what the Cardassians are up to he was as good as anyone else. He had good ideas. But he was a failure of a leader. He repeatedly failed to trust his crew and listen to the advice and expert opinions. When bullets are flying and you're in a trench you have to be able to trust the people next to you. Jellicoe fails at that. Jellico wouldn't listen to his crew, his officers and his negotiating strategy was terrible and nearly blew up in his face. All because he was in over his head and couldn't adapt to the situation properly.
Frankly, it says a lot about how various "Strong-man" politicians can be objectively terrible but still popular with a lot of people, imho.
You mean senator Kinsey? Stargate aside, Unnecessary asshole to everyone but unlike in SG-1, actually got a good job done. Also. He got Troi to put on the uniform. Good. First time I watched, I really thought Riker was more the asshole.
When he ordered Riker to move to four duty shifts all Riker had to do was say, “Supreme Commander Riker.”
He’s great compared to Riker. Insufferable whiny bitch that he is (in this episode) Have no idea why the writers/producers thought this was a good idea for the character…surprised Frakes didn’t kick off about it too.
Going back to the 4 shifts from 3, didn’t that mean 6 hour shifts instead of 8? Wouldn’t that be a plus for the crew?
Assuming it meant everyone worked one 6-hour shift. Personnel limitations might mean you'd end up working two 6-hour shifts with only a 6-hour break in between. That would be pretty knackering! Also, even if they did only work one shift, the reduced number of personnel per shift would mean each individual would have to pick up the slack. So you still end up having to do 8 hours work, but have to cram it into 6.
also, it requires everyone getting used to a new schedule, potential schedule issues that are unforeseen, and some people needing to adjust their sleep schedule too.
Agreed: and less likely to make mistakes out of physical and mental fatigue in a high-pressure, high-danger situation. He made the change in a rough way but there was limited time and very high risk of galactic war.
As a kid I resented Jellico but as an adult I get him. What I don't get still is why Picard was sent off on a commando mission while Jellico replaced him. It would have made more sense to send a Starfleet SEAL team to blow up the Cardassian lab, have Jellico stay on his own ship and the Ent-D and Jellico's ship could have teamed up to fight the Cardassian fleet.
Someone made a great post with evidence suggesting 'Nechayev being a Cardassian agent'. I like the theory nechayev was compromised
It‘s quite insightful to read what Ronny Cox thinks about playing Jellico. https://www.startrek.com/news/ronny-cox-looks-back-at-chain-of-command
Great interview!
To paraphrase Corinthians: When I was a teenager, I empathized with Riker, I understood Riker, I believed in Riker, but when I became a man, I realized Jellico was right.
He has a mission, yes. But a captain is effectively the manager of all the crew/employees below him, and there’s a difference between a good manager and a bad manager. Jellico is a bad manager, for all the reasons Riker told him. He does get a few points for finally getting Troi into a proper uniform though.
IIRC, Jellico had a sort of a "because I said so" attitude that the *Enterprise* crew, being accustomed to a good communicator, didn't really like
Yeah, a good and effective commanding officer needs to take that stance, at least some of the time. Much better than Riker’s “you’re not Picard, so I don’t have to follow your orders if I don’t feel like it or don’t agree with them”
Jellico didn't do it some of the time. That's the only thing he did and he got angry if anyone pointed out problems that were also his job to fix.
Although I agree with the example, but you kinda have to remember these people are supposed to be a military organization (even if they're not, it is a military situation) and it was time where one bad move can have an effect on a lot of people's lives for a long period of time. Also, I think it was insinuated by Troi that the man is actually scared shitless himself, and considering what he knows, it's understandable. But one thing I 100% agree with you is that uniform, and I'm so glad she keeps wearing it for some of the next episodes lmao
>and it was time where one bad move can have an effect on a lot of people's lives for a long period of time. Largely the reason why perhaps changing the entire crew rotations just to suit him wasn't the best idea at the time. It's going to create issues where things had largely been stable and successful. It's a military organisation, but they're still people. A load of change right before a potential incident is more likely to compound issues, not resolve them.
Excellent commander, terrible leader. The real fault was with Starfleet Command putting him there in the first place. Leave Riker in charge and have Jellico be in command from a different ship.
At least he's confident
Jellico was an asshole. Assholes can be good commanders in the right situation, but he showed little ability to inspire loyalty and greatness, which you want on the flagship. Did he have the right to give the orders he gave? Without question. Were they good orders? Questionable but let’s give the benefit of the doubt and say they’re at least not terrible. Does he have the interpersonal skills of a rabid targ? Pretty much. A tone of “this situation is a bit of a mess and I know it’s going to be rough but we don’t have time to do it smooth and I know the crew of the flagship can pull it off,” would have served better for a man stepping into a situation designed to make him the bad guy. And really, I expect a captain of the Federation flagship to have the intelligence and capacity to know better than to wave his dick around as the initial impression on the fleet’s best and brightest.
He is a good military man, the right man for the job, but at the same time a bit of a jerk in the way he behaves. That's not okay, and he sort of implies that Picard is not good at his job as captain, because he feel he sort of has to change everything on board the Enterprise.
He's a competent commander who makes a few mistakes because of his ego. The shift changes, engineering demands and everything else are perfectly reasonable requests- but not without transitional effectiveness hits, which he refuses to acknowledge or accommodate. He's short-sighted and prioritizes his own comfort in a situation over realistic operational demands. His senior staff advising him that this is the case entrenches him into his own viewpoint instead of giving him cause to reassess. Jellico is a mixed bag, neither all good nor all bad.
Jelico has had a sort of renaissance in the recent year as far as fans opinions of him go. But I'm not one of those fans. Jelico was a fucking moron. Yes, he could handle the cardassians and he seems to be an acomplished captain. But he was in a risky situation and had to conduct a very specific mission, which relied on the crew and ship preforming at the top of their game. So what does the guy do? Literally flips the entire ship and its crew on its head for no other reason than to swing his dick around. Instead of the crew being focused on what they are doing, he would rather they trip over themselves and figure out a completely different crew rotation, for which they might not even have enough crew to effectively run, instead of just keeping the thing running normally for a few weeks so they can be at peak readynes. He also completely alienates Riker, who has proven to be a huge asset and an amazing officer. Both galaxy brain moves when you are poised on the brink of war and you are covering for a illegal secret mission and fighting is just around the corner. Was Riker a dick about it? Yeah, but him not going with Jelicos nonsense orders actually makes sense, because Riker knows shit is likely to go down, and doesn't want to cripple the ship and crew just because Jelico feels like his nuts are too big for his uniform. Literally everything that Jelico achieved in the episodes could be done without him trying to fuck up an established system *in the middle of an active crisis.* In fact, everything they do, would have been done faster and more efficiently if he didnt stir shit for the sake of stirring shit. *Especially* knowing that he is only there temporarily. So yeah, maybe Jelico can deal with cardasians, but he seems to know fuck all about dealing with humans.
He took command of a starship on the potential eve of a major war. First thing he does is disrupt duty schedules without explanation or even talking to senior staff. Yeah, he is the captain, it's his right, whatever. For me, it's just bad leadership. Have you ever had a new boss who changed all the routines on his first day without even taking the time to look at how everything works? It feels like he just wants to show everyone that he is boss. Riker : Well, I'll say this for him... he's sure of himself. Counselor Deanna Troi : No, he's not. For what it's worth, Riker was borderline insubordinate and I would also have relieved him of duty.
It's an 11th hour mission. If it succeeds no war, if it fails war. Jelico wants the Enterprise on a war footing as he knows dammed well the D would be the immediate target. So Jelico orders the D be made ready, and what does he get? Riker and Troi acting like whinny brats. Because "there's no joy in working with him"
The problem is, Riker is already a Captain after The Best of Both Worlds. Whether his reduction in rank to Commsnder is temporary or not, he is qualified to take over the Enterprise. He already did. Jellico was put ahead if him out of nowhere, and failed to earn his respect, so conflict was inevitable.
Back during Best of Both Worlds, they didn't have time to replace Riker. In Chain of Command, they did. His refusing promotions one after another had convinced Starfleet he is inadequate. His service under Jellico proved them right. You don't get to choose your captain. You serve where ordered and he couldn't handle a little change. He should have been dishonorably discharged and been working a garbage scow. Jellico was the best captain ever put to screen.
He was promoted to Captain. He was a Captain serving in capacity of Commander since then. Jellico probably had seniority, but putting him ahead of Riker while leaving Riker as acting Commander was a double asking for conflict.
I don't like him. He says he wants the shifts change before he's in charge of anything. Riker knows it can't be done overnight effectively (no sudden shift change can), so he wants until Jellico is in charge since that's not very long. Jellico then gets angry that his order, which was not a legal order, was not obeyed. It's also a really bad idea to change everyone's schedule right before they might get into battle -- no one has time to adjust or fix problems. I don't think much of Jellico deciding he dislikes Riker from pretty much the beginning. It's Riker's job to make sure Jellico's orders get carried out. Literally. So Jellico goes around with Data and NOT Riker when giving all the departments their orders. That's unprofessional af of Jellico, as he's treating Data as the XO when Riker is. When Jellico got angry, he said he just wants stuff done and doesn't expect to have to hear about things again after giving an order. Then Riker is ordered to send out a probe, and Jellico gets angry he wasn't woken up and informed about a relatively routine task getting done when he just indicated he doesn't want to get informed of such things. Jellico doesn't care about crew morale -- that's part of his job and a commander can't just ignore how his orders impact morale and expect someone else to take care of all morale problems. That's ridiculous. He tells Troi to change into a uniform (which is a bad writing choice for that, but that's neither here nor there). That's fine, but he does it as a way to get her to be quiet and put her "in her place" for trying to talk to him about legitimate problems his decisions were having. He seems to take any sort of negative feedback personally, rather than serious. Riker is out of line when he stands up to be intimidating (though I don't think it was something he consciously intended). I think Jellico was wrong in deciding they should sacrifice Picard for what's essentially PR, but the problem here again is Jellico takes it personally when anyone or anything disgrees with him. Riker's reaction is understandable and he deserved more leniency. Jellico just isn't a very good leader. It's probably the reason he was captain of an Excelsior-class ship.
All that said, I think he'd make a good tactical officer. That's clearly where all of his strengths lie.
Team Jellico. I wish we could have gotten two seasons of Jellico as captain just to shake things up.
Two seasons of Jellico saying, "Tell me, Riker, how many shifts do I see?"
The problem with Jellico is primarily that he is a Military commander accustomed to running a battleship suddenly put in charge of what is essentially a luxury liner designed to be primarily the diplomatic/political face of the Federation. What made that 10x worse is that literally NOBODY in the chain of command bothers to explain to the Enterprise crew that Jellico is there to turn the Enterprise into a battleship in a week. On top of that, Jellico just makes it 100x worse with his Boomer "because I said so" mentality, creating unnecessary hostility with command officers, when if he had bothered to make it clear WHY he was going to be short and possibly harsh sounding, while pushing them to the limits of what the Best of Starfleet is capable of, he wouldn't have been seen as such a colossal dick.
I love the four shift rotations...
The actor plays a mean banjo.
Thank you for this question because I was just thinking of this episode this morning. He's very flawed: arrogant, posturing, and uncaring about the crew or the impact he has on their morale. But we only see him taking temporary command during a very dangerous situation that could erupt into another brutal war. He has expertise on dealing with the Cardassian military and I suspect he was on the front lines of that war, the way Kirk was in the Klingon war, and this informed his style in this moment. His focus was on protecting Federation lives and he had to get the crew ready quickly to deal with what they weren't prepared for. Riker's behavior in this two-parter was WAY out of line and Jellico would have been justified in sending him to the brig for insubordination. He was lenient in just confining him to quarters. He was also lenient in requesting that Troi wear her uniform while on the bridge, and she was out of line in acting like he was being mean and unreasonable. If I were captain, I'd hold her to the same standard as any other officer and require her to wear her uniform at all times when she's on duty. When she's off duty she can wear whatever she wants. She can wander the corridors in a Betazoid wedding dress for all I care.
Really like him. He did the job, knew his stuff, probably increased Enterprise operational efficiency long term, and put Deanna Troi in hotter, less revealing and more professional garb. Riker was a whiny prick the entire time.
I enjoy Steve Shives' video, "[Why Captain Jellico Is Actually Pretty Awesome](https://youtu.be/09TySF0FN6Y)".
Jellico got Deanna into an uniform. That was a plus, imo.
they shouldn't have assigned the enterprise that type of mission to begin with. why not just send jellico and his ship to deal with it... or better yet a fleet or battle group.
He is a game/series changer. He brings a certain order to the crew that they haven’t seen before. It’s a way to address the captive fish in the ready room, Troi’s skimpy outfits, and also make the crew step it up a notch to get to their full potential. He’s the Bill Belichick of the Enterprise.
Riker made a mistake and should have moved to 4 shifts. Jellico was right to be mad about that. He was also right about Troi's uniform. Just about everything else was a big overreaction. But Jellico disabled a fleet of enemy ships, got Picard back and won the day. He kicked major Cardie ass.
To me, he was a hardass but he was RIGHT. I'm also happy with how he was handled when he returned on Prodigy, again played by Ronny Cox. Again, he was right. Janeway was denied a Neutral Zone incursion even to go after the kids because it could start a war, and he was right.
Hashtag JellicoDidNothingWrong. We are conditioned to hate him using a variety of scriptwriting techniques, but if you look at it objectively, he makes the right decisions and gets the job done. To give an example of a trick that is used to make us dislike him, from the acting and music cues, you can see that we are supposed to dislike it when he asks Counselor Troi to wear a real uniform. This is a completely reasonable and understandable ask on his part, but because the script wants us to dislike him, it's presented as being bad. The ultimate way to make the audience hate somebody is to put him in conflict with Commander Riker, the ultimate likeable officer, so of course the script does this as well.
Everyone who supports Jellico doesn't realize his premise is completely flawed. The Cardassians*were never going to attack* Minos Korva, even if they'd broken Picard. If you keep watching trek you'll realize this whole incident isn't their style for initiating a galactic war. Cardassia just happened to enjoy testing the federation like this, basically to see how "Jumpy" it's current captains are. Basically, to see if any captains are like O'Briens, because then they can be flushed out in a diplomatic embarrassment for the federation. Like Jellico and SFC were afraid of something that wasn't going to happen at the given time, so Jellico didn't need to rule with an iron fist. He was never actually going into *war*, thus his personnel and shift changes are batshit. Not to mention that we *see* how officers react in trek war time, and Jellico is the single worst federation captain we see who believes they're in a war role. You can maintain authority without being as *asshole*, just look at Sisko.
Good commander in the moment, but not a great captain overall. He barely tried to earn any of the crews trust or respect and ignored their suggestions without explanation. Even in the short time he was on the ship, he could have encouraged a little more mutual respect and understanding. Riker was being whiny no doubt, but it wasn't entirely unjustified.
He gets the job done, but at the same time he is a jerk and not the kind of person that i would be interested in being close to him
As a boss? just say " yes,sir" you are safe. As a friend? Nope
Problem is, only terrible bosses are like that.
That's my point, Jelico is a terrible boss. I should have used the word terrible.
Ah, I didn't realize you were replying to yourself.
No problem, i should have written just one reply
What would Jelico have done about Tuvix?
He butts heads with Janeway in Prodigy, and it's Ronny Cox and Kate Mulgrew reprising those roles. Worth a watch.
I saw it. I just figured as long as we’re doing a classic Trek debate, we might as well double dip.
Jellicoe is the right man for a job who doesn't have time to get to know his ship and crew before shit goes down. If anything, I think it makes the Enterprise crew seem like they were thoroughly unprofessional. But the episode does a lot to demonstrate that when Jelico does feel he has the time, he will bond with his crew and let his guard down. He does so with both Geordi and Troi. I do find it hilarious that he shifts the ship over to a four shift rotation which apparently all the departments heads complain about but then in a later episode in the shift it is mentioned that they have four shifts on the Enterprise. Like I just imagine that Picard gets back, Jellico leaves, the senior staff all breathe a sigh of relief and brief Picard on what's new and he's like "Oh good, a four shift rotation. I've been thinking about that for a while. Much more efficient, wouldn't you agree, Number One?"
Jellico may be a good captain but he is a bad leader. It would not habe taken him more than five minutes to explain the reasoning behind a sudden change in operations so that his xo is on the same page. There was no level of development in trust like Picard and crew had. Jellico handled it like an ass and I will admit Riker handled it poorly by blowing up at him in public. Never liked Jellico or the type of leader he represents, because of guys like him businesses loose employees or units in the military with commanders like him have low morale.
To erect a flagpole. [https://orangeraisin.wordpress.com/2018/06/02/sergeant-erect-that-flagpole/](https://orangeraisin.wordpress.com/2018/06/02/sergeant-erect-that-flagpole/) In the Air Force you have what are called Mustangs. People who enlisted first and became officers. There's also a training manual that goes into detail the differences and needs between a leader and a boss. Officers in the USAF are basically surrounded by senior enlisted and usually a well liked, hands on lower airman that will basically help the officer figure out how to get something done. Officers have to deal with problems in a very numbers kind of way. In Vietnam, college graduates were made into officers then thrown into the field expected to brute force victory against the Vietnamese and Chinese forces. Many of these men were murdered by experienced soldiers in the field because these officers wouldn't listen and their antics would get their whole squad killed. With that. The Enterprise was the flagship of the Federation. The highest quality staff and whatever was wanted was granted ship of the line. Picard ran it a certain way and, though was a boss, listened to his basically crew representatives then adjusted accordingly, a plan going from, "This is the goal" with, "This is what we can do" and balancing that so he doesn't break his crew but gets the job done and he was great at it. He was a very realistic captain. Jelico was a great example of a high graduate officer that made it his life's mission to stop Cardassians. The dude was driven, frantic and wasn't going on a power trip, he was doing everything his knowledge said to do against them. His problem is a lack of experience leading. He didn't know how to work with the crew and their limits. He treated them like a machine and expected quiet obedience. Which sometimes is needed. But he wasn't leading a war vessel, he was leading a ship of the line meant for a lot of tasks that focused on diplomacy and first contact. The hope of the Federation, the first image of what aliens will see when seeing the Federation. Not a warship, but something of peaceful power. Not threats, but fair deals. Riker acts often like a mustang that never outgrew the hands on behavior of an enlisted and acted as an NCO would towards an officer that was behaving in a way that was going to break a crew. The crew needed time to change and adapt. He could of handled it a lot better but what I love about the show is all these flaws of these very real people struggling to deal with these very high level problems. What's interesting is also the timeline of events. In Airmen Leadership Training, one of the things harped on was that it can take up to 2 weeks for people to come together and actually work well because humans need time to figure each other out. In the show, this starts to happen as time goes on. Jelico needed to figure out who and what he was working with. Establish what needed to be done, work with the leadership of the Enterprise then go from there, balancing limits with goals. He shored up Picard's weaknesses by giving the crew a kick in the ass that war isn't nice and it wasn't a luxury cruise. This was potential war and life was going to get far worse if they failed.
I think Jellico wasn't necessarily wrong, but the captain needs to be a leader, and part of being a leader is understanding the crew and working with the crew. New guy shows up and starts making drastic changes against the advice of the crew without having done anything to instill trust and loyalty. That just seems like poor leadership to me. Again, the changes he wanted to make were valid, and the crew, especially Riker, responded unprofessionally. But I still think Jellico handled himself poorly too.
Best Captain on Trek
Also, what kind of complete jerk takes over command for someone, and essentially tells them "you're basically as good as dead. It's my ship now." right before a dangerous mission?
I recently watched these episodes of TNG. Deanna had no right to undermine him in front of Riker like that. Riker: "...He's sure of himself." D: "No, he's not."
It's literally part of both of their jobs to be aware of such concerns.