The title of this post comes from a recent review of a Babylon 5 episode by one of my favorite online sci fi reviewers, Chuck "SFDebris" Sonnenberg. In the review, he likens the comparison between B5's former CO, Jeffrey Sinclair, and its later CO, John Sheridan, to the big "Kirk vs. Picard" debate.



Well, I'm in a mood for jihad. Who do you think was the better Captain?

That's easy, Picard of course. TNG being my favorite show of all of them.

JTK, in my opinion. I'm old enough to remember the original series, and at one time I had every episode on VHS (how's that for dating myself?). He will always be the best for me.

You may as well get rid of all the other options because it's always going to be Kirk versus Picard.

And Picard wins on account of his not trying to mate with every female they encountered.

Picard wins, IMO. "Make it so!" and I'll have that nice cup of Earl Grey tea now.

-- Nephele

"Earl Grey, Hot."

I actually started drinking Earl Grey after seeing how much Picard enjoyed it. And it is really good tea!

Totally off-topic, but I think it smells EXACTLY like Froot Loops cereal.

hehehehe Maybe it was the brand. I only drink Twinings.

I thought I'd be the only one, but looks like someone else voted for Sisko too.

Don't get me wrong. I adore Picard (so much so that I've happily gone to see the man himself twice on stage - in Hamlet with David Tennant and in Waiting for Godot with Sir Ian "Gandalf" McKellen). However... Space hots aside, in the end, there is only one man to split infinitives where no man has split them before. It's... James T "There's... Something...on.. the wing" Kirk.

I just did. He is a strong, forceful yet thoughtful character and lears a tremendous amount as station commander and then captain. And doing all that while being such a wonderful parent. I remember the episode where he died/disappeared and Jake goes spending his life looking for him (Sisko would appear and disappear every so often). I cried buckets over that one.

And yes, Picard is superb but at times he seems TOO perfect (I know there's no such thing, there's either perfect or not, but you get the idea).

Sisko's speech pattern bugged the hell out of me; like a breathless version of Kirk. I can't think of Jeff Archer without imagining Dean Stockwell beaming down like an alternate universe Mudd, complete with funky looking tricorder. Janway just reminds me of a patronising granny. Picard I remember from Open University programs where he had some curly hair clinging on for dear life. Pat Stuarts Shakespear was good though. So, Canada wins again.

I would vote for alt Spock (mirror, mirror) if I could. He rocked!

I was actually thinking about that episode recently and how awesome it is. Tony Todd's performance as older Jake rocked. I haven't seen DS9 in ages....

Not really dating yourself at all; just depends on when the reruns aired in your area. I was in Kindergarden when I started watching TOS reruns, and I'm 29. My mom's best friend at the time had all the episodes and the films that had come out then - that was, oh, circa 1987/1988, so I'd say The Motion Picture to The Voyage Home - on VHS. Not only that, but how long did VHS stick around? 'Til, what, the mid-1990s? If I were to go by that alone, that puts your age at, I'd say, at least 25-30 minimum. Am I close?




Before DS9 hit the airwaves (and even for a long time after), I'd have agreed. I was six when TNG first hit the airwaves, and I've grown up with that show more than I have TOS. I've got very fond memories of the Enterprise-D, so much so that the crew feels more like extended family than TV characters. Just a break-down of what the two captains have been through tells you much about who's got the inner fortitude:

Kirk's career highlights: saved the Federation on numerous occasions; iconoclast who enjoys bringing down false "gods" (or powerful entities masquerading as gods); time-traveler; made Admiral; saw his best friend die and get resurrected; lost his illegitimate son (the one he knew of, anyway; how many alien cross-bred Kirklets are out there, ya think?); lost his (stolen) ship, got a new one (Enterprise-A); lost his promotion; engaged in numerous battles against the Klingons; instrumental in peace efforts with the Klingons; arrested for the potential assassination of the Klingon chancellor; died while in retirement due to an energy ribbon, ultimately slain by a random TNG bad guy of the week (who was put in a film for no reason).

Picard's career highlights: saved the universe on numerous occasions; has managed to put up with Q without punching him (a feat Sisko could never duplicate) for seven years; time-traveler; made Ambassador (according to the backstory for Star Trek Online, which is set 30 years after TNG); made to relive the loss of his previous command, the Stargazer; alien probe made him live out an entire lifetime; served as a long-term mindmeld "conduit" between Sarek and Spock (not to mention assisting Sarek with peace talks via mindmeld); transformed into a child via transporter accident; died and was resurrected by Q (who made him relive his days at the Academy, specifically the moment he had his heart replaced by an artificial one after a brutal stabbing; captured and interrogated by the Cardassians ("There are four lights!"); captured and assimilated by the Borg (making him indirectly responsible for the massacre at Wolf 359; this is like Saudi terrorists using "Manchurian Candidate" style tactics to brainwash you into causing a September 11th-like event); lost his ship, got a new one (Enterprise-E); instrumental in the selection of a new Klingon chancellor; instrumental in post-Dominion War peace talks with the Romulan Star Empire (after killing off a legitimate Romulan praetor, Shinzon, and getting away with it without any negative repercussions from the Romulans); watched his friend (Data) die (and, according to the Star Trek Online backstory and Star Trek: Countdown - a comic series covering the span of time between Star Trek: Nemesis and the destrution of Romulus seen in Star Trek written by J.J. Abrams' writers - get resurrected).

Yeah, I'd say Picard's been through a lot more. Hell, the fact that he doesn't have some form of dissociative personality disorder after serving as host to three other personalities - that one alien dude, Locutus of Borg and Sarek - speaks of his mental stamina!




Same here.




It totally does, especially the Bigelow brand.




That would be me. I was always a massive Deep Space Nine nerd when it came out, but I didn't truly appreciate Sisko until I started watching SFDebris' reviews of DS9 episodes. Aside from the fact that he is 1.) one of the most realistic, down-to-Earth black male leads on television (without making him a walking stereotype or a clone of Chris Tucker, Chris Rock or Samuel L. Jackson) and 2.) a demigod (most Trek captains spend their time badmouthing god-like beings; Sisko effing becomes one) and messiah figure for an alien species, he is one of the most realistic human beings Trek has given us and easily the most emotionally passionate commanding officer out of all of 'em. Kirk and Picard were the exemplars of the "Starfleet perfection" of their era, the Roddenberry-ish ideals. Sisko was not. He was every bit the modern man, willing to overstep boundaries and even challenge his own principles to get the job done, especially when caught in a difficult moral situation you'd never find peacenik Picard or "cold warrior" Kirk in (specifically, being at the forefront of an interstellar war). He's more human than either of them at times, not to mention a good father figure and husband, t'boot!

SFDebris' reviews have really shown a lot of hidden sides to Deep Space Nine. Exhibit A: His review of "The Siege of AR-558", one of the most gut-wrenching war episodes of DS9 (directed by a Vietnam veteran, so the episode has that awesome, gritty "wartime" feel to it, so out of place for Trek, yet so innovative, too). This is the review made famous for his Sisko parodying ("Now, if you'll excuse me, Starfleet's about to award the Christopher Pike [Medal of Valor] to my dick,") and for referring to the U.S.S. Defiant as the "U.S.S. Ben Sisko's Motherfucking Pimp-Hand" (which is the damned funniest nickname for a Trek ship ever), all while giving a well-studied critical analysis of the differences between Picard and Sisko based on how they dealt with their experiences with the Borg. ("Picard faced the Borg, and after it was done ruining his life, he stood in his office and drank Earl Gray. Sisko faced the Borg, and after it was done ruining his life, he fumed at it from an escape pod... then went off to design a ship whose only purpose is to kill Borg.")




I'd love to see Waiting for Godot, but every time I'd see Steward and McKellan on stage, I'd have all the "Magneto vs. Prof X" lines from the X-Men films flitting through my head.




I get exactly what you mean. He seemed a little too on his moral "high-horse" at times, especially during Seasons 1 & 2 of TNG. It was all Roddenberry pimping out that "Starfleet gospel" of his about how the humans of our era were "greedy" and "backward", and how the people who populated the paradise Earth of Trek's future were so "enlightened" and "advanced"... Yeah, that's swell, but Paradise is boring. That's why everyone who wanted a little excitement had to leave Earth and go out into space. (Here in our modern "non-Paradise" Earth, if you want excitement, you sign on with the military and get shipped out to Iraq or Afghanistan. In Star Trek, you sign on with Starfleet and get shipped off to Cardassia or Delta Vega. That's a long way to go to die on foreign soil looking for adventure, don'tcha think?) Sisko is - much moreso than Picard - the kind of guy who left Earth looking for that adventure, and he found it in spades at Deep Space Nine.

Moreover, he dealt with the consequences of his actions. Kirk, Picard, Archer, Janeway... None of them had to deal with that (or if they did, it was a rare occasion). They could beam down, fuck up some planet's entire society, beam back up to their ships and warp away, probably never to hear from that planet again (unless the writers ran out of ideas). Poor Sisko was stuck on a space station. He could take a piss without it affecting local politics between the Bajorans and the Cardassians in some manner, so his every move had to be carefully thought through or he'd have to deal with the implications of it for years after.


By the way, I noticed that nobody has voted for Janeway, the first female Trek captain, yet. Was she written that poorly?




"Ziggy says you've gotta fix some situation with someone called the 'Suliban' before you can leap outta here, Sam!"



The goatee was damn sexy.




That was an insanely great episode! So was "In the Pale Moonlight", the episode where Sisko masterminds the death of a Romulan official in order to drag them into the Dominion War on the Federation's side. That episode rocked my world!