[Christopher Halsey]

COMMUNITY DEBATE

WORST EXECUTIVE OFFICER

Ok so it looks like William T Riker is the best XO, now it's time to decide who the worst is.

When answering please be sure to let everyone know why you have voted the way you have, do you simply not like the XO from a personal perspective or do you think they just aren't well suiting to be a trusted right hand and if not what is it about them that leads you to think this?

[Christopher Halsey]

I'm half expecting KerryMalone to make an evil comment about Zach...

[Mark Okuda]

Well I just don't like Chakotay, but T'Pol is a close second. I just don't like either one of them but since T'Pol is a woman and not too shabby looking. Chakotay takes the rotten tomato.

[Christopher Halsey]

Well I just don't like Chakotay, but T'Pol is a close second. I just don't like either one of them but since T'Pol is a woman and not too shabby looking. Chakotay takes the rotten tomato.

Well I guess it could be considered a bit shallow but that is some strong reasoning there.

Out of interest what is it you don't like about them? Is it something to do with their personality or how they carry out their duties?

[Solace]

Personally I thought Chakotay was the worst XO simply because his character was often like a wet towel! While this may be the fault of the writers for not developing his character more (Chakotay Janeway romance anyone?). He didn't really carry out many XO duties like Riker would have. For example; crew evaluation reports... If he done his job its possible Harry might have got a promotion?

Either way, he often stated the obvious on screen and was kind of a secondary character in most scenes. It would have interesting to explore a possible on screen romance between him and Janeway though, there was enough precedent and character interaction between the two to make it a thing. The Seven of Nine romance seemed very shoehorned in with the Chakotay character.

If anything he was more like Janeways moral compass than Voyager's First Officer.

[Kerry Malone]

I don't need to say anything, this signature says it all...



On the more serious note, the worst "Canon" XO ever...

Well, its not Riker - so that rules him out.

Spock was not the worst XO by any means, simply because he was doing double-duty 95% of the time, and what we really focused more on was him as a Science Officer, than as a "Number One". To be fair, the role of XO wasn't truly defined until TNG, so its unfair to tarnish Spock with this brush, when the role was simply a secondary duty he performed in the absence of the Captain. He still did a poor job of managing things on his own, as keen observers of TOS will comment, but he was by far not the worst example.

Neither too is Kira, because she was second place in my book for best XO. She was let down by her unruly nature, her desire to constantly buck the chain of command when it suited her, and on occasion, blatantly disregard it. This does seem to be a fairly Bajoran trait however, (Ens. Ro Laren).

This leaves T'Pol and Chakotay.

Well, T'Pol was again pulling double-duty, but because ENT came out well after TNG, her position as "First Officer" was far more defined in the series - so she was able to actually pick up some of it. She did do an admirable job of commanding the NX-01 in Archer's absence, which was quite frequent, so she gets considerable props for that. Her personnel management skills were somewhat lacklustre, but I put that down to her considerable experience of working with Vulcans predominately, and her very little interaction with humans at the point of Enterprise's departure in Season 1. She did however grow into the role, and did help Trip Tucker out quite a bit with the nude massages. Way to go the extra mile for your crew, Commander.

This leaves us with Chakotay - quite possibly the biggest wet blanket in Starfleet history. Okay, true, he was in Janeway's shadow - and that woman cast a BIG shadow. It also didn't help he was thrust into the position as a token XO so that the Maquess members absorbed in "Caretaker" felt represented in the command crew. For all intents and purposes, Tuvok was a much better XO than Chakotay, and doing so as Second Officer. So you had a strong Captain, a weak XO, and a strong Second Officer. That kind of made up for it. Unless there was some situation that required his indepth spiritual knowledge of the Indian spirits, or some Maquess situation that Be'lana couldn't deal with, he was far more a liability than an asset, (See Seska).

Therefore I vote for Chakotay to get the already earned accolade of "Worst XO Ever"... since Zach can't have it.

[Mark Okuda]

Yes it may have been a shallow joke. I can't quite pinpoint what it is about Chakotay. perhaps it was that he dind't seem to project authority and command as I got from Riker or Kira. I got the feeling from Riekr and Kira that they were the ones in command. What i got from Chakotay was that he might have a been a counselor rather than a First Officer.

[Christopher Halsey]

As a character I didn't much like Chakotay but I thought he tended to do ok as an XO.

He came across as popular with the crew which given the fact that he started off on the ship as a terrorist wasn't a small achievement. He was good at balancing his style, being jovial when it suited and authoritative when needed. He seemed to do a good job of commanding the ship in Janeway's absence especially when it came to combat situations. I think he balanced diplomacy with assertiveness better than most XOs when dealing with alien species and he did a good job of telling Janeway she was an idiot when she was being an idiot (which was often).

I will always love the time he laid out one of the Maquis crewmen moaning about Tuvok's Starfleet crash course.


Sorry for the slightly rubbish video, best version I could find.

I'm not saying he was the best and as a character I really didn't like him but as an XO I think he was probably a little better than most give him credit for.

For me I think I would have to vote for T'Pol. Like Spock she was pretty terrible at managing people but Spock was at least a genius, T'Pol never seemed in his league in terms of intelligence or brainstorming. Archer seemed to have difficulty getting her to contribute anything constructive a lot of the time, she seemed too negative, anyone can spot problems but coming up with and implementing solutions is something else and, for me, she was lacking in that area. She also seemed to really struggle to adapt to her role and showed quite a bit of inflexibility, she often just seemed to be a Vulcan High Command quote database.

[Michael]

Note before I say why, I do love Kira's character and how she portrays it. But Kira is the worst XO out of the choices. Why? Well she's not part of Starfleet period. While she is still a military lady and I understand Sisko's reasoning for having her and it makes sense for the shows purpose. However she on several occasions just did w/e she wanted to do if especially in the beginning if she didn't care what Starfleet's opinion/decision was. And the Bajorians (yeah with good reason) were not even a part of Starfleet. So he deffinitely should have had a Starfleet XO, but again I did enjoy Kira. Just for the purpose of the poll options, her defiance (hehe) made her a terrible XO right along with T'Pol.

My runner up would definitely be T'Pol, again she's not Starfleet and Tucker should have 100% been the XO and T'Pol should not have "outranked him" in anyway. But since Tucker was also the chief engineer he had to be unavailable most of the time. That whole officer situation was a mess anyways as far as their ranks went. There should have actually been a Starfleet XO AND a chief engineer. And while I love all the ST series shows, I really had hoped that ENT was going to be a series further in the ST timeline than Janeway/Sisko was instead of further in the past. And on a side note I'm not hopeful for the upcoming ST series in 1.5 years if it does happen.

[Christopher Halsey]

As great an officer as Kira was I can see where you are coming from, she was at least initially very high maintenance which isn't really what you want from your XO.

[Infinity]

I have to agree with the other people in this thread, I think that Commander Chakotay was the worst XO. As Mark said, he didn't seem to project authority. He didn't feel like an executive officer of a starship to me, he didn't project that authority and he was just placed there because it suited Captain Janeway. He has argued with Janeway on several occasions, I just don't think he was a good fit for an XO but he had to be placed there to get unity on Voyager. I definitely would've preferred Tuvok over Chakotay.

[Torinth]

Why would there be any doubt? Bloody chakotay and his vision quests...

[Kains]

Chakotay hands down. I can't see taking that dude seriously at all, and certainly had no respect for him. I can't see following his orders for any reason other than 'I have to'.

The others I can see in leadership, but Chakotay I would be expecting to flake all the time.


... and I think I've missed an in joke here.

[Tain]

Personally I thought Chakotay was the worst XO simply because his character was often like a wet towel! While this may be the fault of the writers for not developing his character more (Chakotay Janeway romance anyone?). He didn't really carry out many XO duties like Riker would have. For example; crew evaluation reports... If he done his job its possible Harry might have got a promotion?

Either way, he often stated the obvious on screen and was kind of a secondary character in most scenes. It would have interesting to explore a possible on screen romance between him and Janeway though, there was enough precedent and character interaction between the two to make it a thing. The Seven of Nine romance seemed very shoehorned in with the Chakotay character.

If anything he was more like Janeways moral compass than Voyager's First Officer.

That about sums it up for me.

[Ned'ya]

Note before I say why, I do love Kira's character and how she portrays it. But Kira is the worst XO out of the choices. Why? Well she's not part of Starfleet period. While she is still a military lady and I understand Sisko's reasoning for having her and it makes sense for the shows purpose. However she on several occasions just did w/e she wanted to do if especially in the beginning if she didn't care what Starfleet's opinion/decision was. And the Bajorians (yeah with good reason) were not even a part of Starfleet. So he deffinitely should have had a Starfleet XO, but again I did enjoy Kira. Just for the purpose of the poll options, her defiance (hehe) made her a terrible XO right along with T'Pol.

I agree with everything stated here, couldn't have put it better myself