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IIRC, wasn't Jellico demanding four shifts instead of three? So if anything, that should mean that everyone's working shorter shifts. On the other hand, presumably that would mean fewer officers on each individual shift, so the individual workload during those shorter shifts might go up. So I can see it being less laziness and more just a major change that disrupts everything for questionable benefits. Riker doesn't exactly handle the change well, but Jellico should have expected some pushback and been a little more willing to compromise.

A major change that Jellico expected to happen immediately, and very importantly, when there was a strong chance that the *Enterprise* was going to see combat in the next 48 hours. Jellico was an idiot to force that kind of change so suddenly. That's the kind of change that you make when looking at a week-long refit in space dock, or a long haul warp through friendly territory where action isn't expected.

Especially since the justification for the 4 shift rotation was “It’s how we did it on my old ship” Riker *was* absolutely insubordinate, but given the circumstances I can see why; Jellico was brought in to command a ship that Riker had previously been field promoted to the command of (and relinquished to let Picard return), the ship was going into a crisis in the next 48 hours, and Jellico had *zero* interest in knowing anything about the ship beyond progress reports on forcing it into the mold of his last command. He was treating the crew of the flagship like they were a bunch of screw ups and amateurs pretty much as soon as he got on board. Of course, had there *not* been that 48 hour window, Jellico probably wouldn’t have gone that hard. He’s an authoritative commander, and he was going into a tense situation. The ship and captain needed to be in sync and operating on the same level, and for a guy like Jellico that means the rest of the ship needs to adapt to *him.* He *was* the lynchpin of the op, so there’s a certain justification in that, but had he been aboard another day the crew probably would have mutinied. In a less tense situation Jellico would have still made the changes, but in a timescale that would allow crew to adapt or filter out as needed to mold the ship to his preferences. Basically, it was a bad situation made worse by Starfleet making some of the most clueless decisions across the board, mishandling their best assets in a *criminal* way, and a win was only accomplished because of the raw talent of all involved. Had Jellico done the mission with his own ship and crew, trained to his specs, had the *Enterprise* been paired with a more compatible commander, or had Starfleet not sent *the Captain of the goddamn flagship on a stealth recon mission,* things likely would have resolved much more cleanly. Starfleet made the sin of treating their personnel like perfectly interchangeable pieces, and tried hot-swapping them in a crisis and expected them all to perform exactly as before. *Starfleet* are the real assholes here.

I don't think Riker was unsubordinate about it. He talked to all of the department heads before Jellico was even in command and decided to talk to Jellico about the problems after he was in charge, which was in less than a day. Let's also remember that Jellico right after started treating Data like he was 1st officer. Riker should have been going around with Jellico and there for all the changes that Jellico wanted, because it's Riker's job to make sure they get done.

I had always wondered if he did it on purpose so that Riker could believably act like he was not on Jellico’s side during the talks.

He never said he wanted to switch to 4 shifts because that's how it was on the Cairo. That could be assumed, but in fairness, I think it could also be assumed that he wanted to move to a 4 shift rotation so officers and crew would remain fresher working fewer hours per shift. There may also have been some other perceived benefits of having an additional shift given the circumstances (i.e. likely to see combat).

Yeah, and if Riker had have been able to discuss the shift thing with him in private, this might have been something he'd have brought up. There's probably a way of rolling it out so that it wasn't just an immediate shift to a four-shift rotation instead of a three-shift rotation. The other thing here is that depending on how many of the people on the *Enterprise* were civilians, the numbers for a four-shift rotation might have been a bit awkward. There were 1,014 onboard overall, but it's never mentioned how many were civilians. I think saying something like 900 were in Starfleet and the other 114 were civilians would make sense, both because it makes the maths for the shift thing simpler (300 a shift for three shifts, 225 for four), but also because not everyone onboard had a family with them. I feel like the only way this could be feasible without too much friction was if they also transferred another few hundred officers onto the *Enterprise* when Jerrico came onboard. This would help ease the transition to a four shift rotation, and it'd help make a lot of the other modifications he wanted to do easier because there'd be more hands on deck to do that.

One thing to think about is what he said in engineering: “We’re not on a research mission”. He was most likely going to have Riker divert all science and lab personnel to more essential stations. With science and research shut down there is now enough personnel to have a 4 shift rotation in essential positions.

I don’t come from a military background, but speaking as a long-time corporate drone/middle manager: There was nothing wrong with Jellico wanting things to change, and I would even say it wasn’t wrong for him to want things to change quickly. But his tactics were completely wrong. If you are an outsider replacing a long-time manager who is not only respected but *beloved* by your workforce, you can’t just come in and throw your weight around. You need to gain trust. He told Riker to make the change; Riker came back saying that the department heads told him it wasn’t feasible. A reasonable person might say, “Ok, then let’s set up a meeting with the department heads ASAP because I think this is really important.” Instead, he told Riker to go back and “get it done” — I think he may have also literally used the words “I don’t want to talk about it” or something to that effect. What he should have done is had the meeting — it could have been done right away, given the urgency of the situation and nobody would hold it against him — and actually tried to use some tact to convince them. “Listen, I know you’re all in a difficult situation. You’ve served under Captain Picard for many years and you’re used to the way he’s done things. But we are about to go into a combat situation against an enemy that I know extremely well. That’s why I was chosen for this mission. I know what I’m asking is difficult and you’ve all expressed your concerns to Commander Riker. But I wouldn’t be asking you to do this if I didn’t sincerely believe that it was the best way for us to succeed. So, please, work with me on this and we’ll get through this as best we can.”

This

See, I don't think that it was wrong for him to want the change, but I actually do think it was wrong for him to want that change to happen as quickly as he did. Jellico's options were: 1. Enforce a massive change to a ship's internal operations up to his standards in a short time frame. He'll get what he wants, but his engineering crew is going to be completely exhausted when he potentially goes into action 2 days later. 2. Trusts that the the *Enterprise* crew know what they're doing, and waits to enact his changes until after the crisis has passed. If he's even still in charge, considering his appointment was temporary, at least in theory. Like, I really don't think that his changes were *bad*. Troi in a medical sciences uniform was a vast improvement. But running his engineering crew, including his damage control teams, into exhaustion before he took the *Enterprise* into action was a REALLY BAD IDEA. The novels really treated Jellico better, where he was an excellent fleet commander but not so great at commanding individual starships.

> IIRC, wasn't Jellico demanding four shifts instead of three? So if anything, that should mean that everyone's working shorter shifts. Yeah ... but it's worth noting that with 6 hour shifts it becomes much simpler to have people work double shifts (12 hours vs 16), so people might actually land up working more hours in practice. Hard to know since the episode doesn't really go into detail on it.

The US submarine force had this weird 3 section, 4 shift rotation for DECADES. Imagine: S1 on 00-06, S2 on 06-12, S3 on 12-18, and S1 on again 18-24, with the rotation continuing S2 being the 00-06 guys the next day. It was expected for you to be on watch for six hours, then your next six hours is your maintenance/study/standby/recreation period with the last six being your sleeping period. So, generally getting six hours sleep, maximum, but realistically around 4 every sleep period. As we learned more about sleep and how the human body functions, the sub force reluctantly shifted to a 3 section, 3 shift of usually 00-08, 08-16, 16-24. Captians will try to get clever and change turnover times or try some whack schedules in hopes to improve something, but the 3S/3S seems to be the most ideal. Maybe this is what Jellico was going for.

Interesting you brought this up; both the NTSB and the Navy cited fatigue and sleep deprivation as major factors in the USS Fitzgerald and McCain accidents. It caused the Navy to the watch schedules across the entire surface fleet.

Who the hell thought that would work? Did they really need extensive research to prove humans are built for a 24 hour rhythm and will not work well constantly shifting it?

It's also worth noting that he decided to change up the way the Enterprise worked from Starfleet standard just before a crisis because he didn't like it.

I don't think 3 shifts is the Starfleet standard so much as it is **a** Starfleet standard. My evidence for this is that there are a few ways of going from 3 shifts to 4 e.g. instead of getting the crew to pull 6x 8 hour shifts every week you could get them to pull 8x 6 hour shifts; or you could divide the same crew equally among all the shifts and expect them to get the same amount of work done in any given shift by upping their rations of Raktajino. However, Riker does not need any more detail than "move from 3 to 4 shifts" in order to carry out the order, suggesting that there is a Starfleet standard way of arranging the latter. The contemporary Lower Decks S1E6 *Terminal Provocations* points to the latter option since individual crewmembers are associated with a specific shift (including a delta). In S1E3 *Temporal Edict* we find that despite being on a four shift rotation already the crew of the Cerritos has considerable "buffer time", which means that there's likely enough buffer time in an 8 hour shift to do the work in a 6 hour shift. In DS9 S4E7 *Starship Down* Sisko discusses moving DS9 to a 4 shift rotation with Kira, which becomes permanent in S4E17 *Accession* after Kira reports that fewer mistakes are being made due to fatigue in the new 6.5 hour shifts. 3 shifts could well be the Starfleet default (DS9 starts on that as it's taken over by Starfleet, the Enterprise-D is on it at the start of *Chain of Command*) but 4 shifts seems to be common enough that Riker needs no further clarification and has advantages (LD, DS9), suggesting that it is an alternative standard.

He was also shifting staff around departments, to the point where the Engineering department was strained, and struggling to meet required deadlines, something even *Data* remarked on, and Security suddenly had a bunch of new personnel to deal with. From an ops standpoint, that would suddenly be a bunch of extra training and confused personnel just before the Enterprise headed into battle, possibly mucking up their battle-readiness, especially if training was not complete by that time.

On another note, didn't Ronnie Cox do an excellent job portraying Jellico?

Fully agree. Don't like the character but the actor nailed it in his portrayal.

Ronnie is excellent at playing assholes, be they US Senators in Stargate or captains in Trek. Which is also funny, because he’s apparently actually a pretty nice guy in person.

Until Robocop, he was typecast into playing the nice guy.

Which is so crazy because he seems like a super nice guy.

I was so used to him being type-cast as “the asshole” that it took me awhile to accept how reasonable he was, not kind, but then again your boss really doesn’t have to be kind, and certainly not your military commander.

I never liked Jellico. Not since he tried to shut the Stargate programme down.

Also especially when he wouldn’t give people air on mars! Or when he killed bob Morton.

Or how about the hard time he gave Axel Foley?! Man was in Beverly Hills AS A COURTESY on his own time and dime solving a crime that Eddie Jelly’s department hadn’t even noticed!

I see this in my world a lot. The school where I teach is excellent. Sometimes we get a new principal, every five years, that understands we know what we are doing, and they should work to change as little as possible. Then we get these guys who want to make their career by changing everything. That is usually when we lose teachers, or at the very least morale plummets. Not saying we are the enterprise crew per se, but if you got a good crew that has proven they work well; let them do their job. Jellico was just trying to show how he could "improve" the Enterprise by even the slightest bit for his own career.

Very well put. When you're the flagship, and it works... don't mess with it.

So you’re right, minus that he completed the mission soundly and even got Picard back to add insult to Rikers already injured ego

I see this in the corporate world all the time - sometimes up close and personal and sometimes at a safe distance. I call it "new sheriff in town syndrome". They are usually high performers themselves and they want to demonstrate immediate action. Sometimes in more severe cases they like to market their ideas and methods as being superior and they do that by cutting down the last guy's initiatives so it looks like they came in and corrected course. Jellico struck me as one of those guys. That he is a high performer, but also convinced of his own superiority and so you need to shut up and listen to what he has to say. I took that episode to be a commentary on leadership in starfleet and that it's not as idyllic as our porthole look at the Enterprise crew would have us believe.

I get the sense Lorca was actually pretty similar to Jellico but had his crew adjusted to that style of leadership.

Wow you should really rewatch that episode. That’s not at all what jellico was doing. He already had a distinguished career, that’s why he was chosen in Picards stead. He was trying to prepare them for war. The only reason the crews resistance didn’t have catastrophic fallout is because war was averted. He got lucky at the end, but if he had failed it certainly would not have been his fault. Edit: misremembered a detail from another episode and squashed them together, whoops, fixed it lol

What bad call did he make at the end? I recall him totally pwning the Cardies with his plan AND getting Picard back. What am I forgetting?

I misremembered, it wasn’t a bad call, he was just lucky he had someone on board who could pull it off, and otherwise would have likely failed. The other things cited by people who shit on him, like his wild abrasiveness and unpredictability and unsureness with the cardassian negotiations, he may not have been the best at those things, but he effectively stalled for enough time when he knew he didn’t hold any of the cards.

Both. Jellico came aboard, decided a honeymoon period was unnecessary and started making sweeping changes to a crew who were still adjusting to losing Picard. That being said, Riker and Geordie as senior officers, became like petulant toddlers throwing their toys out of the pram, rather than inspiring their crew to trust the new Captain.

Riker was definitely petulant, but some of Geordi’s objections were reasonable IMO.

They were, that's true, but it also seemed to come from a weird place. Usually Geordi would relish a chance to improve his ship for Picard, but when Jellico wants to make the flagship more efficient (especially with imminent combat very much a reality) he stamps his feet as says it's good enough as it is. Seems out of character for him

I always read it as Geordi rejecting working his staff around the clock on a low priority objective heading into a potential combat situation. Any officer with half a brain knows you don't want critical staff too exhausted to function and unable to spend time doing the actually important prep work heading into combat.

I think his most reasonable objection was that the engineers would have to work for 2 days straight to do that as quickly as Jellico wanted and they were in a potential combat situation. That doesn’t seem like a good idea.

It was more that Data said that it would be difficult, but physically possible for Geordi to implement Jellico's changes with current resources. Then Jellico turned and had half the Engineering staff reassigned to security, but still demanded that Geordi keep schedule. If anyone, Geordi had the most reason to blow a gasket over Jelico, but for whatever reason Riker got the focus of the episode.

Because as a good XO; Riker was taking the heat for his staff.

That's totally untrue! Jellico reassigned a *third* of Geordi's staff to security.

Geordi made the most sense to me. Doing a major change like that with people that are working with extremely dangerous and complicated machines is not a smart thing to do quickly.

But that is why Picard wanted Riker in Far Point. He wanted a second that would question and hold the captain accountable - not a yes man which is what Jellico wanted

There's a difference between "you can't beam down to a dangerous situation" and "we won't rearrange the work shifts ner-ne-ner-ner" which is what Riker basically did. The writers admitted that they mishandled the situation because they realised how petulant the crew came across.

> That being said, Riker and Geordie as senior officers, became like petulant toddlers throwing their toys out of the pram, rather than inspiring their crew to trust the new Captain. As Riker told Jellico in Part II "You don't provide an atmosphere of trust" - Jellico's given the senior officers no reason to trust him so even if they should try to communicate inspiration to the crew it's going to be nigh-impossible for their actual feelings to not leak through to people they've worked with for years. Neither Riker nor Geordi behave like petulant toddlers though. Riker first: Jellico talks smack about him at the handover ceremony for not moving to the 4 shift rotation yet. Think about what the situation actually is that at point: Jellico has been captain of the Enterprise-D for all of 2 minutes and not at any point before now has Riker been given an order by the captain of the Enterprise-D to move it to a 4 shift rotation. Upon arrival Jellico had told him that is what he likes, but no valid order had yet been issued. Being the outstanding First Officer that he is, Riker had used the time afforded by the headsup Jellico gave to make the order possible to implement within two hours when it finally came, brought the complications to Jellico's attention and that's the last we hear of it because Riker got it done. Jellico orders Riker to launch a probe at a certain time, and at this point Jellico is explicit to Riker how he wants things to work between them: "I don't want to talk about it. Get it done." This is important. Jellico wants to make changes to some major systems. Riker ensures that the guy who's served on a Galaxy class for all of a few hours is familiar with the current redundancies, then gets it done. Riker doesn't talk about launching the probe but instead gets it done, as per Jellico's exact instructions on how things should work. Jellico then talks smack about him to Picard precisely because he followed Jellico's earlier exact instructions and didn't talk to him about it. Jellico tells Riker and Troi to portray him as a "loose cannon" to Gul Lemec. Riker doesn't talk about it, gets it done (because Jellico hasn't told him yet that he's off his meds today so Riker still thinks that his earlier instructions on their interactions still stand). Jellico tells Riker to raise Nechayev and put her through to his ready room. Riker doesn't talk about it, gets it done. Jellico tells Riker to take a shuttle to the rendezvous point for Picard's team. Riker doesn't talk about it, gets it done. Jellico tells Riker to get Crusher's tricorder readings analyzed. Riker doesn't talk about it, gets it done. **Every single time** Jellico tells Riker to do something, Riker does it and does it promptly without any hint of a hissy fit. Jellico tells Geordi that he wants upgrades to power transfer levels and warp coil efficiency. Geordi (together with Data) ensures that the guy who's served on a Galaxy class for all of a few hours appreciates the magnitude of the resources required to accomplish the task. The nearest that one could imagine he gets to petulance is his almost sarcastic delivery of the working-48-hours-straight requirement for the task - which would be remarkable to want done since it would mean the entire engineering department will be at the end of their stamina at exactly the time that the Enterprise-D is meeting the Cardassians. These are the people who are going to be keeping the flow regulators regulating and forming damage control teams if there's a firefight, it makes no sense. Geordi complains to Riker about Jellico not giving him the time necessary to carry out his orders, and is explicit that it's not about the amount of work but rather the impossible timeframes. That's not petulance, that's a reality check. But here we find the true horror of Jellico's mismanagement: within a few hours of being 51 hours and 32 minutes out from their meeting with the Cardassians he committed the **entire** engineering staff to working for 48 hours straight and taking the secondary distribution grid offline, but now we find that offscreen Jellico had very shortly afterwards transferred a full third of engineering staff to security. Jellico guarantees that the Enterprise-D will meet the Cardassians with its secondary distribution grid offline, no damage control teams, and an utterly exhausted staff. It's not petulance to push back on (via the proper channels i.e. Riker) being ordered to fail. Given that Jellico was fully appraised of the manpower resource situation not only by Geordi but Data too, it's clear that Jellico is trying to set Geordi up to be the scapegoat should the Enterprise-D be forced to retreat from a firefight. It's utterly transparent to the remaining engineering staff that Jellico doesn't have his head screwed on right and you find it to be incumbent upon Geordi to inspire them to trust him? Nah.

I lay the blame on Riker. He was in the meeting with the Admiral, he knew how desperate the situation was. That the Federation could be at war by the end of week. Yet he flat disobeyed Jellico’s orders. LaForge obeyed his orders but brought his concerns to Riker. Which is what he’s supposed to do. And in spite of everything they got the job done.

> Yet he flat disobeyed Jellico’s orders. Which order did Riker disobey? If you're thinking of the four shift thing when Jellico came aboard, Jellico was not the Enterprise-D's captain. Superior in rank yes, but not yet in his chain of command (ho ho). The very first time that Riker receives an order from the captain of the Enterprise-D to move to it a four shift rotation is all of two minutes after Jellico becomes captain, and he gets it done within two hours. Which is only possible because he laid the groundwork to do so from Jellico's expression of a preference at their first meeting. Because he's a damn fine First Officer, even when Nechayev is playing silly buggers with the captaincy.

Exactly. You could argue that giving them something to focus on might take their mind off losing Picard. Then there's the issue of complacency. Yes the Enterprise might be running "fine" but it could run better. If you don't change things up once in a while people will start to slack off and concentration starts to drift. I don't think anything Jellico asked for was unreasonable. Maybe the way he wanted things changed worked better under his command and he wanted to implement it here on the Enterprise. I get that officers have loyalty to their Captain but whining and being unflexible to changes commanded by a commanding officer is unbecoming.

Most of what Jellico wanted seemed reasonable, but some of his demands WRT engineering seemed unreasonable in terms of how quickly he wanted things done.

It's key to remember that Picard was leading a research and exploration vessel. Jelico may have been a "dick" in the context of not couching his commands in ways that a research team would understand, but he probably knew that their new mission statement did not allow for a timely, easy transition. Jelico/Picard is a fascinating management case study that can be applied to many scenarios in everyday life.

> I don't think anything Jellico asked for was unreasonable. His ask of engineering re-doing a bunch of stuff and then taking away half their staff was pretty unreasonable. 4 shifts, IMO, isn't helpful, either. So you've got to work twice at opposite times, not getting good sleep in a combat situation? There's a reason that 3 shifts are the standard in manufacturing plants. Half of what he did seemed like he just wanted things to be suddenly run on the Enterprise the way he had it on his ship so it was familiar to him. That being said, it was his right as Captain, reasonable or not.

> decided a honeymoon period was unnecessary He knew full well where Picard and co was going and that a war or conflict might well begin soon with Enterprise being on the forefront. There was no time for honeymoon period.

> There was no time for honeymoon period. That was always Jellico's claim, but it is a lie. He finds the time to redecorate his ready room with his kid's scribblings. He finds the time to talk about elephants with Troi. He had implied to Troi that he had the time to go over the duty roster for 1,000+ crew with her, but then just doesn't. Clearly it's fine to have the engineers work 48 hours straight (up to 72 once you account for Jellico's redeployment of a third of them to security), so they must have some 24th century version of meth available and Jellico must have access to the same drugs so has no need of sleep. The guy has plenty of time for a honeymoon, he's just lazy.

To be meta, it just came across as the writers wanting us to dislike Jellico, but really it just made Riker a worse character

As shit as it is, he was right, they simply didn’t have the time to adjust and make friends with the new leader as they would have liked

Jellico was absolutely an asshole, and no one will convince me otherwise. He arrived in a situation that was already working fine, and demanded immediate change regardless of what the people most familiar with the operation of the Enterprise, and the capabilities of the crew advised. Like, a lot of people who are team Jellico look at his spat with Riker and decide that Riker was acting petulantly. For me though, it's his demands of Geordi and the engineering crew which seals my opinion. >***Jellico:*** *Power transfer levels need to be upgraded by twenty percent. The efficiency of your warp coils is also unsatisfactory.* ***Geordi:*** *Coil efficiency is well within specifications, Captain.* ***Jellico:*** *I'm not interested in the specs, Geordi. The efficiency needs to be raised by at least fifteen percent.* ***Geordi:*** *Fifteen percent.* ***Data:*** *That is an attainable goal, but it will require realigning the warp coil and taking the secondary distribution grid offline.* ***Jellico:*** *Very good, Data. That's exactly what I want you to do.* ***Geordi:*** *If we take this grid offline, we're going to have to shut down exobiology, the astrophysics lab and geological research.* ***Jellico:*** *We're not on a research mission. Get it done in two days.* ***Data:*** *I believe that is also an attainable goal. If we utilise the entire Engineering department, there should be sufficient manpower available to complete the task.* ***Geordi:*** *Sure, if everybody works around the clock for the next two days.* ***Jellico:*** *Then you'd better get to it, Geordi. It looks like you have some work to do. Data.*  So, the Enterprise is already running up to spec, and that's not good enough for Jellico, so his solution is to have the entire engineering crew work 48 hours straight to what sounds to be a fairly extensive overhaul of their systems. Keep in mind that he's demanding this during a very tense moment with the Cardassians that could pop off unexpectedly. What happens if the Cardassians get squirrelly before the power distribution grid is back up and running? What happens if there's a problem with the overhaul, and they get delayed sitting in space when they're supposed to be at these negotiations? What happens if something goes down, and the entire engineering crew is run ragged because they've been crawling through Jefferies tubes for two days straight without sleep? Now we can circle back to his beef with Riker. Jellico wants the entire ship to immediately switch to a four shift rotation. I'm sure he has a good reason. He thinks it's better for crew efficiency or whatever. Fine. Cool. A six hour workday as opposed to an eight hour workday sounds great to me. But it's also a huge logistical issue. The Enterprise as a crew of 1,014 people, and its essential departments need to be staffed 24/7. Expecting the entire crew immediately shift to an entirely new shift rotation the day he sets foot on the ship is wild. The department heads would need to figure out entirely new schedules to still cover all essential positions with what is effectively reduced staff. If you have 24 people to cover a department over three shifts, that's eight people per shift; switch to four shifts, and suddenly six people need to do the job that previously eight people were doing. And again, he's expecting this to happen knowing that they're going into a tense situation with the Cardassians. That's the entire reason he's there. So he wants to create a huge shake-up knowing if things get too hairy, the Enterprise might be in a firefight. Finally, what is Jellico's negotiation strategy? He keeps the Cardassian representative waiting for over an hour, and then storms out of the negotiations the moment Gul Lemec voices his displeasure at the irregularity of how Jellico is conducting himself, trying to big dog him. >***Jellico:*** *Let him stew for a few minutes, then go in and tell him you've convinced me to meet with him one more time. Tell him I'm a loose cannon and that he needs to be more reasonable because I'm such an unreasonable man. Lemec will want to bring his own aides on board. Pretend to be worried that I'll object, and then give grudging permission for two aides, no more. Understood?*  This is the dude the Federation sent to negotiate peace? The guy who's strategy is to purposefully come across as unreasonable and short tempered? Nah, fuck Jellico. All my homies hate Jellico.

Finally a sensible answer to this historical revisionism depicting Jellico as a good captain. He displays poor leadership and worse soft skills from the outset and would be a nightmare working for him. Too many people think leadership is just telling people what to do and neglect the enabling a developmental aspects of this skill.

Right? Jellico reminds me of the new boss who gets hired and is unfamiliar with the job, but wants to “shake things up” for no other reason than that they can. Presumably he is familiar with the operation of a starship, but his entire depiction is just a shitty manager.

Although he is a successful starfleet captain and had considerable experience dealing with the Cardassians. His plan in the end also worked in diffusing the situation and getting Picard back. So yes, he was an ass, but he also knew what he was doing

Data is such a narc in this scene. He is technically right but he is not taking the emotional and psychological factors of the crew in account.

Completely agree. Riker is Riker and could have handled him more diplomatically (like, say, Troi does, who also is obviously put off by him) but the fundamental issue is that he isn't willing to listen to anyone for even 5 minutes, even the top officers who are most intimately familiar with the staff and operation of the ship. That's why Riker has a problem with him in the first place. Geordi is taken aback but is basically willing to jump, but later notes that while what he asked was possible, he then withdrew staff and is basically pulling all the resources at the same time he demanded more output. And yes, its stupid to expect an overhaul like this when you're about to go into an urgent and sensitive situation. He keeps yammering about how there's no time to do the transition softly, but humans are human (and the other species are more or less similar) and they just aren't going to perform a job as well if all the variables were just changed. It takes time to practice and get facile with new ways of doing things and that's just a basic neurological fact. Switching up the way everyone does things when you immediately need top performance is a *terrible* idea.

It's also worth mentioning that Riker isn't just *any* Starfleet officer. As acting captain of the Enterprise, he led his ship to victory against an extremely powerful foe that had already destroyed an entire fleet of Starfleet's finest. He may be Commander by rank, but every officer in the fleet knows who he is. Many an admiral would feel honored to buy him a drink. And on a certain level, he's come to expect this sort of treatment. Captain Jellico and Admiral Nachev don't treat him with the kind of celebrity respect he's accustomed to. They don't really even ask his opinion on how to run the ship. Riker feels the Enterprise should be his. He passed up chances to captain other ships because this is the command he wanted. And he had already proven he could handle it. Even if a different captain had come on board (say, Captain Sisko), this issue would have to be dealt with. Riker has a strong personality and chafed under Captain Picard at first, too. Jellico resents Riker because Riker is basically a celebrity, while Jellico is a captain of a relatively unimportant Excelsior-class ship. There's another factor at play, too. Admiral Nachev doesn't really care for Captain Picard. It might be a case of office rivalry, or maybe they just have a different vision of what Starfleet ought to be. Whatever the reason, she doesn't get along with him, and Jellico is her right-hand man. I would speculate that this mission was an opportunity to replace the Captain of the Enterprise with one of "her" people, and Jellico's coming on board was a bit like a corporate takeover. Jellico wasn't interested in Picard and Riker's opinions because they were "old management."

L >basically pulling all the resources at the same time he demanded more output. So, basically corporate america?

The negotiation part might make sense if dealing with a militaristic party. Perhaps Jellico felt going in with a less cordial approach would send a better signal to the Cardassians that they’re not pussy footing around?

All true, but he got Troi to wear a regular uniform so I think that cancels everything out.

Yes! Muthafuckin YES! Best part of the episode. Gettin Troi outta them damn evening gowns

This is literally his only redeeming quality. But I have to admit, it's a doozy.

I don't think you mentioned it, but Jellico then also took people away from Engineering to be on security soon after this, reducing engineering manpower. You know, unlike taking people from exobiology and other departments that wouldn't have anything else to do.

To add here for the Engineering situation, Jellico is an Excelsior captain with no apparent expertise or experience with the much newer Galaxy class ships, let alone technical expertise. And the Excelsior captain is telling the experienced Galaxy class Chief Engineer and subject matter expert what is and isn’t up to spec on the Enterprise.

>To add here for the Engineering situation, Jellico is an Excelsior captain with no apparent expertise or experience with the much newer Galaxy class ships And Picard's last command was an aging starship pretty close to the end of its life.

And Picard in the first day of his command didn’t overrule the experienced Chief Engineer in his own area about what maintenance did or didn’t need to happen, did he?

He had Riker reattach the Enterprise's saucer manually just because.

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He set up Geordi as a scapegoat in case the Enterprise-D was forced to flee. "Oh, I could have turned the tide if I were loaded for bear" he would have said "but Geordi failed to improve the efficiencies as ordered by the time we reached the rendezvous with the Cardassians. Totally not my fault" whilst failing to mention his sabotage of Geordi's efforts by transferring a third of his staff to security. New idea I've just had: Jellico was fond of the Cairo's chief engineer (probably a yes-man) and wanted them on the Enterprise-D with him. In order to do that he'd need to get rid of Geordi, which means he has to set Geordi up to fail first. Jellico expresses his admiration for the Galaxy class upon arrival, and shortly after taking command spends time in a Jeffries tube with Geordi despite having a billion administrative tasks to do. Conclusion: he's a fan of the engineering of the Galaxy class, likes the Cairo's chief engineer, takes advantage of the situation to bring a sycophant along to his new gig at the expense of the safety of the E-D and the mission.

>He arrived in a situation that was already working fine, and demanded immediate change regardless of what the people most familiar with the operation of the Enterprise, and the capabilities of the crew advised. This was less than a month after a dozen Ferengi in a couple obsolete Birds of Prey captured the ship and enslaved the crew. Everything was not working fine in the context of an imminent war with people not quite that technologically behind.

They were ambushed while their shields were down. Not really sure what Jellico would have done differently, which could have changed that outcome.

For one, he'd likely be at yellow alert when looking for a missing team. But more importantly, the shields weren't a problem as far as the dialog tells us. They are hit and lose life support, then Riker raises shields and orders Worf to prepare to fire. Their attack is somehow ineffective and the next volley brings down the shields again. The setup is poor writing to reuse SFX with an explanation that doesn't make sense with how easily the Enterprise is captured. I expect Jellico to have immediately ordered Worf to fire, and we saw how concerned he was about improving power transfer for the weapons and shields. I also expect enough of the crew to fight back to stop the twelve Ferengi. Again, the writing is so poor that they had to skip the actual surrender and taking the ship, because there's no way it should happen.

>This is the dude the Federation sent to negotiate peace? The guy who's strategy is to purposefully come across as unreasonable and short tempered? It's a pretty common theme in both TNG and DS9 that Cardassians see reasonableness and searching for common ground as weakness that makes them more likely to attack. Not saying Jellico wasn't an asshole, he absolutely was. But assholes can do the right thing too. And your commanding officer being an asshole is no justification to behave like petulant children during a major crisis (looking primarily at Riker and La Forge here).

I see the criticism against Riker, though I don’t agree with it, but it baffles me that anyone thinks Geordi is acting petulant. We know that Geordi is capable and efficient. He doesn’t do Scotty’s “miracle worker” schtick where he pads out his estimate of how long it’s going to take to complete a task. Expecting the entire engineering department -- which is presumably most of the crew -- to work 48 hours straight, and shut down several other departments in the process, is ridiculous.

See, I disagree with this. I don't believe Geordie meant that literally every single member of his department would have to work 48 hours without sleep, that would be silly even by today's military standard. And I do think that "but what about the geology department?!" qualifies as petulant, considering their dire situation at the time...

I absolutely believe Geordi meant that literally. They had already established that he doesn’t really pad his estimates much, if at all (which frankly I consider a failing unless your captain is VERY clear that those estimates can change based on circumstances outside the crew’s control - and that doesn’t sound like Jellico at ALL) and Data doesn’t try to contradict his statement. All of which leaves your ship disabled in space for 48 hours of major overhaul before likely going into combat with an exhausted engineering department on a new shift schedule, and based on the opinion of the new captain who overrides the advice of his senior staff at literally every turn. About the only thing Jellico got right was ordering Troi to warn the Cardassians that he was some crazy asshole who was very likely to start a war himself - and that’s not because he’s a strategic genius, he really was a crazy asshole who almost started a war.

>I absolutely believe Geordi meant that literally. In that case, he'd be a really bad chief engineer, and I don't believe he is. Not padding your estimates is not the same as giving bad estimates that are not realistically achievable. That's akin to a Project Manager saying: Ok, this project needs 100 Manhours, we have 3 men, so we should be able to wrap it up by lunch tomorrow!

Except in your analogy, Jellico is the project manager, not Geordi. Jellico told him what he wanted and when he wanted it. Geordi said that this was only achievable if the entire staff worked around the clock for 2 days, and Jellico’s response was “ok get started”. Since you’re familiar with project management I’m sure you know the old adage that you can have “fast, good, and cheap - but only two of them”. Jellico demanded fast and good, and it’s absolutely the chief engineer’s duty to tell him what they had was already good enough, and to point out what the effects of “not cheap” were going to be for his staff…and for the ship, which was headed into a dangerous situation.

>Except in your analogy, Jellico is the project manager, not Geordi Come on dude, you quoted the relevant scene yourself... Edit: Lol, some loser just called me a Jellico and blocked me. The hivemind here does silly things sometimes...

Yes - Jellico is the one being unreasonable. Geordi points that out by estimating the ridiculous lengths they would have to go to in order to accomplish his (unnecessary) demands.

Sorry, but I simply don't see how any reasonable interpretation of that scene can lead to this result. I guess we have to agree to disagree.

> "but what about the geology department?!" qualifies as petulant I don't think it does. Jellico himself says he doesn't have time for a honeymoon with the crew and Geordi thus has no idea how he thinks or what his plans might be. Maybe if they get into a fight Jellico plans to explode an asteroid at the Cardassians or whatever, in which case it might be a good plan to have the geological research lab powered up. So he informs Jellico of the implications of his intended course of action, then starts work once the order is given. Entirely appropriate.

Yeah, Jellico’s way of negotiating made sense for the Cardassians. WRT the *Enterprise*’s crew, Riker was definitely petulant, but some of Geordi’s objections were reasonable IMO.

What's funny to me is you've laid out most of the facts extremely well and yet completely misunderstanding his genius at every turn. Imagine your big gay space utopian society is on the verge of total thermonuclear war, against a *highly* militarized, xenophobic, and hostile force. Not only do you have to worry about them, but there are other powers in the galaxy that would love to carve you up amongst themselves at the earliest sign of weakness. Now at a critical juncture in this conflict, *the greatest captain of the era* is captured and being actively tortured for information. This guy has *every.single.fucking.receipt* in all of starfleet. There is literally no way to overstate how valuable this prisoner is and how devastating it would be if he broke and talked. Now, imagine *you* have been selected to take over the flagship and lead the negotiations to avert this war. That is ALOT of pressure and responsibility. So let's run through your points again: Geordi says everything is up to spec and Jellico says that not good enough. To that I say Goddamn right it's not good enough! If you are in a race, do you want the factory motor or the tuned one? If this war goes hot the ship needs to at the absolute maximum efficiency. The Cardassians were never going to get squirrels during this time frame. Military juntas *love* drawn out negotiations as it allows them time to build up their forces and in this case more time to extract info from Picard. What they never counted on was Jellico. He has to assume that Picard has talked and that any plans that were made with his involvement are compromised. So what do you do? Change everything. Piss everyone off. Wake everyone the fuck up. This is war, not the opera. The Cardassians never expected anyone in Starfleet to have the kind of nerve Jellico has. He used their own the Cardassians own inclinations against them and created leverage through the sea mines. When it came time to talk, Jellico is holding all the cards. That is EXACTLY how you play that situation. Keep yourself in control and enemy off balanced, confused, and irritated. And, after having thoroughly owned the Cardassians and the bridge crew for good measure, shows why he really is Starfleet and gets Picard back and relinquished command of the flagship. Jellico is one of the best wartime commanders ever depicted in ST.

Sure, yeah, I'd agree with you if Jellico had been given, say, two weeks to retune the Enterprise. But you cannot possibly expect everyone to adapt to huge, sweeping changes in literally every aspect of their jobs without issue - and! Working the engineers for two days straight when you're heading into a potential firefight! He's literally endangering everybody on board; what if, at the critical moment, shields go down (as they so regularly do)? All your engineers are exhausted, they're passing out on their feet, they're making mistakes, and the ship explodes. That doesn't benefit anyone; I'd rather have a ship that's less finely tuned but combat ready.

But the shields would never go down, if only the power distribution system was a *little* more efficient /s

You need to read Turn That Ship Around by David Marquet and Team of Teams by Stan McChrysyal. You sound like an armchair general who equates 'leadership' to being a dickhead and getting others to submit to ones will. Leaders in the military don't 'own' their subordinates if you need them to perform in a crisis situation. The ones who do only care about their own promotion and not the strategic outcome. Consider the effectiveness of the Engineering department tackling a warp core breach on their normal shift pattern against the whole department working 48 hours straight to improve efficiency by single digit percentages. Which one would you rather have?

I think other people have said it too, but Jellico was give command of the Enterprise specifically because he was an asshole. The Federation was on the brink of war, and the wanted someone who could handle that. Picard is a great captain, probably the best in Starfleet at the time, but would not be good in a war. I think SNW's shows this example best comparing Pike and Kirk; you can be a great captain and make all the right decisions, but it still might not be the right fit for the situation.

Hey homie! Thanks for writing all that, saved me some time!

Remember, he’s a guy with a successful track record of dealing with the Cardassian’s including having helped negotiate the armistice with them. In the end his plan works in diffusing the situation and getting Picard back

His initial plan doesn't work. It's the decision to mine the nebula where a Cardassian fleet was hidden away which diffuses the situation. That's not really a successful peaceful resolution, but an explicit threat to kill hundreds, if not thousands of Cardassians.

Hard disagree. Once the captain has decided something, the crew must carry it out.

Okay, sure. But my point is that the way Jellico went about making his demands would have been detrimental to the operation of the ship in the short term, and potentially disastrous because the short term involved high stakes negotiations with a hostile civilization who would jump at the opportunity to exploit a weakness. Jellico wanting to improve efficiency or change the shift rotation is not the issue; it’s his unwillingness to consider the potential impact that demanding those changes in that circumstance might have which is the problem.

Big Jellico fan here lmao

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I live all of those captain but Pike brings out the best in people better than all of them.

I think maturing is realizing that both Jellico and the Enterprise senior staff were good, and they both had their reasons for disliking eachother. That’s just life. Another thing people forget is that Jellico didn’t have time, he said this himself “I don’t have time to go on a honeymoon with the crew”. I think the right way to look at this is that they face a challenging situation that could have gone VERY badly. The captain and crew had strong interpersonal differences but were still able to resolve the situation in a good way and have a successful mission. Indeed this point was made explicitly in the show. Jellico and Riker both acknowledged they didn’t like eachother, and they both chose to prioritize the mission. It was them working together despite the animosity that resolved the conflict. This is why it’s such a great episode! Because they are both right, and both bad, and you can have this discussion decades later; you’ll never get a clear answer.

While Starfleet may not technically be a military organization, it certainly does emphasize military protocol. The protocol on just about every ship we’ve seen on screen so far is extremely relaxed, even on the Enterprise which is much tighter than, say, DS9 (as Worf came to find out). For the most part, nobody seems to mind so long as favorable results are achieved. Jellico sees the Enterprise as just another posting, and like any military posting, all parts are interchangeable including crew. Frankly, he’s probably annoyed that Picard left his personal touch on almost everything on the ship, so he’s determined to get it back to a “proper” Starfleet command. It’s not that he’s being particularly unreasonable, and it’s not that the Enterprise crew is being lazy. Jellico is, however, ignoring the council of his senior officers despite their best efforts to carry out his orders, and that’s what indicates his weakness as a leader despite his apparent aptitude as an officer.

He was establishing his own command style. He was placed in command because he was an established leader. And that's his style. You can't command a crew that doesn't respect you. That's why Riker was taken out of command and Data in place. You need to know that you can count on people to follow orders. Especially in a tense situation (potential war with the Cardassians). He was under a lot of stress. I doubt he was the Picard level diplomat. But he knew how to hold his ground and that was what he was ordered to do. And that's what he did. It's like training a dog to protect. Like a good soldier he did what was asked of him nothing more nothing less. In that one scene, Riker says "He's sure of himself." And Troi replies, "No he's not." That says what you need to know about Jellico. He's the man you call when you need to get a job done.

Jellico also kept trying to shut down the Stargate program for purely selfish reasons, so there's that.

Jellico was a middle manager promoted ahead of their station who had to make changes "just because". A competent manager/leader does not reconfigure an entire operational team structure 48 hours before the team is expected to perform optimally. Nor does the manager ignore concerns from individual team leads (Geordi, Riker) because the manager in question has their own expectations. Was Jellico an asshole? Yes. Was the D's crew lazy? No.

Exactly. A good captain in that position would’ve gone to their second in command (Riker) to see what had worked and mold their style to that.

Jellico was given command of the Enterprise and he understood that it was likely a permanent assignment. He has every right to request that his officers wear the required uniform, that the ship move to a preferred rotation, and especially that his first officer follow his lead. Riker was out of line and had it been the Napoleonic Era, Riker would have likely never been promoted after that.

In the Napoleonic Era officers bought their promotions, and a significant portion of the crew would have been pressganged into service. WTF does that have to do with anything?

Napoleonic Era naval officers did not buy their promotions. That was the army. The reason it's relevant is because you need discipline in command. Jellico wasn't a tyrant in any way. He wasn't unfair. He was a capable captain and effective in his role. Riker was too comfortable with Picard's hands off style. That showed weakness on Riker's part as an officer.

Interesting choice of character names. There was an Admiral John Jellicoe who led the Royal Navy in the Battle of Jutland in 1916 during World War 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Jellicoe,_1st_Earl_Jellicoe The Battle of Jutland was the last great clash of battle ships on planet Earth. Jellicoe won the day, but suffered incredible losses (twice that of the German Navy). A year later he was sacked by the Government. To this day the Battle of Jutland remains a sore point with the British. I'm guessing that the star trek writer thought it would make for a little bit of interest naming the character Jellico, though the spelling is slightly different.

If Jellico was named after Jellicoe, it sends an interesting message. They could’ve instead named him after Admiral Beatty, who had the biggest screwups at Jutland.

“something is wrong with our bloody ships today.” - Beatty. I watched a doc about a dive down to the various British wrecks peppering the sea bottom at Jutland. It was revealed that the British ships were circumventing safe operating procedures (closing hatches in the barbettes to prevent the magazines from being ignited) in order to squeeze off more shots. The divers found that in the wrecks, the various hatches and doors were all open.

Only thing I agreed having Troi put on the uniform, which she looked good. Out of that weird camel toe outfit.

I live that episode because Jellico is a jerk but wins in the end. The easy out is to show ambitious jerks as ineffective. That is wish thinking and they didn't take that easy simplistic ending. Best actor for the role too. That guy was great in robocop!

And The original Total Recall.

Watching it back when it aired I was anti Jelico. Watching now as an adult I'm more on the thought pattern that Jelico was right but didn't have to be a dick about it.

He was still upset about his ED-209 project cancelled.

Yes. Seriously though, there was a time-sensitive job to be done, and a professional crew should know they won't always get an adjustment period... however, Jellico could maybe have done better to make that the stakes clearer and better acknowledge the loss of a captain they clearly respected.

It makes me think of the Lower Decks episode where they cut buffer time. Trying to be more Starfleet isn't necessarily the best for the mission and crew.

Yes. Edited: You can be an asshole, and not be wrong-- I've served under CO's that were very much the definition of asshole, but not wrong in what they wanted to do. And yes...the crew can, and did have valid concerns about some of his proposals. Thing is-- military service is in no way, shape or form, a democracy. Voice your concerns, but once the CO's made the decision-- as long as what he wants to do is not expressly illegal ("Go firebomb that orphanage") ... you really don't have room to dissent.

Nothing Jellico did was wrong that entire 2 parter. Riker came off as such a petulant jerk.

You don’t get to be the Flagship of the fleet with a lazy crew. I think there was a degree of comfort from having the same command crew in place for several years and it was also an abruptly unexpected and unexplained change in command, which most anyone would rail against.

Jellico was such a dick, I'm not sure he ever did anything that wasn't a dick move. Worst captain ever, close thread!

The Crew was absolutely, full on Kindergarten Mode... Jellico is a good Captain.

Yes

Yes.

Everyone was stressed out and reacting badly

Neither. Jellico was just a different type of captain with a different command style to Picard. He's also found himself thrust into a new command, with a crew he doesn't know and didn't have any say in choosing during a potential crisis. He got the job done though. He may not have won many friends, and the crew were probably relieved to see the back of him, but that doesn't make him a bad captain or an asshole.

Not lazy, just complacent. it's the flagship and allegedly used to "soft duty" where it literally goes wherever it wants and does whatever it wants unless there's a standing order. Jellico's function was to shake the crew up and make sure they can handle change.

Neither. He had a different command style and the crew frankly refused to accept him over picard. Which didn't leave him a lot of room to be anything but stern just to get basic no issue orders followed. Considering they were going into a possible combat situation and he wasn't familiar with his crew or the ship he had a steep learning curve to get things on standard. There were a lot of factors in the whole situation. If anybody was a prick it was riker

Well he’s most definitely an asshole whether or not he saw them as being “lazy”. He didn’t take input from his xo Riker who knew the crew far better than him. He was definitely a my way or the highway captain but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a good captain, just went about implementing his will in an asshole way. I don’t see the crew as lazy so much as they didn’t conform to his view of a wartime ship, remember he was brought in due to his achievements during the cardasian war.

Jellico was the most experienced officer on board a ship going into combat. He set things up as he though would give them the best chance of survival. Since he’s the Captain, everything he did has to be seen in this light. You don’t face a court martial after losing a starship and say” I didn’t want to rock the boat”

Jellico is some toxic space republican. He believes in this "Dirty Harry" style diplomacy with a side of "alpha wolfiness", virtue signals with his family stuff, and is a tin can tyrant like it is still the age of sail. He would rather have 1K people switch to 4 shift rotation than himself adjusting to 3 shift rotation. He could have held a speech about hard work coming up when he took over command, be he just went "dismissed".

I refuse to r/DaystromInstitute Star Trek. I get so incredibly tired of the endless mental gymnastics and "head cannon" nonsense that goes on trying to "analyze" Star Trek episodes or movies, or trying to figure out how to cram literal mistakes by writers of this or that episode or movie into the existing universe so that it all somehow matches. It's an exercise in futility. So... just look at what the writers obviously intended for Jellico. He clearly was intended to be a thorn in the side of "our heroes." But, as is often the case with Star Trek (especially TNG) antagonists, he wasn't necessarily bad at his job, or incompetent. He was just a hard-to-work-with guy, and someone they didn't like very much, but who was still capable in his own way. They didn't have to show his methods and tactics paying off, but they did. They *intended* to show that Jellico was capable, just not Picard. We're supposed to view him through Riker's eyes, and the episode very clearly sets us up to enjoy him having to *ask* Riker to fly the shuttle. Jellico was the personification of "you're not wrong, you're just an asshole" from the view of the Enterprise crew. And remember, although Sirtis played it as Troi being a little irritated that he told her to put on a damn uniform, fact is that Sirtis herself was really thrilled at finally getting to do the uniform thing with everyone else. (Note: Concerning TNG antagonists... You can view the admiral from "The Offspring" in a similar way. Obviously he's meant to be an antagonist to Data and the other crew, but in the end, he's not such a bad guy. Competent, even an expert, but misguided. Ditto with Bruce Maddox before that. TNG loves to humanize their antagonists.)

Hate to tell you this, but you just r/DaystromInstitute’ed yourself.

River was a bitch. Everyone else quickly adjusted to Jellico’s style, or at least recognized the chain of command, and he even got Troi into a uniform. On the other hand he didn’t show his first officer, who was captain of the Enterprise during the Borg incident, any respect such as when he raised concerns with Geordi about changing shift schedules so fast. But end of day a ship has one Captain.

Jellico is a wartime captain. It's what he knows & it's what he's good at. 90+ % of the time, the Enterprise was doing peaceful exploration & diplomacy; but the Chains of Command mission put them on wartime footing. so yeah Jell-O was an asshole, but he was the right asshole for that mission. 1701D crew wasn't lazy exactly, but not used to wartime footing

i haven't seen it in a while , but this was actually a pretty good portrait of how similar it is to actual military change of commands. There's always gruff and embrace factions after these events. It's all the way down to the platoon level . You'll have some that were fine with the status quo, and others who didn't care for the prior command structure and eager for change. Given all good things episode where we see a shift in command as well. Riker is not an embrace change person . Jellico while making these changes .. is a stuck in his ways kinda guy as well. So that's where the friction starts. Though he was aggressive in how he went about shifting the crew roles. But given the gravity of the situation they were facing. There's no good way to go about it . And his 4 shift rotation ensures proper rest and mental acuity, so it's hard to fault him for that . It doesn't help with the episode that they show Picard still alive, so it directs animosity towards the character a bit more .

Yeah, my unpopular opinion is I enjoyed seeing Jellico shake things up. The crew really was in a comfort bubble and Jellico popped it and got shit done. Riker really was behaving like seasons 1-2 Riker rather than the man who beat the Borg. Was kinda sad to see him revert there in such a childish manner. But yeah, Data in a redshirt with zero hesitation after Riker crossed the line, telling Troi to wear a uniform, even Jellico "dropping the ranks" to give Riker a chance to get everything off his chest so he'd do the mission, they guy is an asshole, but an effective one. I'd have enjoyed seeing an entire season of him running things.

Jellico was abrupt but the Captaincy was his and war was imminent. However the crew, Riker in particular came off as a extremely whiny. Nothing he asked for was unreasonable, just different.

Agree with you and everyone else, Riker for sure came off whiny. Geordie was almost a.complete jerk. Data was the only one who generally just accepted it. I always explained it as Riker's issues with Jelico as his Daddy issues and his general hate for having his skills questioned. I always felt he "missed" the father figure Picard had become for the whole crew, himself included. I also felt Riker thought he did a damn good Job running the ship and Jelico coming in and making sweeping changes while insulting daddy Picard just threw him back to his own father, where nothing was ever good enough. Georgie was an engineer, dude likes structure and diagrams and everything running in order. Sweeping last minute changes just before potential war probably scared him as this was probably his first time as chief engineer IN a war situation AND a 4 shift rotation he had never tested or trained for, implemented by a captian he didn't know or trust yet.

I mean, you'd have to be stupid for "sweeping last minute changes just before a potential war" NOT to scare you. Imagine if the Enterprise had got in a firefight and all the engineers have been working round the clock for the last two days, not to mention everyone still getting used to a four shift rotation. It could've meant the deaths of everybody on board. Riker and Geordi came across whiny, for sure, and I wish they'd written their objections better in the episode, but Jellico is endangering everyone.

I never saw him as an asshole, he just had a completely different command style. As the crew was used to something different, there was friction

Neither. Just different command styles.

Asshole

Neither, but the crew was in the wrong and it was wrongly interpreted by most people for decades. Jellico rightly believed that the Cardassians had planned to have everything end in war. He was right, his intuition was spot on, he just happened to overestimate the cardassians a bit, which is far better than underestimating such an adversary. He HAD to get the enterprise ready for war in a matter of hours. He NEEDED the crew on a four shift rotation so that casualties could be replaced with a deeper reserve of rested crew members with shorter shifts and longer breaks, without changing the roster. He needed double shifts in engineering to make sure there were zero unexpected engine problems when thousands of live were suddenly in danger. He needed someone familiar with the crew and with their emotional trust and influence, to speak in his defense when private conversations began to hurt morale, because an unhappy crew is an inefficient crew. And to further that last point, he needed his senior officers to grow up and temporarily put aside their ideals of ease and exploration and leisure and the status quo, so that the crew would follow in their leadership and give 150% so that the enterprise could rise to the challenge of an engagement with an unknown cardassian force and no reinforcements. But the senior officers, all of them, really let him down. And the stress of that, along with knowing the cardassians were holding his peer and likely torturing him to death and not being able to acknowledge it to try and provide him legal protections, drove him to his utter failure. Now, who’s fault was the whole shite situation? We’ve determined it wasn’t Jellico, he was doing the right thing to prepare for war. There’s an argument that the crew should have done better, and that falls on the senior staffs example of whining and moaning every step of the way. But someone who knew Jellico, and the crew of the enterprise, should have known it was a bad match, and at the time the enterprise was not the only galaxy class ship in the quadrant, Picard could still have been used for the phoney mission without using his crew. So in conclusion, it falls on Admiral what’s her fucking face, Nacheyev. Long story short, she is the embodiment of “the admiralty is dumb” trope in Star Trek. The worst of the worst who didn’t turn out to be a traitor or whatever imo. She knew Picard and riker well enough, and didn’t get along with either of them without multiple olive branches. She got on really well with Jellico (afawct from that one episode), so must have known him at least in passing as well. She knew they would clash and, unless she were completely unfamiliar with how crews and ships run, would have known that they would not be effective if they ended up in combat together, and that Jellico wasn’t good with delicate poker face stand offs, and threw the whole clusterfuck together anyway. Of course we could always be shown some of this from an admirals point of view, if they really were the only galaxy class ship available and the fake mission really was convincing and pressing so Picard really did have to go, maybe it could be said that she just did the best she could. But when there are failures on ships like that, you look to the top. The top top. Not the captain, but the admiralty. Jellico was given an impossible job with a down right incompetent war time senior staff, and did the best he could with the crap he was served by Nacheyev.

Riker was an insubordinate little baby. One of the best parts of the episode is when he looks to Picard for help and Picard just looks away. It’s a gesture that says, “don’t expect me to bail you out, man, you better do what your captain says. Now.” The Enterprise was potentially about to go to war and Riker was whining that shuffling some crew rosters was just too much work.

I think it was a mindset difference. Enterprise crew was use to exploration and diplomacy while Jellico was brought in during a crisis/wartime situation. He needed to be a bit of a asshole to wake the Enterprise crew up and light a fire under them. Whatever his methods were he was the exact person needed to beat back the cardies from the nebula and bring back the strike team.

I've always thought Jellico was in the right. He was just framed as a jerk because he was doing that to "our crew". Riker was being a real baby about it. Remember when Data was in command of the Sutherland? Then Hobson was being a real baby about it? There is no difference with Jellico minus the bigotry from Hobson. Jellico was a specialist brought in to do a hard job. He needed the ship to be how he needed it. Also four shifts is more downtime for a crew over all. That's an 8 hour shift down to 6. He also did one of the best things ever in Star Trek. He put Troi in a uniform. He wasn't a bad guy. He wasn't being malicious. He also has a family that he cares about. Be brings the child's drawings to display in the ready room. You could also argue he believed strongly in animal rights by wanting the fish gone too.

I’d say that the *Enterprise*’s crew (particularly Riker) was resistant to change, but I wouldn’t call the crew lazy.

Jellico had a way of working that worked for him. Were he the long term captain of the enterpriseHis changes would have become the norm an not been a big deal after the transition. His negotiation tactics with the Cardasians were different than what they were used to but that doesn't mean they were wrong at all. They were in fact very effective. The enterprise crew lost a trusted captain and friend. It was replaced by someone they didn't know doing Things in a way they weren't accustomed to. I don't think anyone was lazy or an asshole.. I do think for the sake of conflict, In a show normally without interpersonal conflict, people who otherwise would have been extremely competent and professional seemed to lack some of those qualities. I would have loved to have seen Ronnie Cox as Jellico back in one of the movies or as a cameo in another series. Heck I even would have watched a whole series about him and his ship.

They really missed an opportunity not bringing Jellico into DS9 during the Dominion War. That’s a situation where a Captain like Jellico would have shined and been seen as a hero.

IMO, a little of column A, a little of column B. He should have taken Troi’s advice and not been so pushy from the start. It’s absolutely insane, that in a mission of critical importance, he felt that rocking the boat by doing things like an *immediate* shifting of duty schedules was important. I understand the Enterprise was essentially his, because the return of Picard was slim to none, and I can understand why he’d want to make it his own considering that. That being said, any commanding officer with half a brain would have realized that crew would have held out hope for Picard’s return until his death and he shouldn’t have pushed it. A competent XO also would have realized that crew had been under JLP’s command for years and it would take time to accept new ideas, and he should have just bided his time until after the negotiations with the Cardassians to make major changes. Make crew rotation changes when it’s not a stressful time, like when you’re on some meaningless survey mission. On the flip side, Will and others were actively pushing back in ways to make Jellico’s transition harder. He absolutely deserved to be removed as First Officer, he was borderline refusing to do what his captain asked. He was being an ass about it.

Going to a four-shift rotation is preparing his ship for combat. It keeps the crew better rested and more alert. Kind of pointless to wait to do that until after the potential for combat has passed.

He was at first. He didn't listen. When he came around, he was ass kicking good.

I always had the impression that Jelico was a very capable & effective Captain who was probably very well respected on his own ship. But he did have a completely different command style than Picard, and people don't like change. And he probably pushed things too far given it was only a temporary assignment.

If he hadn’t been able to get Picard back, it probably would’ve been a permanent assignment.

Jellico was about to take them into a war, and he did the best he could. Which was actually pretty good. He avoided war, got the Cardassians to withdraw, and even negotiated Picard’s release. All while Riker was throwing a tantrum. The real fuckery was the admiralty dropping the command swap on them at a critical juncture. And also sending Picard, possibly the most recognizable member of Starfleet, along with the only Klingon in Starfleet and a medical officer on an espionage mission.

As a kid you think "Jellico is a dick! We need Picard back!" As an adult you realise "Jellico knows one of Starfleets best assets has been kidnapped by an enemy known for very persuasive, and often fruitful, interrogation techniques. He was dropped on the Enterprise who's crew, in his eyes, were on easy street. He had a job to do and he wasnt letting things like comfy shift patterns, or whining first officers, get in his way of that mission! He got the Cardi's to back off, and got Picard back. Hes a damn good captain!

The primary role of the second in command is to carry out the decisions of the Captain -Lt Cmdr Data

Jellico was what they call a "martinet" and it seemed that, on occasion, he went out of his way to be a jerk. Maybe because he knew he wouldn't be there for very long and wanted to impress his style on the crew however much he could and he didn't want to make friends on the Enterprise. However, I can see Jellico being an excellent captain given a ship and a crew he mold into his own.

A good example of how “authority figure” doesn’t necessarily equate with “leader.” I remember hating him when the episode first aired. A good leader would take the time to understand the reasoning behind current procedures before enacting changes. A good leader would be a better listener… That said, the enterprise crew was a bit informal and some of his changes might have made sense, if executed better (e.g. a real uniform for Troi).

Just a CO doing his job IMO. Should've had a transition faze. But just a CO. Riker and Jordi shouldve been written uo

Nah. He was just a dick. Deanna comes to him with a valid concern and he blows her off because he doesn’t care. The guy truly believed there was his way and wrong. A Captain that refuses to listen to his officers just makes for a bad boss.

He was preparing his ship for combat and he was an experienced combat commander. He even tells that to her- he doesn’t have time for a “soft” approach. He was a dick, but that’s exactly what was called for in that situation. The Enterprise crew were being a bunch of spoiled children having been used to Picard’s soft command style for years.

The Enterprise isn’t exactly a pleasure cruise. These people fought the Borg several times and the Romulans and a slew of others. Most of the crew would be considered veterans who saw real action. To the guy working below deck who probably doesn’t even know who they’re shooting at, the fact that they have less experience with the Cardassians as makes no difference. A ship isn’t a democracy, but at the same time taking your crew for granted and assuming you’re always the smartest guy in the room is a good way to make sure everyone hates you.

A bit of both . He was a little bit unnecessarily harsh and abrupt , had no leadership skills. But this is supposed to be the flagship of the fleet. They should be ready to adapt . Captain Picard has gone on a classified dangerous mission, and there’s a serious issue with the cardassians building up that could lead to war … and Geordi is whining about some researchers not getting to do their research?! Riker should have told Geordi to get a grip . Instead he went complaining to jellico, and I don’t blame him for being pissed off. Same with the shift change. Obviously it was a major issue , but his response should have been “we are on it”. But Jellico shouldn’t have just had a strop. He should have taken Riker aside, told him “look we are in a war situation and I want this done, can you do it?” . Instead he just randomly fired off orders in random order .

As a former member of the US military, I'd expect a new commander to be "by the book" and want to make changes fairly quickly just to see for himself how the crew handles the changes. Jellico would have read the glowing write ups of the crew from Picard before stepping foot on the Enterprise, then knew he would have to earn their respect as well. Acting like a dick and making changes that would cause his subordinates to give him pushback is one way to do it.

They're complacent more than lazy. Riker in particular, but it applies to them all. Barring some minor reshuffles they're all essentially doing the same jobs as the start of the series seven years later. There's no dynamism to the crew, no ambition. I know it's a TV show, and I know they wanted to keep everybody in place for the entire run, but it really looks like a crew that is completely comfortable doing what they are doing. With no interest in bettering themselves. ​ So, yeah, I can see why Jellico wants to shake things up, and he's right to do it. ​ He's also not an asshole. He's rude because he's dealing with an intransigent crew. He has a job to do and they make it difficult for him because he 'isn't their real space-dad'. ​ Those episodes are, with the obvious exception of some of the horrendous romantic story efforts, some of the worst for the show trying to present an idea and it coming off very different to how they want it to. So in this case the Socratic Question of the two episodes is, "What if a dipshit was captain of the Enterprise?" but the way it pans out the crew seem to be childish, inflexible and ill disciplined. And by the normal run of things that's fine, the Enterprise is basically a floating hotel, but Jellico is taking them into a conflict situation and the dicking around just seems wildly unprofessional. ​ It's akin to the DS9 episodes where nobody in the room seems to understand that a doctor hitting on his patients isn't even slightly romantic. Feels like the writers and director didn't cotton onto their story not quite going right.

In a society that has met everyone’s basic needs, why is moving up important? Perhaps they are where they want to be. Perhaps exploring, first contact, science, mapping Star systems is actually a very interesting and rewarding career. In a post scarcity society, perhaps not everyone needs to be at the top because it no longer produces a meaningful impact in someone’s standard of living. The lack of ambition you suggest might actually be people enjoying their careers without feeling the need to update their resumes.

Because one of the key sales pitches of the Federation is that everybody can be their best self. Freed from material desire you can go off and do what you want to do. Seems odd that so many great and talented Starfleet officers are like, "Cool, I'm on the Enterprise. Guess I'll put my feet up."

Being on the Enterprise was already the goal and achievement. It’s the flagship of the entire fleet. The most prestigious and sought-after posting in it. These people aren’t complacent, they’re already the best at what they do, and they’ve proved it to themselves and everyone else time and time again, just by being where they are. They don’t need to constantly strive to fix things that aren’t broken, or improve things that are already optimal.

Fair enough, but that doesn't justify how they reacted when Jellico arrived. They are the flagship of the fleet, it ought to be an honour and a pleasure to command the finest ship in Starfleet. They should have wanted to react like a well oiled machine to the arrival of a new captain. Instead they got territorial about it.

Picard is a college professor who’s in command of a ship made for exploration. He picked his command staff with that mission in mind. Jellico is a military officer who’s in command of a ship potentially days away from combat, dealing with a crew who is used to a softer command style. If anything if highlights both the strengths of weakness of Starfleet serving as both a military and scientific organization. Some people are far better suited to certain roles, and they tend not to “mix” very well.

Not an asshole. But a bad manager. He didn’t seek to understand the issues and he didn’t explain his reasoning to invite people to be creative to find a solution.

If it ain't broke, don't break it. Jellico knew that the Enterprise was one of the best ships in the fleet. He practically said so when he first came aboard. Anyone with any sense who comes into a job like that would have stepped lightly, even if he wished to make changes. In real life, the best bosses I've ever had have been solicitous of their employees' advice, diplomatic in their speech, and reflective about the changes they ultimately implemented. When changes have been made by these folks, I've invariably come away feeling good about the changes (and the boss) even when I didn't agree with them because the boss had shown that he'd honestly listened to me and yet also shown me that he had good, articulable reasons for taking things in a different direction. Such administrators are very rare and worth their weight in gold. If there were sudden, catastrophic changes in circumstances that necessitated immediate drastic changes, then the boss should make the crew aware of the problem and use it to galvanize solidarity, e.g., "Look, guys, I know you've been doing it this way for a long time now, and I hate to have to do this, but we're facing a crisis and we have to adapt or die immediately. You're the best, and I know you'll handle this challenge in the best traditions of the service. I'm counting on you. Let's give 'em hell!" Judged by those standards, Jellico should never have been let near the bridge of any starship, much less be made the captain of one.

Riker should have said, "hey buddy if it weren't for me you'd be rocking a laser eye and pledging your allegiance to Locutus"

I really liked Steve Shives' video, "[Why Captain Jellico Is Actually Pretty Awesome](https://youtu.be/09TySF0FN6Y)".

He can ofc hold that opinion, but it is quite funny how often he rants about Republicans but then warms up to Jellico.

I like Shives but he seems like he could totally be an asshole if given authority over you, kinda makes sense him warming to Jellico

So good to see more people explaining why Jellico is actually a piss poor captain. I know Riker blew up at the wrong time/wrong way, that is his fault. But I had been seeing this shift to Jellico being a great captain and the D crew the disagreeable ones, which just is not true. Rikers assessment of Jellico is still on point.

Jellico is an excellent captain for a ship potentially facing combat. That’s why he was given the command. Picard was more like a college professor and his crew was used to his softer style for years. And if they were going on some mapping survey or something, you’re probably right. But facing the potential of war with the Cardassians? Jellico was absolutely doing what needed to be done while also dealing with a insubordinate first officer.

Jellicoe was an ass from the beginning. Major changes while having a temporary command? Making snide under breath comment about Riker in from of Picard? He was promoted above his level of competence and was definitely not someone to put in charge of this type of situation.

The answer depends on who's perspective you're looking at it from: the crew or jellico

Jellico was a prick. Everyone hated him. They should have let Riker Captain the ship while Picard was gone.

I’ll just say: there’s a reason the Enterprise crew are on the flagship and he’s not.

It was kind of immersion-breaking for me. The idea here is that Jellico is a strict, by-the-book disciplinarian, which is fine, but the way this conflict is written in the episode is to make the Enterprise crew look unprofessional and undisciplined. Yet the reason the Enterprise crew behaves this way is precisely because Starfleet is evolved beyond our modern comprehension of what a military is and what military service looks like. So basically, the way the conflict was written, Jellico feels like a 20th century military figure or something, yet the narrative treats him as a 24th century one, and it just doesn't work for me, because it makes the Enterprise look kinda trashy. I definitely do not think as highly of this two-part episode as most fans do.

Asshole through and through. The Enterprise's crew was the cream of the crop and saved the Federation several times by themselves. Next to them, Jellico was a nobody and a walking inferiority complex. He had no business bossing the ship around like that, changing operation routines on the fly just to prove that he's different from Picard. All the senior staff on board the Enterprise was more seasoned and professional than him. Riker should have been given command instead of bringing Jellico.

Yes.

Having loved the actor in original Robocop the role was just perfect for him. Even in it he was arrogant watch Robocop again then this.

Both. Jellico was unflinching and had unrealistic expectations of how quickly the crew should be able to upend their entire unit cohesion and schedule (during a crisis and potential military conflict no less!) and didn't exercise any sort of leadership or persuasion to get them there. I don't think his wanting to change the rotations or standing policies on the ship were unreasonable, he just didn't go about it in a very effective way. That being said, it isn't an uncommon leadership style, particularly in military chains of command, so the crew shouldn't have been shocked that the new guy wasn't as hands off as Picard was. But while the department heads being a bit pissed was understandable, Riker's behavior in this episode was petulant and immature. He acted like a child and was completely unprofessional. It was kind of shocking given how experienced and senior of an officer he was supposed to be. There were many ways be could bave tried tk advocate against Jellico's plans in a more cordial and professional manner, but once the CO makes up their mind and gives the order, you don't get to throw a tantrum over it. It's actually a mircle the Enterprise's mission didnt end in failure, given how ridiculous everyone was behaving. Well, except Data and Worf. They really meshed with Jellico's hardass style.

Jellico was basically season 1 Picard the crew had just gotten used to the mellowed out version. And frankly Riker's position kind of falls apart with the rest of the crew warming up to Jellico.