The Missing Bridge Officers:

[In_Correct]

It seems that in the Star Trek TOS Movies there are two or three bridge officers constantly missing.

The first problem: is the missing First Officer. Although it is not very important to have a First Officer because in The Constitution Class starships, the first officer mans a station. The only time when there is a dedicated First Officer is in TMP, but that is only because Kirk says he is temporarily taking command of The Enterprise and demoting Decker to First Officer, leaving Decker to stand around while Kirk hogs The Captains Chair.

The second problem:

It seems that despite Spock being promoted to Captain in The Wrath Of Kahn. He is still Science Officer.

The third problem: is another missing bridge officer.

In TMP, they show a tactical station, manned by Checkov. Checkov's previous station is manned by Deanna (I mean, Ilia). When Ilia is abducted, she is replaced by Chief DiFalco who is still alive by the end of the film.

But she is gone by the next film. And Checkov is transferred to the U.S.S. Reliant. DiFalco seems to be replaced by Saavik, while Checkov is replaced by ... ?

The Search For Spock is pointless to examine because they are not given any assignment. Saavik is transferred to the U.S.S. Grissom and is seems Checkov is a navigator, tactical, and science officer.

The Voyage Home has Saavik departing yet again and Checkov takes over which leaves the Tactical position open.

The Final Frontier continues with the TOS Series arrangement, and it leaves the tactical position open.

In The Undiscovered Country, Valeris joins the bridge because Sulu is now captain of his own ship. But the tactical position continues to be unmanned.

There are plenty of characters that could have filled the position. Some of them had transferred elsewhere. Kyle and Rand are communications officers for other ships, and Chapel works at Star Fleet Command.

But why couldn't they just keep any of these other characters such as DiFalco, and Saavik,

and perhaps Xon who never even appeared on screen?

They could have filled the vacant positions aboard The Enterprise.

 

[FormerLurker]

By TWOK, ten years has gone by. It's no surprise DiFalco is long gone. And the tactical position was manned, by Count Rugen. By TFF, the new bridge has a different layout, and the tactical station is actually behind the Captain's chair. It wasn't manned because they had less than a skeleton crew aboard. In TUC, they had yet another bridge configuration, and where the tactical station is there, I have no idea, but since all the seats were taken, it was probably manned.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

Spock was both first officer and science officer throughout TOS and post-TVH, which was rare. Most crews had separate officers for each position.

In TWOK, Spock resumed his science officer duties only because Kirk assumed command of the vessel in an emergency.

As to your other points, it's likely that the officers in question took other positions. Their stations were filled by replacements, some of whom were extras/minor recurring chapters (e,g., Crewman Kimberly Ryusaki) who only appeared in background shots.

 

[BillJ]

They could have filled the vacant positions aboard The Enterprise.

They were filled, just by no one important to the stories.

 

[J.T.B.]

Since the bridge has to be manned 24/7, it should not be surprising to see varied personnel at the stations at different times. In TOS we would see Leslie, Hadley, Farrell, Kyle etc. and various unnamed people at helm and nav stations, I don't know why that would be different for the movies.

 

[loghaD]

The second problem:

It seems that despite Spock being promoted to Captain in The Wrath Of Kahn. He is still Science Officer.

That's not necessarily a problem, as the rank of Captain is separate from the role of commanding officer, or "captain". As was pointed out in one episode of DS9, if Cadet Nog ever had to take command of a vessel, he would be called "captain" ... but there wouldn't be anybody left to call him that.

It could be that Spock felt he would do more good on the Enterprise than commanding a ship of his own. Or perhaps because Vulcans have such long lifespans, he wasn't in any hurry to get his own ship.

 

[sbk1234]

Spock had said in multiple times on TOS that he had no desire to command. Although he held the rank of captain in TWOK, and briefly commanded Enterprise, it was in the role as a teacher on a training mission. He was very clear when he told Kirk that if the ship went on active duty, it would be better for Kirk to be in command.

 

[Timo]

It should be noted that the ship doesn't really have a command crew in most of the movies. What it has is a haphazard collection of substitutes, passengers and castaways.

ST:TMP: The ship launches far ahead of schedule, with the Science Officer dead but arguably with dozens of other officers simply left behind because they weren't immediately available for the positions they had been signed for. There's no sign of the original First Officer, but Decker readily assumes that position, along with a couple of others. We never learn whether the sum total of positions actually seen in that movie is anywhere near the intended set of positions for NCC-1701 after her refit. Does the Tactical position even exist? The console does, but there's no dialogue mention of its role, or of Chekov's.

ST2:TWoK: The ship launches on a training cruise with Admiral Kirk along as a birthday gift of sorts. We have no idea whether our regular heroes are part of the crew, or instead additional passengers who get to crew the consoles when the going gets tough. The whole ride seems hastily thrown together, and Kirk emphasizes that he doesn't have a crew, he has a kindergarden. A couple of missing key officers is only to be expected, really. And then Kirk takes aboard castaways to fill the gaps.

ST3/4: There is no command crew, just a bunch of fugitives. And then another pleasure cruise team at the very end.

ST5:TFF: There is a team taking part in a preplanned mission for a rare once. There's a First Officer (who happens to be the Science Officer), but there's no Tactical Officer. Then again, perhaps there never was, and Helm is the party responsible for firing the guns (now that those aren't being shortcircuited by a wormhole and in need of special attention, or given a man-in-the-loop purely for training purposes).

ST6:TUC: While the team is "whole" again, Spock really is aboard as a passenger/mission specialist, and him tripling as First Officer and Science Officer is especially awkward.

All in all, I wouldn't expect to see order on the bridge during these adventures, as opposed to adventures where the ship is conducting a routine mission of some sort.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[FormerLurker]

I disagree with the idea that Spock isn't considered part of the regular crew. In dialog he states unequivocally that he is part of the crew, but intends to leave it at the end of the current assignment. Just because he intends to leave doesn't mean he isn't supposed to be there. Spock mustering out is probably a part of the mass exodus the command crew is expecting to be part of as they stand down.

 

[Timo]

Agreed that formally Spock is the ship's First Officer and/or Science Officer in TUC, and Valeris is to be his eventual successor (even if not the immediate one). But Spock's real role aboard is to talk to Gorkon and make him feel at ease (nobody else in the universe can, it seems), making it awkward for the Vulcan to hold the additional positions. Couldn't Starfleet have spared an officer or two to help out Kirk here? Or did Spock himself try and keep the team as close to the TOS one as possible, to minimize the possibility of betrayal, and therefore burdened himself with extra work?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

^Given Spock's comments to Kirk (e.g., "I have personally vouched for you in this matter, Captain"), it's likely he wanted to keep the circle as small as possible. My sense is that Starfleet wanted to keep the peace summit under wraps until the actual negotiations were underway, so it would not have made sense to bring in additional outside officers for the Enterprise's mission.

 

[Timo]

The political moves behind the curtains must have been quite intricate, and on a short notice to boot. How did the Starfleet conspirators either suddenly convert Valeris to their cause or suddenly make Spock trust a relative outsider? Either scenario appears unlikely - Vulcans shouldn't "flip" and Spock seems to be describing a long process of grooming.

So I'd like to think that Valeris had a long relationship with Spock, and in fact was the party independently alerting the conspirators to the fact that Spock was talking treason with the enemy leader, and volunteering her services to putting an end to that. Without her butting in, the conspirators might have been far less inclined to let Spock have his way with the diplomatic mission; with an inside woman, they realized this was their best possible bet.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[starburst]

Star Trek TFF and TUC would seem to suggest that the helm/navigation are responsible for firing weapons as they were in TOS... That said I would assume both the original 1701 & 1701-A also had a stand alone weapons console seeming the refit did but in TWOK we saw Sulu fire the Phasers from his console on two separate occasions.

As for the other positions we didn't focus on those occupying helm, navigation or communications when it wasn't a member of the main crew or a recurring background cast member sat in the chair so its not surprising to see it happen in the films too. Having Chekov man the science station in TSFS makes sense as we saw him take over for Spock a number of times during TOS.

What I would have liked to have seen is more of the Decker type XO whether it be a regular role for that position or whether they always job shared. I wouldn't be opposed to seeing this role in DSC be someone with no formal station and their role is specifically as the First Officer coordinating with variation stations round the bridge as needed.

 

[TOMFAN]

How about the TNG crew in First Contact, there's no Security/Tactical officer.
When the rest of the senior staff have their meeting in the Observation Lounge there's no replacement for Worf.
Then as soon as Worf shows up on the bridge, Riker has him take over the position!

 

[tenmei]

It's supposed to be Lieutenant Daniels as Security/Tactical Officer in bth FC and INS according to the tie-in material.

 

[MacLeod]

The political moves behind the curtains must have been quite intricate, and on a short notice to boot. How did the Starfleet conspirators either suddenly convert Valeris to their cause or suddenly make Spock trust a relative outsider? Either scenario appears unlikely - Vulcans shouldn't "flip" and Spock seems to be describing a long process of grooming.

So I'd like to think that Valeris had a long relationship with Spock, and in fact was the party independently alerting the conspirators to the fact that Spock was talking treason with the enemy leader, and volunteering her services to putting an end to that. Without her butting in, the conspirators might have been far less inclined to let Spock have his way with the diplomatic mission; with an inside woman, they realized this was their best possible bet.

Timo Saloniemi

Well a period of months had passed between the Praxis explosion and the Starfleet meeting re: the Peace Negotians scheduled to take place on Earth. We have no idea at what point some of those conspirators become invovled.

 

[TOMFAN]

It's supposed to be Lieutenant Daniels as Security/Tactical Officer in bth FC and INS according to the tie-in material.

They could've at least let him attend the briefing in FC!
You'd have thought that since they were heading to the Neutral Zone, it would make sense for them to have the Security chief present, so he knew what was going on!
Maybe the Ent-E didn't have enough chairs!

 

[Lance]

It's supposed to be Lieutenant Daniels as Security/Tactical Officer in bth FC and INS according to the tie-in material.

Yeah I always suspected that was meant to be the intention, given he appeared in both movies. Clearly someone, director Jonathan Frakes maybe, was at least considering the idea of who was there instead of Worf.

Daniels' absence from NEM could be considered an oversight, but it's entirely possible (perhaps likely) that Worf has simply resumed the role at that point. Certainly deleted dialogue suggests he'd abandoned ambassadorial work, returning to his Starfleet commission seems to be the logical conclusion we can draw.

 

[Spot261]

They could've at least let him attend the briefing in FC!
You'd have thought that since they were heading to the Neutral Zone, it would make sense for them to have the Security chief present, so he knew what was going on!
Maybe the Ent-E didn't have enough chairs!

He was one eigth Romulan on his mother's side. They put him in the brig to be on the safe side, where he was assimilated by the borg then killed by Worf on the deflector dish.

 

[Aldo]

Are you thinking of LT. Hawk?