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Published Feb 15, 2020

Tapestry Debuted 23 Years Ago Today

We're celebrating the classic episode with some of our favorite pieces of Trek trivia.

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"Tapestry," the 15th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation 's 6th season, debuted on February 15, 1993, or a mind-boggling 27 years ago today. The hour found Q giving Captain Picard the opportunity to revisit the moment from his youth that he most regretted. Picard, in fact, altered past events, then realized the folly of doing so, as they made him the man who grew up to captain the Enterprise. In the end, viewers — and Picard himself — weren't quite sure if the events of "Tapestry" ever actually happened.

These are some of our favorite, fun facts about the classic episode.

1. " Tapestry" was director Les Landau's twentieth episode. Landau also called the shots on many Deep Space Nine and Voyager installments, as well as one episode of Enterprise .

2. "Tapestry" was first Q episode written by Ronald D. Moore. Asked by StarTrek.com in 2011 to pick the one episode or movie he's most proud to have his name on, Moore couldn't cite just one, but he counted "Tapestry" among his favorites. "My answer to that varies a lot. Looking back, I sometimes forget some of the ones I’m tickled by. But I go back again and again to 'Tapestry' and also to 'All Good Things…' 'Tapestry' meant a lot to me personally. I was sort of telling a story of my own views and things that I felt were profound mistakes of judgment that then later turned out to be the very events that allowed me to go work on Star Trek . So that was very personal to me." 3. What does "Tapestry" have in common with "First Contact," "Symbiosis," "Sub Rosa" and "Liaisons"?  They're the only five TNG episodes without a stardate.

4. Moore initially imagined the episode would echo A Christmas Carol , with Q escorting Picard back through several life-changing mistakes. However, producer Michael Piller nixed that notion and Moore instead focused on a single mistake/regret.

5. Marcus Nash portrayed the young Ensign Jean-Luc Picard, who gets stabbed. His real-life sister, Jennifer Nash, played Meribor in "The Inner Light." 6. The episode tied with "Time's Arrow" — with a 13.8 Nielsen rating — as the second most-watched episode of TNG 's sixth season. 7. The character of Penny Muroc got her name from a woman whom Moore had once dated.

8. J.C. Brandy was just 17 years old when she played Ensign Marta Batanides. Brandy still acts, and she played guitar for Lo-Ball, an all-women rock band that also included Pauley Perrette of NCIS . She also is a songwriter and has contributed to the soundtracks of Legally Blonde and What Lies Beneath . Brandy is probably best known for her role as the older Jamie Lloyd in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers . And we all know who the Michael Myers mask is based on, right?What were your favorite "Tapestry" moments or memories? Let us know @StarTrek on all things social!

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Recap / Star Trek: The Next Generation S6E14 "Tapestry"

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Original air date: February 15, 1993

An Away Team being beamed directly into Sickbay with a critically wounded Picard. Picard has been shot by an energy beam that has caused his artificial heart to malfunction. Doctor Crusher attempts to Technobabble it into working again. As she works, everything fades to white, and Picard starts to Go into the Light until he finds Q at the end of it, who promptly announces that he's dead.

Q explains that he is God , which Picard rejects. Q conjures his overbearing father to berate Jean-Luc for joining Starfleet, and the voices of all the people who have died under his command join in. Q asks if he wants to beg forgiveness, but Picard refuses to play along. Q asks if Picard can really say he has no regrets ? He has one: the artificial heart. A real heart would not have malfunctioned. We then see how he got it, as described to Wesley in " Samaritan Snare ": Getting into a fight with three Nausicaans, getting stabbed in the heart, and laughing as he lay dying.

Picard admits that he was a Hot-Blooded jerk back then and wishes he could have changed it. Suddenly he is slapped by a woman. He realises he is alive, in a Star Trek II -era uniform and being sarcastically applauded by his old academy friends, Marta and Corey, only they don't look so old. After they leave, Q appears and explains he's given Picard a chance to Set Right What Once Went Wrong . Picard refuses to become a Butterfly of Doom , but Q solemnly assures him that no one will be harmed by any changes he makes to his own life.

The seems to satisfy Picard, who admits to the curious Q why he was slapped: He scheduled two dates at the same time . We see him at the other date, but with the older and more cautious Picard isn't interested in a quick fling and accidentally insults his date, resulting in a drink in the face . His friend Corey is showing off at a pool-like game called dom-jot. One of the Nausicaans who would later start the fight challenges him to a game, and apparently wins due to cheating. Originally Picard helped Corey rig the table to even the odds, but knowing this would lead to the fight, Picard now advises against it when Corey brings it up. This unexpected mature response impresses Marta, but before it can go anywhere, Q walks in with flowers for "John Luck Pickherd" .

Q tells Picard that Corey is rigging the table anyway , so Picard goes to Corey and threatens to report him if he doesn't stop. Corey is aghast at Picard's sudden stodgyness, but Marta is even more impressed and after a night of passion, Picard turns over in bed to say "Good Morning" to Marta, only to find Q there , Marta having slipped away . Picard locates Marta and discovers that she deeply regrets the encounter, believing that they're Better as Friends . Q points out that Picard has insulted or alienated everyone he's interacted with so far.

Picard shares an awkward drink with Corey and Marta, but the Nausicaans come in and taunt them for being cowards. Corey stands up to fight, but Picard shoves him away, letting the Nausicaans cackle and walk away without a fight. Corey is outraged and severs his friendship with Picard. Even Marta is now upset by his boring prudence. But on the bright side, Q tells Picard he succeeded at saving his life. Hurray!

Picard finds himself back on the Enterprise , but he's a Junior Lieutenant in Astrophysics. He learns that his career has been safe and unexceptional. He has never showed any ambition or the ability to take risks, so he's effectively stuck in a dead-end job. In private, Picard insists that this boring, unexceptional man is not who he is. But Q explains that trying to fix his impulsive youth makes Picard this man.

Q: Au contraire . He is 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 Nausicaan, 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 realised how fragile life is, or how important each moment must 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 take 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 .

Picard now admits he was wrong and asks Q to let him put things back the way they were before — again. Q says "Before, you died in Sick Bay. Is that you want?" Picard responds by saying " I would rather die as the man I was, than live the life I just saw ". So Q sends him back, he starts the fight and gets stabbed in the heart for his troubles, and as he knows his life is back on track, he now knows why he laughed . He laughs still in Sick Bay, his artificial heart stabilizing.

After recovering, Picard confides his experience with Riker, wondering if it was just a Near-Death Experience , a Vision Quest by Q to give him deeper insights into himself, or maybe both? Picard wonders with Riker whether it was All Just a Dream , or maybe Q has undergone Character Development of his own.

Picard : There are many parts of my youth that I am not proud of. There were ... loose threads ... untidy parts of me I would like to remove. But I when I pulled on one of those threads, it unraveled the tapestry of my life.

Tapestry includes the following Tropes not mentioned in the synopsis:

• Action Girl : Marta is small but trained to fight and goes toe-to-toe with the Nausicaans. She's the first to get beaten down, but all three friends lose the fight eventually.
• The mistakes we've made in our past shaped us into who we are now.
• If you feel like you can do more and want to stand out, don't play it safe. Take chances and seize every opportunity to do so.
• Be Careful What You Wish For : The main theme of the episode was for Picard to understand the value of one's past and to realize that, for better or for worse, the past has shaped him into who he is today. Every part of his life is important, even the untidy parts, and to remove any single part of his past would unravel the tapestry of his life and turn him into a different person — illustrated starkly by how changing the loss of his organic heart left him in an alternate universe where he was a lowly officer bereft of the passion and imagination that made him a Captain.
• Bedmate Reveal : Picard wakes up after his fling with Marta only to discover that it's Q lying beside him. Regretting the night's events, Marta left early .
• Better as Friends : Marta and Picard decide to actually act on their mutual attraction, but on the morning after, Marta becomes seriously weirded out by it and says that it has ruined their friendship.
• Brilliant, but Lazy : Troi's evaluation of "Lt." Picard.
• Butterfly of Doom : Picard initially refuses to change anything about his life for fear of damage to the timeline. A frustrated Q eventually has to promise that nothing bad will happen on a large scale if he does anything differently. Sure enough, when Picard arrives back into the present time of his new life, everything is the same except for him.
• Call-Back : Picard told the story about the Nausicaans to Wesley during a shuttle flight in season 2's "Samaritan Snare." He even mentioned that he inexplicably laughed when he saw that he was stabbed, which gets explained by the events of this episode.
• One of the episodes in which Picard becomes more open with his crew.
• This episode becomes one giant Pet the Dog moment for Q. Even Picard is left struggling to grasp the prospect that Q would go to such lengths just to give him some good advice.
• In the first scene, Crusher mentions Dr. Selar, the Vulcan officer we last saw in "The Schizoid Man."
• Picard's father resembles his brother Robert more than Jean-Luc.
• Cruel to Be Kind : Picard being resurrected as an unremarkable Starfleet officer is unbearable, but it makes him realize that what he'd lost from stopping the stabbing was far greater than anything he'd gained.
• Damned by Faint Praise : When "Lt." Picard talks to Riker and Troi in Ten Forward, they don't have too much to say about his performance as an officer. It's never a good sign when one of your highest praises is being punctual .
• Et Tu, Brute? : In preventing the fight, Corey is softly furious that Picard effectively supported the Nausicaans over him. Thankfully, Picard sets things straight so that he helps Corey fight them, thus saving their friendship, too.
• Fake Better Alternate Timeline : Captain Picard has a dream or vision in which he is told that he died due to his artificial heart being damaged by a compressed teryon beam. He is given a chance — which he accepts — to avoid the fight which caused him to need the artificial heart. He is then shown that the attitude that he needed to avoid that fight would have meant that he would take fewer risks in the future and as a result, among other changes, he would never become captain of the ''Enterprise'' .
• God Guise : Q shows up to Picard after his accident, claiming to be God. Picard doesn't buy it, as he believes "the universe is not so badly designed".
• Gratuitous German : In the new timeline, "Dr." Q addresses Picard as "Leutnant Picard."
• Hell-Bent for Leather : Oddly invoked verbatim about a Hot-Blooded Picard by Riker.
• Hero of Another Story : In the altered timeline, Capt. Thomas Halloway commands the Enterprise , although we never see or meet him .
• Herr Doktor : Q when he replaces Beverly in a sickbay scene.
• I Hate Past Me : Picard hates his younger self because of how arrogant and hot-headed he was for trying to take on the Nausicaans. Picard: I was a different person in those days — arrogant, undisciplined... with far too much ego, but too little wisdom. I was more like you. Q: Then you must have been far more interesting. Pity you had to change.
• Inciting Incident : Picard's near-fatal stabbing turns out to be a big nail, as it drove him to take risks and excel. Picard: There are many parts of my youth that I'm not proud of. There were... loose threads — untidy parts of me that I would like to remove. But when I... pulled on one of those threads — it unraveled the tapestry of my life.
• In-Series Nickname : In his Academy days, Picard's friends called him "Johnny".
• In Spite of a Nail : Zig-zagged. Q assures Picard that the changes he makes to history will only affect him, and indeed, in the new present, despite Picard's changed personality, the rest of the Enterprise crew we know and love is still there. Also, despite not being the captain in the alternate universe, Picard has apparently not done any of the things that his captain duties prevented him from doing. He doesn't have a family, he apparently hasn't pursued any of his other passions, etc.
• Ironic Hell : Picard's not thrilled with the prospect of hanging about with Q forever . Life as an unremarkable Junior Grade Lieutenant isn't much better, either.
• Jacob Marley Apparel : In the alleged afterlife, Picard is still wearing his Starfleet uniform with his injuries from the opening.
• Likes Older Women : The young Picard seems to have felt this way, judging by the fact that he arranges dates with two women, one of whom appears to be at least a couple of years older than him, and the other of whom seems to be a couple of decades older.
• Major Injury Underreaction : Picard laughing after being stabbed through the heart. Even Q is taken aback by it.
• Malicious Misnaming : When posing as a flower deliverer, Q takes the opportunity to pronounce Picard's name "John Luck Pickherd" just to annoy him.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane : The question of whether it really was Q intervening or just a near-death experience is never answered, though pondered by Picard.
• Nay-Theist : Played with. Picard refuses to acknowledge the possibility of Q being God not because he doesn't recognize Q's power - which are for all intents and purposes omnipotent - but because he refuses to believe the universe is so poorly run as to make Q its creator.
• Necessary Fail : Picard's near-fatal stabbing motivated him to take life more seriously and become the respected captain we know and love.
• Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"! : When the Nausicaans call the trio cowards, Corey is immediately itching for a fight.
• Noodle Incident : Sadly, we never hear Picard's story about being a sophomore on a Nausicaan outpost.
• Perception Filter : Though Picard looks like his present self in the past, everyone save Q perceives him as his younger self.
• Plot Armor : It should be obvious that the first-billed star of the show isn't gonna die because of an offscreen scuffle, so even when Picard chooses to fight Nausicaans and get his heart stabbed, we know he's gonna survive somehow.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman : Alternate Picard is an extremely average, ignored junior grade lieutenant.
• Ridiculously Average Guy : The Jean-Luc Picard who wasn't near-fatally stabbed has an utterly unimpressive Starfleet career.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory : Probably thanks to Q, only Picard is aware of the changes caused by tampering with his past.
• Time-Shifted Actor : Played straight at first, with a different actor as young Picard when he sees himself getting stabbed, but then averted when Patrick Stewart plays young Picard for the rest of the episode.
• Trickster Mentor : Q really illustrates how good he is at playing the role of a "tough love" mentor who makes his students learn their lessons the hard way.
• We All Die Someday : Q's long-suffering response to Picard. Picard: So then I won't die? Q: Of course you'll die. It'll just be at a later time.
• Would Hit a Girl : The Nausicaans smack around Marta pretty good.
• You Already Changed the Past : Implied. After realizing he Set Right What Once Went Wrong by getting stabbed in that brawl, Picard's response is to laugh. Now, considering that Picard laughing after being stabbed was already an established part of Picard's story...
• Star Trek: The Next Generation S6E13 "Face of the Enemy"
• Recap/Star Trek: The Next Generation
• Star Trek: The Next Generation S6E15 "Birthright"

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Trek Back: Star Trek: The Next Generation – ‘Tapestry’

Often cited in many episode polls as one of the finest of T he Next Generation era, ‘Tapestry’ fills some of Jean Luc Picard’s back story focusing in on an incident in his youth that has ramifications on his later life. We take a Trek Back at this classic episode.

Air date : 15 February 1993, Writer : Ronald D. Moore, Director : Les Landau

“There are many parts of my youth that I’m not proud of… there were loose threads… untidy parts of me that I would like to remove. But when I pulled on one of those threads… it unravelled the tapestry of my life.” – Jean Luc Picard

‘Tapestry’ is the fifteenth episode of season 6 and originally aired on the 15 th February 1993 and still holds up as one of the finest entries across the entire Star Trek franchise. The premise sees Jean Luc Picard injured during an away mission and ultimately dies on the operating table. He awakens in what appears to be the afterlife, but it is not what he expected, as he is greeted by God, who turns out to be Q .

“I refuse to believe that the afterlife is run by you. The universe is not so badly designed” Picard quips as he struggles to come to terms with his demise and the most unsuitable custodian of heaven if ever there was one. However, Q continues with his charade (or is it?) and learns that Picard comes into his death with some regrets in his life, a most notable one being the reason why he finds himself once again in front of Q, his artificial heart. We knew that Picard had an artificial heart thanks to the episode ‘Samaritan Snare’ which sees Picard undergoing an operation to fix it, this episode expands on that and gives us the back story. Picard explains that he was stabbed through the heart when he was younger fighting off a couple of Nausicaans after an ill-fated game of Dom-Jot. Never one to miss an opportunity Q offers Picard a second chance and we soon find ourselves back in 2327. Picard a recently qualified Starfleet officer, being slapped by a woman who has discovered (as we just have) that Picard is a bit of a player when it comes to the ladies.  

Q informs Picard that he has been given the chance to do it all again, to change his past, to change the outcome with the Nausicaans. If he can change the outcome, then the artificial heart will no longer be needed, and he will survive the events during the away mission that takes his life. A prospect that Picard embraces as he sets about the task.

What follows effects Picard’s life so much more than he could have ever expected. He acts upon his attraction to his friend Marta Batanides and faces off against his ally in the fight against the Nausicaans, Corey Zweller , preventing him from gaining revenge when the Nausicaans beat him at Dom-Jot, the cause of the fight that leads to a blade going through Picard’s back. This alienates both of his best friends and they end up going their separate ways.

We flash forward back to the present. Picard is alive and well, but he is no longer captain of the USS Enterprise. Instead, he is a lowly assistant astrophysics officer with no promotion prospects, meandering through life, playing it safe. Any hope of the flames of achievement in this new existence is quickly extinguished by Riker and Deanna Troi who inform him that this new persona he finds himself as “doesn’t stand out” and “just doesn’t take risks”. The man that Picard becomes when he changes his past is a stark contrast to the Captain that we have come to know over the 6 seasons of The Next Generation .

Thankfully Q offers him the chance to put things right, by sending him back and braving that blade once again. It’s a risk, it could mean that Picard does actually die as a result of the away mission, but Picard “would rather die the man I was. Than live the life I just saw”. Now that’s Picard. Safe to say that Picard returns and is stabbed by the Nausicaans and at the end of ‘Tapestry’, survives to lead the Enterprise through another season and half of adventure and amazing television.

What I personally love about ‘Tapestry’ is how relatable it is. We all have aspects of our lives that we regret and wish to change. Every action we take, every conversation, every mistake all makes up the building blocks of our lives and our personality. We learn from every encounter and life choice. If we didn’t make mistakes then we wouldn’t be able to build up our resolve, our tenacity or our ability of recovery. As Picard states when he pulled on those threads his life unravelled and it was only one aspect of his life that he changed. That one decision affected a whole life of future decisions and changed him into something that he didn’t like.

‘Tapestry’ also makes me think back to Star Trek V: The Final Frontier . A film I personally enjoy. OK the plot is sketchy, and it has some bad moments, but the character interaction between Kirk, Spock and McCoy is some of the finest. However, the speech by Kirk when Sybok is trying to share their pain in order to release them really ties into this episode and echoes what Picard goes through, to the point where it almost seems purposely connected.

“Damn it, Bones, you’re a doctor. You know that pain and guilt can’t be taken away with a wave of a magic wand. They’re the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don’t want my pain taken away! I need my pain!” – James T Kirk

Picard learnt this the hard way in some respects and witnessed it firsthand, it’s likely he was already aware of the ramifications but not to the extent to which they played out. Everything about ‘Tapestry’ is excellent from the writing, performances and its direction and sits happily in my top 10 of Star Trek episodes.

• Trek Back: Star Trek Voyager ‘The Void’
• Trek Back: Revisiting The DS0 Pilot ‘The Emissary’
• Trek Back: Star Trek: First Contact
• Trek Back: ‘Trials and Tribble-ations’
• Trek Back: ‘Journey to Babel’.

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Screen Rant

Star trek: picard's academy hints at the return of a controversial classmate.

Jean-Luc Picard's Starfleet Academy classmate who is responsible for Picard getting stabbed in the heart could appear in Star Trek: Picard's Academy.

Warning: Spoilers for Star Trek: Picard's Academy #1 The inclusion of a certain classmate in the comic series Star Trek : Picard's Academy who debuted in a flashback episode of The Next Generation signals the possibility that a fellow cadet who was responsible for Picard having to get an artificial heart might make an appearance as well. The only caveat is that Jean-Luc's friend who appears in Picard's Academy is different from how she was portrayed in the TV show.

That friend, Marty Batanides, is shown to be very much smitten with a much younger and different Jean-Luc in Star Trek – Picard’s Academy #1 by writer Sam Maggs, artist Ornella Greco, colorist Charlie Kirchoff and letterer Jeff Eckleberry. She goes out of her way to catch up with him after class, and upon talking to him, she gets easily flustered. As per Picard's inner monologue, he clearly feels the same way as her or, at least, thinks she has pretty eyes. Many other characters are introduced in the debut issue as well, but one is conspicuously absent.

The Next Generation 's Cortin Zweller Could Appear in Picard's Academy

Marty's first and only other appearance in the series takes place in The Next Generation episode "Tapestry." Other than people only referring to her as Marta, she is also known for being very close friends with Picard and another student named Cortin Zweller. Since the three of them have never been featured apart except for Picard, it can be assumed that a series featuring two of them will eventually include the third. This creates the possibility that Zweller could make an appearance. Those who have watched "Tapestry" are undoubtedly hopeful this will happen since, just like Picard was when he was a student at the Academy, Zweller was a hothead and was greatly responsible for Picard getting stabbed in the heart. Of course, it's unlikely Picard's Academy will reexamine that moment even if Zweller joined Marta and Picard since "Tapestry" takes place after the three of them have graduated the Academy and become recently promoted Ensigns about to embark on their first missions in Starfleet.

One notable point is that Picard's Academy is already portraying Marty very differently than how her counterpart acted in The Next Generation . Although Marta falls for Picard in "Tapestry," it is assumed she's only attracted to him because of how differently he is acting, which she later attributes to his seriousness. That's because Q is somehow involved in present-day Picard either reliving or dreaming about when he was younger. Since Picard has always been embarrassed by how his younger self acted, the Captain takes advantage of this odd phenomenon by changing his past actions based on what he would do as an older man, and that's why Marta has feelings for him in "Tapestry." There's nothing to suggest that Marta ever liked young Picard before his present-day self revisited his past.

Picard's Rival Is A Pretty Good Alternative

Although IDW is clearly taking creative license with Marty in Picard's Academy and even slightly altering her name, this doesn't necessary mean that the publishing company will retcon history so much that Zweller doesn't exist in this continuity. However, what readers do know is that Zweller doesn't appear in the debut issue. Although it would be a shame if this trend continues, at least there's Marty and another character named Reshan Dar who has quite the personality and is proving to be a true thorn in Picard's side. This is more compelling than what Zweller and Picard's relationship was originally like. After all, Zweller and Picard are assumed to always be close and never have the major falling out they experience in "Tapestry." Close friends aren't as exciting as rivals, which is what Star Trek: Picard's Academy is definitely doing with Jean-Luc and Reshan Dar.

Star Trek: Picard's Academy #1 is available from IDW Publishing.

Tapestry Stardate: Unknown Original Airdate: 15 Feb, 1993

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Star Trek: The Next Generation : "Tapestry"

Related content.

Note:  You'll notice I've only reviewed one episode this week. The truth is, I'm sick as a dog, and I don't have the energy for the usual double feature. This works out well enough, since it means we'll be doing both parts of "Birthright" in the same review, but it does mean this week's piece is shorter than usual, and for that, I apologize.

"Tapestry"

Or  The One Where Picard Learns The True Meaning Of Getting Stabbed In The Back

I don't have a lot of regrets in my life. There's only a couple I can think of: I wish I'd handled money better when I was still in college, and that I'd understood the perils of taxation and freelancing back when I started this job. Oh, and I also wish I hadn't eaten so much crap food in college, because then I wouldn't have had to spend two or three years getting into passable shape. I'm 32 years old, and as regrets go, neither of those are all that dramatic. I'm not even sure they qualify for the word "regret"—to me, that word always implied a level of sadness and a sense of permanent damage that being in debt and a bit on the chubby side don't really create. I'm lucky, really, in that I've led a largely sheltered life, with few opportunities or reasons to hurt or be hurt on a grand scale. But I've still gone through some rough patches, and I've still done some amazingly stupid things that made those rough patches worse than they needed to be.

I just don't regret doing those stupid things, or making the choices that led me to those actions, because "regret" implies a desire to change the past, and I can't see the percentage in that. By and large, I like where I am now, and to sincerely wish that, say, I'd gone out with this girl in school instead of pining for that one, or if I'd moved someplace else after college or if I'd chosen a different career path, would be to risk losing what I have. If this sounds like wisdom, well, it might be, but it's certainly not earned. It's as much a way to give the bad times in my life meaning as it is a philosophy. There are, perhaps, different paths I could've taken earlier on, knowing what I know now, that might've conspired to raise my station about its current semi-lofty position. But if I could somehow arrange for this to happen, even if I successfully navigated the currents of the past—I would no longer be me. And however awful things get, and however much I might dislike myself, I wouldn't care for that at all.

That's the essential message of "Tapestry," and if it takes Captain Picard longer to arrive at the same conclusion that I've taken as writ my whole life, well, he has a history with death toll, which isn't really anything I can compete with. The premise: Picard is dying. There's a lot of talk in the cold open about Lenarians and weapons fire and so forth, but what it comes down to is, Picard's in Sick Bay, he's close to death, and his artificial heart is to blame. While Beverly hovers over him, Picard wakes up in a seemingly infinite white space, alone but for a single, glowing figure. Picard approaches the figure, takes its hand—and Q comes into focus. "Welcome to the afterlife, Jean-Luc. You're dead." After the usual pleasantries (Picard doesn't believe what's happening, Q insists), Q badgers Picard into confessing his great regret in life: the fight with Nausicaans that resulted in the chest wound that gave him the artificial heart which seems to have cost Picard his life. (Picard told Wesley the story all the way back in season two's "Samaritan Snare.")

So, Q offers Picard a one time only deal. He'll send Picard to his past, in his young body (although he still looks like Patrick Stewart to us—think  Quantum Leap ), just a day before the fight with the Nausicaans. If Picard can manage to avoid the fight this time around, he can keep his real heart, and, presumably, avoid the accident that's put him in mortal danger in the present. But if Picard fails, and the fight happens as it originally did, he'll be back where he started, where, presumably, he'll be dead for good. Which means an eternity spent getting lectured by Q, which, if not officially Hell, at least shares a zip code with the place.

Now, we all know that nearly all of television is about how the more things change, the more things stay the same. (For more statements of this type, I advise you to check out my best-selling book,  Zack Handlen Makes Vaguely Comprehensive Statements In A Desperate Attempt To Sound Clever and Insightful.  It will change your life, or at least the contents of your bank account.) There are exceptions, of course—TV is a big medium, and, apart from picture and sound, you'd be hard pressed to find any one theme that runs consistent through all of it. But generally speaking, shows work because they prevent you with a consistent world, and then spend their runs finding new ways to show basically the same world over and over and over again. Two of the best series ever produced for television,  The Sopranos  and  The Wire,  cloaked that resistance to change in artful ways: on  The Sopranos , one of the core ideas is that people  can  move on or better themselves, but that requires a tremendous amount of effort, and most of us would much rather cling to what we know, even if its immoral or evil, just because it's easier; on  The Wire , the system itself established patterns that would repeat again and again, despite the best efforts of those trapped inside of it. Arguably the best show on TV right now,  Breaking Bad , is notable for its willingness to buck that trend, with a status quo that's constantly shifting to mirror the slow downfall of its leading man, but it's still the exception to the general rule.

TNG  is no exception to this, and it's especially noticeable in Picard's case. Watching "Tapestry," it occurred to me that, as much as I love the rest of the cast, this show really does belong to Stewart. We know Picard better than any other member of the crew (with the possible exception of Data, who has less history to cover), and while the show does its best to tell stories around an ensemble, Picard-centric episodes tend to be the strongest. He's been assimilated and de-assimilated, spent a lifetime in another man's head, and had to endure the ravages of Wesley Crusher, but he's stayed roughly the same person through all of this. Sure, he may need a moment or two to collect himself after the latest calamity, but ("Family" aside) the remarkable amount of physical and psychic damage Picard has lived through has left hardly a mark on him. Because each week, Picard is back in the captain's chair, dispensing wisdom and phaser fire as needed. That's how TV works. Sometimes, this can be frustrating, and one of the ways modern television took its first steps towards being recognized officially as legitimate art (as opposed to lowest-common-denominator pablum) was by allowing episodes to bleed into each other over the long term. But there's something comforting in the security of the familiar. In a more psychologically realistic show, Picard would suffer more visibly, but here, the nature of his character is defined by one of the unwritten requirements of the medium: through whatever happens, the captain remains steadfast.

It's no surprise, then, that the lesson Picard learns from Q and from trying to change the past is that he's always been the person he needed to be, and to change any part of that would be to change  everything. When Jean-Luc rewrites history, he loses two friends: Cortland (Ned Vaughn), the guy who causes all the problems with the Nausicaans when they cheat him at a game of Dom-Jot; and Marta (J.C. Brandy). Corey is increasingly disgusted over Picard's attempts to mollify and turn the other cheek, finally walking off in disgust the day of the actual fight, after Picard shoves him aside to prevent a fight from breaking out. Things are a bit more complicated with Marta. Picard tells Q that he'd always regretted never making a move on her during their friendship, so this time around, when Marta seems impressed by the new-old Picard's sudden maturity, Jean-Luc goes for it, and the two sleep together. (Which leads to a great shot the next morning, with Picard naked in bed, waking up to find Q beside him.) Afterwards, though, things get weird, for no reason anyone can really put a finger on. It may be that Marta is just as unhappy as Cortland about Picard's behavior, or it may be that, since they're due to be shipped off to separate, er, ships soon, Marta just doesn't want to commit to a long distance relationship. Or maybe Picard is a terrible lover, who knows.

Regardless, changing his past enough to save himself a short-sword in the back costs Picard more than he was expecting, and the situation doesn't improve when Q jumps him forward in time, back to the "present." Here, Picard is still a crew-member on the  Enterprise , but he's a minor officer running errands for Chief Engineer La Forge. As Q informs him, by avoiding conflict with the Nausicaans, Picard has changed the course of his life, and while he's no longer dying in Sick Bay because of an artificial heart, he's sacrificed his career, and, in a sense, his very self in order to save his life. Picard finds Riker and Troi in Ten Forward, and asks them some questions about how he's viewed on the ship, and whether it would be possible for him to apply for command. They're polite, but firm: Jean-Luc is a good man, and does his job, but he lacks the necessary spark, the boldness, to lead. Picard realizes his mistake—his past, for all the hardship and pain and embarrassment it may have caused him, is a part of who he is, and to pull even one thread lose from it would be to destroy the entire thing. He begs Q to return his life to what it was, so Q sends him back to the Nausicaan fight, where Picard gets stabbed once again, and laughing when it happens just as he did when he was younger. Then it's back to Sick Bay, where, still laughing, Picard doesn't die after all.

I could nitpick this episode. Q insists to Picard that what we're seeing is the actual past, instead of a construct, and if that's the case, I'm not sure just altering one fight would be enough to distort your entire personality. It's not as if the more cautious Picard relives his entire life; this is a  Quantum Leap  type scenario, so far as I can tell, so presumably the original rowdy young Picard would take over once the older Picard jumped to the future. There are ways around this, though, the easiest being that nothing that happens here is really "real" at all, that all of it is created by Q to teach Picard to accept that the man he was is responsible for the man he is, or else it's just Picard having a death-bed hallucination. (I think that last option is unlikely, but it's possible.) If this was all something Q had made up, that would also explain the coincidence of Picard still getting a position on the  Enterprise , which is still staffed by the same people who ran it in the "real" timeline. That would mean Q had lied to Picard before, though, and while Q has had no problem lying in the past, it sounded like he was playing straight here.

Really, it doesn't matter that much, because this is a great episode regardless of whether it's time travel or fantasy or hallucination. There are plenty of nice touches here, like the fact that the Nausicaan fight Picard has so rued wasn't entirely his fault, or the way that everyone aboard the  Enterprise  where Picard isn't captain still seems perfectly happy and content. The former is a subtle way of indicating how memories change the past to fit the narrative we want to see, in this case, that Picard viewed himself as rash and irresponsible; and the latter makes sure that Picard's choice in the end to risk dying and go back to his real life is entirely about him, and not driven by a need to protect or save anyone else. It's been a while since we've seen this aspect of Q, whose efforts here seem entirely designed to teach Picard a small lesson that won't really change his life much at all. (Really, have we ever seen this aspect of Q? The closest I can think of is when he taught the  Enterprise  a lesson in humility in "Q Who?," but that was motivated more out of spitefulness than any desire to help.) Because really, while we've seen Picard talking about his younger days with some shame over what he once was, it's not as if this is some sort of psychic torment that has dogged him his entire life. For all the time jumping and vague  A Christmas Carol -ish feel, "Tapestry" is a modest episode, with a modest goal: to remind us that the we are the sum of  all  our parts, even the ones we aren't very proud of. It's funny, really. Getting stabbed in the heart may have been the best thing that ever happened to Picard.

Stray Observations:

• There's actually an easy (if someone rude) way for Picard to find out if his near-death experience was real or not. When Q returns him to the past for the last time, it's right before the fight with the Nausicaans. Which means, if that really was time travel, Picard really did sleep with Marta. Unless she's dead, he could always call her and ask.
• "No. I am not dead. Because I refuse to believe that the Afterlife is run by you. The universe is not so badly designed."
• "He learned to play it safe, and never, ever get noticed by anyone."

Next week:  We go back to our usual two episode schedule, as Worf hunts for his father and Data dreams in "Birthright, parts 1 and 2."

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Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season 6, Episode 15

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Patrick Stewart

Capt. Jean-Luc Picard

Jonathan Frakes

Cmdr. William Riker

LeVar Burton

Lt. Cmdr. Geordi La Forge

Michael Dorn

Gates McFadden

Dr. Beverly Crusher

Marina Sirtis

Counselor Deanna Troi

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Star Trek: The Next Generation (TV Series)

Tapestry (1993), j.c. brandy: ensign marta batanides, photos .

Quotes 

Ensign Marta Batanides : Goodbye, Johnny.

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A friendly reminder regarding spoilers ! At present the expanded Trek universe is in a period of major upheaval with the continuations of Discovery and Prodigy , the advent of new eras in gaming with the Star Trek Adventures RPG , Star Trek: Infinite and Star Trek Online , as well as other post-57th Anniversary publications such as the ongoing IDW Star Trek comic and spin-off Star Trek: Defiant . Therefore, please be courteous to other users who may not be aware of current developments by using the {{ spoiler }}, {{ spoilers }} OR {{ majorspoiler }} tags when adding new information from sources less than six months old (even if it is minor info). Also, please do not include details in the summary bar when editing pages and do not anticipate making additions relating to sources not yet in release. THANK YOU

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Marta Batanides

• View history

Marta Batanides (sometimes known by a married name, Marta Keith ) was a female human serving in Starfleet in the 24th century . Batanides had a special fondness for Andeluvian chocolate and " splitter " music , a style popular on 22nd century Earth . ( TNG - Section 31 novel : Rogue )

• 1.1 Early career
• 1.2 Starfleet Intelligence
• 2.1 Appearances
• 2.2 Connections
• 2.3 External links

Biography [ ]

Early career [ ].

Batanides attended Starfleet Academy from 2324 to 2327 , in the same class as Jean-Luc Picard . While at the Academy, she was briefly romantically involved with a Barangarian until his premature death. The relationship left her pregnant , and she soon fell into an irreversible coma due to fetal incompatibility syndrome . Picard and fellow class-mate Cortin Zweller risked their careers to bring Marta to the black-market genetic labs on Yrskatdon , where she was cured by an illegal genetic procedure. Marta didn't learn of Picard and Zweller's actions until years later. ( TNG episode : " Tapestry "; TNG - Section 31 novel : Rogue ; SA comic : " Judgment ")

Shortly after graduation in 2327, while at Starbase Earhart awaiting her first assignment, Batanides met and befriended then- Commander Rachel Garrett . ( ST - The Lost Era novel : Well of Souls )

She eventually became captain of a starship with Alonzo Vandermeer as her first officer. ( PIC episode : " Broken Pieces ")

Starfleet Intelligence [ ]

By 2336 , Batanides had risen to the rank of commander, and had been assigned to Starfleet Intelligence . One of Batanides' concerns at this time was the criminal cartel Asfar Qatala . One of her operatives, Lieutenant Laura Burke , was captured and killed by a Qatala operative, allowing the assassin to falsify orders in Batanides' name to remove an officer from the USS Enterprise -C . Eventually the real Batanides was able to contact Enterprise Captain Garrett and foil the criminal plot. ( ST - The Lost Era novel : Well of Souls )

Having married a spouse with the surname of Keith , Batanides became known as Marta Keith.

Marta Keith had risen to the rank of vice admiral by the 2370s . In 2373 , Batanides was one of the admirals on the tribunal that sat in judgment of Omega Squad after their unauthorized journey to the forbidden world of Talos IV . ( SA comic : " Judgment ")

Later that year, Marta returned to using her maiden name of Batanides, and was engaged to Ambassador Aubin Tabor .

Batanides was part of the Federation team sent to Chiaros IV to calm hostilities between the government and rebel factions, and to oversee a vote on whether the planet would join the Federation or the Romulan Star Empire . During that mission, her fiancé Tabor was killed, and also revealed as an agent of Section 31 . With confirmation of this shadow group's existence, Batanides vowed to bring it down. ( TNG - Section 31 novel : Rogue )

Batanides was a friend of Benjamin Sisko 's, and was one of the officials, along with Admiral William Ross , to whom he admitted his culpability in the death of Romulan Senator Vreenak in 2374 . ( DS9 novel : Hollow Men )

During the Borg Invasion of 2381 , Batanides was summoned to the Palais de la Concorde by Federation President Nanietta Bacco and Admiral Leonard James Akaar , where she reviewed reports on the progress of the Borg attack fleets. ( ST - Destiny novel : Lost Souls )

Several days later, Batanides was among the flag officers who attended a briefing by Captain Jean-Luc Picard regarding the absorption of the Borg Collective into the Caeliar gestalt . ( TNG novel : Losing the Peace )

By 2385 , Batanides had been made the Chief of Starfleet Intelligence . In September, she attended a meeting in the Presidential Office between Federation President Pro Tempore Ishan Anjar ( Baras Rodirya ) and his senior advisors to discuss the Andorian fertility crisis and how to keep the Andorians from joining the Typhon Pact . Ishan's chief of staff , Galif jav Velk , made three proposals on how to stop the Andorians' research. When the third proposal was to halt the Andorians' flow of the Taurus Meta-Genome data from the Tholians by threatening to resurrect the Genesis Device , Batanides confronted Velk stating to bring back Genesis would provoke local space to come gunning for the Federation, even ones considered allies.

She later attended the Starfleet Command daily senior staff meeting, along with Rear Admiral Soth Romar , and Fleet Admirals Alynna Nechayev and Leonard James Akaar , where Batanides presented a report on Breen signal traffic in the Murabi Sector . At the meeting Commander Dalit Sarai presented a report on a possible breach of Federation security regarding the meta-genome data, elaborating that Dr. Julian Bashir of Deep Space 9 was in possession of the data and had called a medical conference on short notice to Bajor inviting some of the Federation's most prestigious genomic-medical minds as a means of finding a cure for the Andorian fertility crisis. Batanides previously reviewed Sarai's report deciding it was inconclusive at best. ( ST - The Fall novel : A Ceremony of Losses )

Appendices [ ]

Appearances [ ].

• TNG episode : " Tapestry "
• PIC - SA - Picard's Academy comic : " Issue 1 "
• TNG novel : Nova Command
• TNG - Section 31 novel : Rogue
• DS9 novel : Hollow Men
• ST - The Fall novel : A Ceremony of Losses
• TTN novel : Fortune of War

Connections [ ]

External links [ ].

• Marta Batanides article at Memory Alpha , the wiki for canon Star Trek .
• 1 The Chase
• 2 Preserver (race)
• 3 J.P. Hanson

Star Trek: Picard Sneaked in a Reference to One of Jean-Luc's [SPOILER]

Picard namedrops a former flame from his youth and the adventure that gave him a new appreciation for life.

Star Trek has always been a series that uses the image of an altruistic future to examine the issues of contemporary society. And while the past is already written, our futures are ours to shape no matter the circumstance. In " Broken Pieces ," Picard and Rios both learn they can move past these prior indiscretions to build a future worth fighting for.

During a quiet moment on the Sirena , Picard and Rios reminiscence about Rios' former Captain, Alonzo Vandermeer. Rios was traumatized by the suicide of his captain who unwillingly committed murder on account of a black flag directive given by Commodore Oh. Picard mentions he once met Vandermeer while he served as a first officer under his classmate Captain Marta Batanides.

Batanides was a close friend of Picard, and she was someone he always regretted not pursuing romantically. She was a character first introduced in a classic Star Trek: The Next Generation  episode called "Tapestry." This episode portrays the direction Picard's life would've gone had he not made a pivotal decision in his reckless youth.

Related:  Star Trek's Patrick Stewart on How Picard Differs From Next Generation

In the episode, Picard suffers a fatal injury during a mission and dies from his resulting wounds. He finds himself in the afterlife and is greeted by the god-like alien Q . The otherworldly being laments how he would've survived his injury if he still had his natural heart as opposed to an artificial one. Picard was stabbed through the heart by a Nausicaan during a bar fight in his youth, a moment he regrets.

Q transports Picard back in the time two days before the brawl and Picard makes some changes to his past. He stops his friend Corey Zweller from starting a fight with a group of Nausicaans averting the brawl entirely. He even hooks up with his longtime friend Marta who is suddenly attracted to his mature behavior. Yet, this results in a one-night stand that strains their friendship. When Picard returns to the present, however, he finds that his life has changed for the worse.

Without this brush with death, Picard became a passionless science officer instead of the captain of the Enterprise . In this lifetime, he played it safe and didn't take any risks that would set him apart from the herd. He missed out on many opportunities and adventures and is stuck in a tedious job. In essence, Picard lost a part of himself by erasing the less than savory moments of his life.

Related:  How Star Trek: Picard Challenged Patrick Stewart as an Actor

Disgusted with the life he's led, Picard decides to go back and reverse everything, even if it meant dying on the operating table. Picard is stabbed through the heart and laughs as he is ultimately returned to his timeline alive. After his It's a Wonderful Life moment, Picard questions whether or not the whole thing was a dream, but he has a better appreciation of the life and the choices he has made.

The theme of this episode correlates deeply to the present circumstances affecting both Picard and Rios. These men are haunted by the errors of the past and by undesirable aspects of themselves. Rios especially has lived a less than amicable life after covering up the evidence of Vandermeer and his murder of the two passengers brought aboard the ibn Majid . He even developed PTSD from the incident and has grown cynical, distrusting in people.

As the Sirena is about to enter the transwarp conduit on route to a planet of dangerous synthetics, Rios wonders if the Zhat Vash were right about everything. Picard counters by saying that the Zhat Vash may have been right about synthetics at some point in the past, yet the future is unwritten. As long as you embrace that future with a sense of openness and curiosity, the future is yours to write.

Star Trek: Picard stars Patrick Stewart, Alison Pill, Michelle Hurd, Evan Evagora, Isa Briones, Santiago Cabrera and Harry Treadaway. The first season is available on CBS All Access.

Keep Reading:  Star Trek: Picard - All About That Surprise Cameo

• View history

Marta was a female Orion who lived as an inmate at the Federation asylum on Elba II . She was delusional, and seductive. Marta served as somewhat of a consort to Garth of Izar during his attempted take-over of the colony in 2268 .

Marta suffered from several delusions, including quoting famous works of literature and claiming that she had written them. In response to quoting William Shakespeare , Garth of Izar called Marta "the greatest liar I have ever met". Marta responded that the fact William Shakespeare wrote the play she quoted did not change the fact that she had written the play again the day before.

After James T. Kirk and Spock were captured by Garth, he placed Marta and Kirk alone together in a room where she tried to seduce him. She was unsuccessful and tried to stab Kirk, who managed to fight her off.

Marta later died on the planet 's toxic surface when Garth used her as an example of what would happen to the hostages if he was not allowed to leave the colony. He showed her mercy by blowing her up while demonstrating a new explosive , instead of letting her choke to death. ( TOS : " Whom Gods Destroy ")

• 1.1 Background information
• 1.2 Apocrypha
• 1.3 External links

Appendices [ ]

Background information [ ].

Marta was played by actress Yvonne Craig .

After claiming to have written a poem that in reality is by Shakespeare, Marta later recites another poem she claims to have written. While this is not pointed out, it is not original either: they are from Last Poems XIX, by A. E. Housman . The exact fragment is " In the midnight of November, when the dead man's fair is nigh. And the danger in the valley, and the anger in the sky. ".

In Jerry Sohl 's original story, the character was a Klingon female named Mara and had a minor role, but the writers and producers changed her species, and made her character be featured more prominently. The character of Mara was transferred to " Day of the Dove ". ( These Are the Voyages: TOS Season Three [ page number? • edit ] )

Apocrypha [ ]

Her mirror universe counterpart ( β ) appeared in the novel The Sorrows of Empire in which she was likewise depicted as the consort of Garth, the Grand Admiral of the Imperial Starfleet .

External links [ ]

• Marta at StarTrek.com
• Marta at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• 3 Ancient humanoid

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Cast & Crew

Ensign Cortan "Corey" Zweller

J.C. Brandy

Ensign Marta Batanides

Clint Carmichael

Nausicaan 1

Rende Rae Norman

Penny Muroc

John de Lancie

Information

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