Tapestry
- Episode aired Feb 13, 1993
- TV-PG
- 45m
When Captain Picard's artificial heart fails, he is offered the rare opportunity to go back in time and set right the mistake that led to his demise.When Captain Picard's artificial heart fails, he is offered the rare opportunity to go back in time and set right the mistake that led to his demise.When Captain Picard's artificial heart fails, he is offered the rare opportunity to go back in time and set right the mistake that led to his demise.
- Penny Muroc
- (as Rae Norman)
- Ensign Armstrong
- (uncredited)
- Crewman Martinez
- (uncredited)
- Ensign Kellogg
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaPortraying the afterlife caused some technical problems. With John de Lancie in a white robe on a white background, the production crew were concerned that Q would appear as a floating head. Both actors were aware of the difficulties in the shot, and even de Lancie felt it made his performance in some scenes more subdued than usual. The staff thought this was perfect for a more serious Q episode.
- GoofsAs Picard chats with Q in the "afterlife", they pause their conversation and watch a visual recreation of the "young" Picard fighting with a bunch of Nausicaans. After the young Picard hits the first Nausicaan, he (the Nausicaan) falls backward and, as he hits the ground, his long black wig comes off. The Nausicaan then quickly rolls out of the camera shot, leaving the wig behind. (This all happens very quickly and is easier to see in slow motion.)
- Quotes
Lt. J.G. Jean-Luc Picard: You having a good laugh now, Q? Does it amuse you to think of me spending the rest of my life as a dreary man, with a tedious job?
Q: I gave you something most mortals never experience: a second chance at life. And now all you can do is complain?
Lt. J.G. Jean-Luc Picard: I can't live out my days as that person. That man is bereft of passion, and... and imagination! That is not who I am!
Q: *Au contraire*. He's the person you wanted to be, one who was less arrogant and undisciplined in his youth, one who was less like me. The Jean-Luc Picard you wanted to be, the one who did *not* fight the Nausicaans, had quite a different career from the one you remember. That Picard never had a brush with death, never came face to face with his own mortality, never realized how fragile life is... or how important each moment can, and should, be. So his life never came into focus. He drifted through much of his career, with no plan or agenda, going from one assignment to the next, never seizing the opportunities that presented themselves. He never led the away team on Milika III to save the ambassador, or took charge of the Stargazer's bridge when its captain was killed. And no one ever offered him a command. He learned to play it safe... And he never, *ever,* got noticed by *anyone.*
Lt. J.G. Jean-Luc Picard: You're right, Q. You gave me the chance to change, and I took the opportunity. But I admit now: it was a mistake.
Q: Are you asking me for something, Jean-Luc?
Lt. J.G. Jean-Luc Picard: Only for a chance to make things the way they were, the way I now realize they must be.
Q: Before, you died in sickbay. Is that what you want?
Lt. J.G. Jean-Luc Picard: I would rather die as the man I know is truly within me - with a full life, a *real* life, behind me - than have my name on the biography I just listened to.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Star Trek: Nemesis Review (2009)
- SoundtracksStar Trek: The Next Generation Main Title
Composed by Jerry Goldsmith and Alexander Courage
Picard wants to not be the sort of reckless youth who gets stabbed through the heart in a fight over a game of a pool. An event which one presumes helped lead him to become his on-show persona, a responsible man who is somber, sober, and wise. His youthful self was brash, reckless, and stupid, and he's grown to be the polar opposite of that.
Except now, according to Q, if he doesn't get stabbed through the heart he becomes too somber and not reckless enough? Are we supposed to believe that getting stabbed through the heart made him realize to never change? Picard repeatedly states in this episode and others that he's changed a lot since he was young. But he didn't change? And if he doesn't get stabbed through the heart he doesn't realize how precious life is, and realizing that is what causes him to do risky stuff in the line of duty? But if he never almost died and has no brush with death, he doesn't appreciate the fragility of life so he doesn't do reckless things? And by suffering no consequences for being hot-headed and irresponsible he over-learns the lesson to not be hot-headed and irresponsible?
Of course, I can easily see where the writer tripped over their own two feet on this. Picard regrets that as a young man he was a bit of an idiot and user of other people. And therein could be a lesson that, "Hey, who you were, even if you weren't perfect, is what helped make you become the much better person you are now." What a great literary theme for an episode. Except none of it makes any sense as written, as Picard learned a lesson getting stabbed, that lesson was to get serious. Because being serious and thoughtful is how he's shown as succeeding in life. So he can't now go back and time and be serious, and therefore become a failure because he never learned to be reckless and take risks. He was already reckless and took risks, he learned to temper that with foresight and reason.
If Picard avoids getting nearly stabbed to death what that should teach him is there are no consequences to being an immature jerk. So instead of being a milquetoast nobody thirty years later, he'd be an irresponsible, people user thirty years later, just like he was at 21. But the writer missed that, because they were thinking they wanted to show how taking risks and being daring is what made Picard a success. But Picard doesn't regret being a responsible 30-something who is willing to take charge in the moment, he regrets being a dumb 20-something who almost died in a bar fight. And there's just no way to make getting stabbed in a bar fight and then using the incredibly flimsy excuse of a near-death experience to paper over this moral idiot plot work. It just doesn't work if you're paying attention.
Also the morning-after scene with his female friend, who had been gazing at him in desperation up until that point, just really stuck out like a sore thumb. The "we ruined our friendship because we had sex," really feels dated nearly 30 years on, it's painfully clunky. Nobody would write a line like that nowadays, you can tell that's a writer raised in the 1950s, in a time with very different ideas about sex and sexuality. And of course, these are supposed to be 21 year-olds living centuries from now, for them to sound like they had to be born during the Eisenhower years really sounds goofy.
It's still a good episode because everything else in it works well, the acting, Q, the fun of Picard going back in time, but the point of the story really has lost it's luster watching this now as a more discerning adult.
- frankelee
- May 2, 2021
Details
- Runtime45 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1