The blockade distributes Enterprise officers among ships whose crews and command arrangements are already unsettled. Data arrives as a lieutenant commander to take over from another lieutenant commander, so formal authority must do work that an established rank relationship and team normally would. Data deserves the opportunity, but inserting him without a chosen second-in-command or time to build trust creates an avoidable command problem. The arrangement repeats the Jellico problem on a smaller scale: Starfleet changes command personnel at the moment a delicate operation demands continuity. It also removes another senior officer from Picard's already depleted flagship staff.
Notable Point · 49:45-53:08
Giving Data command without an established team
Data deserves a ship, but dropping him into an unfamiliar command at equal rank to its existing commander repeats the disruption created by Jellico's transfer.