A.J.'s Nerd Question of the Week: Picard or Kirk?

Strangely I was just thinking this yesterday as I am watching TNG in full on Netflix.

I used to be a 100% Kirk man, but now I'm not so sure. So I thought I'd put it to what makes a good captain in these series. A couple of qualifiers first though - I have no actual stats on this stuff, just my gut. Secondly, since there is only 3 seasons of Kirk to the 7 of Picard, I'm going to average out things (not total).

1. The Mission - So the mission is for them to explore new worlds and new life. Well I think this is pretty even. Sure Picard finds more worlds and new life but that's again because of the 7 seasons. It DOES seem though that Picard finds more non-human life but thats just because of the makeup budget for TNG. So new life is new life, whether humanoid or not.

Result = Even

2. The Do Not Disturb clause (Starfleet Non-Interference) - Pssshaw! Picard wins this without even thinking about it. Kirk has one idiom in life - mess everything up by punching guys and banging alien ladies. However, in his defense he does get pulled into sticky situations by the alien races so he's already interfered without even really doing anything.

Result = Picard

3. Protecting the lives on the ship - Pretty close on this one and I have no actual numbers. Most people would think Picard on this one but I'm not sure. The only people under Kirk that ever die is the "red shirts" and its actually more rare that one of those die than most people think. It is NOT the 1 per episode myth that follows the idea. Now on the other side of the ball is Picard, who NEVER has anyone die on away teams (except Tasha Yar but screw her). However, Picard often finds himself with entire decks of the ship getting holes punched in them sucking out huge quantities of crewmen. Kirk would never let anything bad happen to his Enterprise if only because he loves the ship more than the people on it. So by virtue of Kirk's ego, you're safer being on his ship.

Result = Kirk

4. Protecting the ship itself - Now here comes the fun part - Kirk loses. Remember that one time that he blew the whole damn thing up? Unforgivable. Although, he didn't have that handy "Prepare for saucer seperation" gizmo that Picard had. Either way...

Result = Picard

5. Protecting the interests of Starfleet - Very even here too, but not in the good column for either. Both are notorious disobeyers of Starfleet command (yes they are both always right in their insubordination (except for that time that Kirk wanted to commit genocide against the Klingons)). But Picard did become a Borg and with his knowledge of Starfleet command ending up blowing up 50 ships or so with catastrophic loss of live. Yes you can argue that it wasn't his fault but the Borgs, however Kirk would have never got himself in that situation in the first place.

Result = Kirk

6. Punching guys and banging ladies - Why bother.....?

Result = Kirk

7. Did more good for the universe than the other - Pretty interpretive here and impossible to quantify so I'm throwing it out (however the answer is Picard).

So the final tally is Kirk - 3, Picard 2

Did I miss anything?

One caveat - I'm only about halfway through season 5 on TNG and have watched 0 of the TNG movies since they came out. My thoughts might be swayed as time goes on.