Warning: This Article Contains SPOILERS for Star Trek: Picard Season 3, Episode 4 – "No Win Scenario"
Star Trek is often defined by its popular, virtuous Captains, but not every Starfleet commanding officer is so prototypically heroic. Star Trek, as conceived by creator Gene Roddenberry, is supposed to be an idyllic future where humanity has overcome such issues as poverty, disease, and bigotry. This idealistic take on the future was originally embodied by Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) in Star Trek: The Original Series, and perhaps most effectively by Star Trek: The Next Generation's Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart). Characters like Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) and Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) were a bit more complicated, but still objectively good officers.
While the Captain of the USS Enterprise tended to be a paragon of virtue, that's not true of all Star Trek Captains. Some Starfleet commanding officers could come across as arrogant, self-involved careerists, while a few others crossed the line into much darker territory. The controversial Captains tend to serve as mirrors for Star Trek's less morally complicated heroes, proving that while humanity has made great strides by the 24th century, people in positions of power remain fallible, and vigilance is still necessary.
