6x10 Chain of Command (1)

[8.6/10] One of the jarring things about revisiting the early seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation is, well, how much of a dick Picard is. He’s brusque with Riker. He’s curt and demanding of his crew. And very little seems to make him happy. Every once in a while, some softness smuggles its way in, but for the most part, those early installments center on a grumpier captain who’s unsentimental about his crew.

In-universe, it’s easy to say that after years of service together, Picard gradually softened and warmed toward his charges. As early as “Coming of Age”, late in season 1, Lt. Remmick observes that Picard runs his ship like a family. One of the strengths of TNG, and something that’s made it live on in the hearts of minds of fans in the years since it left the airwaves, is how it fostered that communal bond and sense of friendship among its major players.

Enter Captain Jellico, a no nonsense, domineering, decidedly uncuddly replacement, who’s the opposite of anything and everything Picard. The Enterprise’s regular captain welcomes feedback, discussion, and debate. Jellico simply gives orders and lets his charges know that if he wants their opinion, he’ll ask for it. Picard is sensitive to the needs and capabilities of his crew. Jellico sets a high standard and expects his subordinates to live up to them, no matter what it takes. Picard is the dignified, reserved, intellectual statesman. Jellico is the hard-headed, dick-swinging, rambo negotiator.

So when we see an admiral relieve Picard of his post (in the teaser no less!) and replace him with someone who runs exactly contrary to the standard Jean-Luc has set for five and a half seasons, we feel the same way the crew does: affronted and annoyed.

Who is this asshole? What gives him the right to barge in here and turn everything on the Enterprise, not to mention The Next Generation, upside down? Why doesn’t he recognize and appreciate all the good these people have done, how much they’ve accomplished, under the old way of doing things before he set one foot in the ready room? Writer Ronald D. Moore and company do an incredible job of making the viewer feel what the characters do, understanding their frustration because it’s our frustration too.

And good lord, the stakes of his one! The Cardassians have mutagenic (read: biological) weapons that could not only wipe out all life on a planet, but leave the infrastructure intact and the leftover technological goodies ripe for the taking. They’re posturing for all-out war with the Federation! Not only are Picard, Dr. Crusher, and Worf sent on a secret mission to stop them, but it’s widely acknowledged there’s a good chance they won’t come back. And god help us all, if they don’t, the crew of the Enterprise and the audience will both be stuck with Jellico for the foreseeable future.

In short, “Chain of Command” nigh-instantly feels like a big deal. There is the geopolitical, clash of civilizations storytelling at play, as Star Trek revisits the troubles with the Cardassians and sets conflicts up for Deep Space 9. There’s internal politics at play, as how the ship is run and how Starfleet command can pull the rug out from under an entire crew comes to the fore. There’s personal strife, as Riker, Troi, and others bristle at their new leader. And there’s spy-like tension as Picard and his strike team embark on their secret mission to infiltrate enemy territory and stop a weapon of mass destruction. TNG pulls out all the stops for its mid-season finale, and the heightened sense of purpose behind it all works like gangbusters.

Much of that owes to how both halves of the story work. While Jellico is practically instituting martial law, Jean-Luc, Beverly, and Worf are exhausting themselves preparing for their quest. The secrecy of the specifics, kept from the viewer and Picard’s seconds, only adds to the intrigue of what they must train so hard for. The necessity for them to go outside of official channels and sneak into Cardassian space via a Ferrengi smuggler has a certain outlaw cool factor. (Though I could do without Crusher’s biggest act in all of this being to flirt with the Ferengi captain.) And their spelunking adventure and eventual firefight with their foes has the verve of an action movie.

More to the point, there’s power in the fact that for all Picard’s past experience with theta particles, for all of the practice he and his team undertake before blasting off, for all the rough-and-tumble spycraft they have to master to achieve their mission, it’s all for naught. The whole shebang was a trap, one hatched by the Cardassians to secure the decorated captain of Starfleet’s flagship, to use for both information and a bargaining chip. It reestablishes these antagonists as worthy adversaries, ones challenging Jellico in the boardroom and Picard on the battlefield, with both keeping the audience’s blood pumping.

In brief, both plots in “Chain of Command” could warrant their own episode. (Which is good, since it’s a two-parter!) More than that, they fit together well. The demands of this clandestine mission not only take Picard away from his usual post, but make it so that Riker, Troi, and Geordi can’t turn to their usual allies when dealing with their new captain’s nonsense. The heightened risk from possible Cardassian aggression helps to explain the Admiral’s choices and Jellico’s more confrontational posture. The events of Picard’s mission complicate Jellico’s negotiation position. The two tales feed one each other, generating some wonderful narrative synergy.

And for all that excitement, what I like most about the first half of “Chain of Command” is the way it’s a quiet referendum on the last five years of The Next Generation. As easy as it is to reflexively hate Jellico for the way he barges in and insists everything be changed and done to his specifications, the episode asks whether he has a point under current circumstances, or whether Picard’s way is the right way.

In support of the latter, we have...the last five years of success. More than that, we see how the techniques that have proved so successful for our heroes fall on deaf ears under Jellico’s command. We know Commander Riker to be an exemplary officer who’s saved the day more times than he’s even found an excuse to play the trombone. But Jellico slates him for daring to have an opinion and failing at the good old “read my mind” game.

Counselor Troi comes to him to convey the crew’s anxieties in the hopes of a gentler approach, as she often has with Picard, only to be brushed off, condescended to, and essentially told that it’s her problem. Geordi is ordered to work around the clock to remake the very functions of the ship in Jellico’s image, with the stress and strain and human cost of those efforts seemingly immaterial to the new exacting commander. The only officer who flourishes under Jellico is, naturally, Data, who’s all but immune to the emotional impact and practical limitations that his colleagues are.

Over the years, we’ve come to know the hallmarks of Picard’s Enterprise: the research, the exploration, the camaraderie. In little more than a few days, Jellico practically blasts it out the airlock without a second thought and implicitly chastises the whole crew (and with them, Picard) for how things used to be.

But there’s an argument that Jellico is a necessary wartime chief. He may be demanding and even unfair, but he’s working against a mortal threat from a bold enemy. Maybe he’s insisting on these changes and eschewing debate not out of a refusal to hear other points of view, but because the ticking clock and gravity of the threat means he doesn’t have the time to countenance it. His games at the negotiating table and “swing a big stick” tactics may seem juvenile (or worse, like the mercenary tactics of 1980s boardroom battlers like Ronnie Cox’s Dick Jones from Robocop), but he’s working against enemies who can be vicious in both diplomacy and battle. He may not even disagree with Picard’s normal methods, but find them unfit for war, which is what he’s been enlisted to prepare the Enterprise for.

It’s still maddening to watch. It’s still easy to feel like Picard’s way of handling this would be a thousand times better. Gone is the enlightened explorer and big ol’ nerd who once emphasized that “Starfleet is not a military organization” and in his place is a gruff general who runs the ship like a machine full of interchangeable parts so as to be ready for the next skirmish. That’s a tough pill to swallow. But as the soon-to-debut Deep Space 9 and even Enterprise would explore, the prospect of war brings out...different needs and different styles of command from those in charge.

The smartest, and most terrifying thing “Chain of Command pt. 1” does is convince you that this could be the new status quo. After so many missions aboard the Enterprise, the firm but kind leader who forged something inviting and aspirational is gone and may never return. His hard-won esprit de corps may be shattered in an instant. And its place, for his ship and the show, may be something that harkens back to the series’s earliest days, when the captain was surly, the crew seemed less happy and more interchangeable, and the prospect of grave conflict rests on the horizon. This landmark episode taunts us with that possibility, and only leaves the faintest of hints of the light at the end of the tunnel.