Was Janeway -that- bad?

[Monroe]

I was watching a few episodes since my room mate was watching all seven seasons. Caught Year of Hell, and a few other random ones and then the Equinox episodes. And I gotta say outside of the Equinox episode all the other ones especially Year of Hell Janeway acted like a good captain. And she only lost it a little in the Equinox.

Now I remember her being kind of a bafoon. It is my second favorite series, behind ENT, so I never was too hard on her but she never impressed me before. Now though she doesn't seem to be making too many tactical errors. Am I just catching the right episodes here? Or have we greatly over exaggerated how bad of an officer she was?

[Reliant121]

I think her main problem was inconsistency. One moment she is all for prime directive and keeping things in the rulebook, next she is 'every man for himself'. I liked her as a person, but not for hypocracy. I can't think of any examples at this moment in time.

[Aaron]

I think her main problem was inconsistency. One moment she is all for prime directive and keeping things in the rulebook, next she is 'every man for himself'. I liked her as a person, but not for hypocracy. I can't think of any examples at this moment in time.

Her character was just badly written as you point out, hypocrisy being her biggest flaw. It's unfortunate, she had some good moments and Mulgrew is a decent actor. It's like Archer, same flaws and a waste of a good actor.

[Sionnach Glic]

If you analyse her character from a few certain episodes, she does indeed come off like a good, competant captain.
On the other hand, if you take her as a whole, she is (as Reliant rightly points out) inconsistant and hypocritical, seemingly making decisions purely on what mood she's in at that point and holding no remorse over any mistakes.

[Mikey]

Yep - inconsistency was the main problem. In certain cases, she had as large a set of cojones as any captain we saw; but there were also times she was willing to sacrifice her principles and curl up in a corner.

[Captain Seafort]

And she only lost it a little in the Equinox.

Other than attempting to murder an Equinox crewman, and going into full Ahab mode regarding Ransom. Equinox didn't even show her at her worst; we also have her incompetence in Caretaker (stranding the entire crew because she didn't know what a timer was), The Swarm (barging straight through the territory of a race know to be aggressively territorial and very dangerous) and Scorpion (saving the Federation's most dangerous enemy from destruction). Plus, of course, the chronic inconsistency already commented upon.

[Teaos]

She's just to much of a know it all most of the time, she doesnt delegate enought.

[Reliant121]

Out of Universe, she was poorly written. They had the chance to make a phenomenal captain out of Janeway. They got a pretty good actor in the line up, Mulgrew seems capable enough. And in some episodes she shows her strength. Year of Hell and the last episodes (Endgame?) strike me as being two of them, even if they both do that dangerous dance that includes time travel. But this was the beginning of the end for Trek as I see it. her writing was the left turn that took trek down the highway for failure.

That said, in Universe, it seems that she wavers her decision based on moods and fancies. Maybe she's on her period when she has a bad episode (oh, lets see...she has a lot of periods)

[Tyyr]

Actually to make that work I think you'd have to her be rational when PMSing and a psycho otherwise.

[Angharrad]

Actually to make that work I think you'd have to her be rational when PMSing and a psycho otherwise.

She could have been menopausal, there's no schedule with hot flashes.

[Teaos]

Seven years?

[Mikey]

Maybe the whole "evolving-into-a-space-newt" thing set back the time frame.

[Angharrad]

Seven years?

It's possible, she would have first been pre-menopausal, then menopausal . . .

Maybe the whole "evolving-into-a-space-newt" thing set back the time frame.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

it's a joke around here that Trek runs on "plot power," but one of the foundations of writing is to build strong characters. In this case it's as if the writers didn't treat the Janeway character as a block to build on but almost as a plot device in itself (the "Captain," not "Kathryn Janeway").

On the other hand, we're lucky Neelix never ran out of coffee!

[Tyyr]

I wish he had, just once. He would have been the first to die.