I was very saddened to hear about the death of Sir Patrick Stewart yesterday. In a week where Star Trek fans had already lost Walter Koenig, it was a double-gut-punch to also hear about Sir Pat's death at the age of 89.
I know we all think our heroes should live forever (and Sir Pat undoubtedly will, through his vast body of work in films, TV and on stage) but for me Sir Pat underpinned so many difficult periods in my life, and served as an inspiration from his character in real and actual life, as well as through his various screen personas.
But it was as the tough and characterful Starship Captain Jean Luc Picard that he had a particular impact (not least of all for being an extremely sexy bald man, like my good self!)
Many folk have called out their favourite episodes (nearly always "The Inner Light" which I actually found intensely irritating and didn't really like at all!) but the one that had the most impact on me was "Tapestry" - An episode where Picard is given the chance to go back to his Starfleet Cadet years, and live his life over again.
After a tragic accident, Picard wakes up thinking he's somehow entered the afterlife, only to find that Q has taken him out of space and time. Q puts forward an interesting proposition that might give Picard the chance to live, but he must return back to his cadet days to live his life over again.
Reluctantly Picard agrees, and finds himself in the past, though his appearance is outwardly the same, his classmates and compatriots all see him as his younger self.
He meets two of his classmates, and is determined to change history - ensuring that the incident leading to him being fitted with an artificial heart after being near-fatally stabbed by a Nausicaan warrior over a Domjot game never happens.
In the course of his time in the past, Picard starts to make changes, becoming romantically involved with one of his classmates and alienating his best friend, to the point where he does indeed prevent the bar fight and stabbing, but finds himself back in the present as nothing but a faceless Ensign aboard the very ship he was once captain of.
I remember watching this for the first time on VHS Video. I turned into a hoarder of ST:TNG stuff, and bought a lot of the videos - which I sadly later had to sell when times got tough. The lesson it imparted was bang on the nail for me, because at the time I'd spent so many years wondering what would have happened if I'd taken this job or that, or stayed with this person rather than having an affair with that person. All of those choices, all of those "What ifs" were something that preoccupied me at the time (and still do!) and this episode captured the moral lesson of all your life experiences being the very things that make you the person you are today.
Needless to say, both Patrick Stewart and John De Lancie acted their socks off in this episode, riffing off each other perfectly (I don't care what anyone says, De Lancie was bloody excellent in TNG). But the message, the writing of the episode, and the way it was presented was utterly perfect and it's stayed with me for a long time as my favourite episode.
Patrick Stewart dabbled in Sci Fi stuff a lot, sometimes with great success such as in the X-Men series of movies, and sometimes not so successfully (Anyone remember David Lynch's Dune? It's still worth a watch to see PS as Gurney Halleck).
R.I.P Sir Pat, you are a legend. Always will be.
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