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Tapestry (episode)

• View history
• 1.2 Act One
• 1.3 Act Two
• 1.4 Act Three
• 1.5 Act Four
• 1.6 Act Five
• 2 Memorable quotes
• 3.1 Production history
• 3.2 Story and script
• 3.3 Production
• 3.4 Cast and characters
• 3.5 Continuity
• 3.6 Reception
• 3.7 Apocrypha
• 3.8 Video and DVD releases
• 4.1 Starring
• 4.2 Also starring
• 4.3 Guest stars
• 4.4 Co-stars
• 4.5 Uncredited co-stars
• 4.6 Stunt doubles
• 4.7 Stand-ins
• 4.8.1 Other references
• 4.8.2 Deleted scenes references
• 4.9 External links

Summary [ ]

Q appears to Picard as "God" in the afterlife

In sickbay , Dr. Crusher orders the stasis units to be brought on-line and tells one of the medical staff that Dr. Selar can use Ward 3 for the ambulatory patients while she attends to the away team in the main area of sickbay. The away team, consisting of Commander Riker , Worf , Ensign Kellogg , and two security officers are transported in. After Worf lays Picard down on the biobed , she asks how he was injured. Riker tells her that they were attacked by the Lenarians just outside a conference room. Dr. Crusher quickly deduces that Captain Picard has essentially had a heart attack , due to his artificial heart . She and Martinez , along with other medical staff, desperately try to save the captain, though it seems that they are unable to. Picard suddenly finds himself in a white void of dazzling brilliance seemingly uninjured, except for the large burn on his uniform from the weapon that he was attacked with. After looking around with confusion for a few seconds , Picard sees a shining figure dressed in white holding out its hand. Picard cautiously walks towards the figure, who then holds out his hand. After Picard shakes hands with the figure, he is pulled into focus and turns out to be Q , who greets him with " Welcome to the afterlife, Jean-Luc. You're dead. "

Act One [ ]

Maurice Picard

Picard pulls his hand sharply out of Q's and asks what happened, to which Q replies " I told you. You're dead, this is the afterlife, and I'm God . " Picard laughs in disbelief, telling Q that he is not God, but he goes on to say that Picard had died approximately five minutes earlier. Picard still refuses to believe Q, on the basis of saying " I refuse to believe that the afterlife is run by you. The universe is not so badly designed. " Suddenly, Picard's father appears and starts lecturing him, telling Picard that joining Starfleet was destined to bring him to a bad end and then he hears all the people that had died because of things he did or failed to do. Picard refuses to respond to any of the people he hears, not wanting to play into Q's hand, though Q says he is doing this for Picard's benefit.

Ensign Picard stabbed

Q then asks Picard if he has any regrets from his life, but Picard tells him that his only regret is " dying and finding you here. " In response, Q makes Picard's artificial heart appear in his hand. He asks why Picard needed it, and the story begins to play out, showing Picard as an ensign, fighting a Nausicaan , then getting stabbed through the heart and laughing. Picard admits that he did regret some things from earlier in his life. Suddenly, he is slapped hard by a woman and he finds himself in his living quarters as an ensign on Starbase Earhart .

Act Two [ ]

Ensign Picard getting slapped by a date

The woman who slapped him is Corlina , one of two dates that Picard set up and she found out a while back. She leaves in a huff and he turns around to find his two closest friends, Cortan "Corey" Zweller and Marta Batanides mockingly applauding him. Q appears in the room after Corey and Marta have left and convinces him he is back in the year 2327 . Q explains it is two days before the fight with the Nausicaan, which Picard must choose whether to stop or not. Picard is adamant not to stop the fight in case he changes the timeline . Irritated, Q promises that nothing Picard does here will cause any major changes or affect anyone but himself. Frankly, he states, Picard is not that important. Satisfied, Picard accepts Q's terms and goes along in stopping the fight. By this time Picard realized that he is late for another date at the bar with an older woman named Penny .

Later in the bar, Picard and Penny are seen talking to each other. Picard in his usual stiffness states that he just wants out. Penny, on the other hand wants Picard to make his advances. Picard tells Penny that he hardly knows her and wants to know where she is from and what her interests are. In response, she tells him she is from Rigel , her last name is Muroc, and she likes men in uniform. After the conversation, Penny tells Picard that she thinks they are done talking and goes in for a kiss, but Picard meekly retreats from her advances. After the kiss, Picard goes on telling Penny that she is a "handsome woman" and he gets a drink splashed in his face for his comments. Q looks on as the bartender observing the conversation and Corey playing dom-jot .

Corey playing dom-jot

Picard goes over to Marta, who is watching Corey play his game. Marta asked what happened to his date and Picard tells her that she had to leave. At the same time, Corey is seen winning the game with one of the station's aliens. After some time, Corey wins the match and picks up his gambling tokens from the table. Marta states that Corey should give up Starfleet and just play dom-jot professionally. Corey goes on saying that it was mostly math skills that helped him win that game. One of the Nausicaans interrupts the conversation and challenges Corey to a game.

Act Three [ ]

Corey accepts the challenge and the game starts. Throughout the game, the Nausicaan dominates Corey and wins. After the game the three friends go back to their quarters to discuss why Corey lost so badly. Corey realized that the only way the Nausicaan won was by using a device located on his belt that controls the balls on the table. He also wants to get even by rigging the table so the device will backfire. Picard by this point tries to dissuade him from going through with the plan. Corey agrees with Picard's reason and walks out. Marta notes that usually Picard is the one who plans the revenge. Picard counters by saying that they are officers now and not cadets any longer – they need to set a different example. Picard and Marta are almost about to kiss when Q interrupts them as he delivers flowers to Picard, badly mangling his name as "John-Luck Pickerd". Marta comments that the flowers are from another of Picard's conquests and she leaves. Q and Picard talk about Marta being friends with him. Q notices that Picard seems to harbor regret for not pursuing a romantic relationship with Marta, and he points that out to Picard. Q also points out that Corey is still going through with his plan anyway and notes that Picard didn't seem to be very persuasive. Picard leaves to confront Corey about what he is doing.

Picard goes to see Corey at the Bonestell Recreation Facility . Corey is under the table rigging it so he can win against the Nausicaan. Corey bumps his head when he thinks Picard is the gambling foreman checking up on the tables. Corey is happy to see Picard and asks him to help rig the table. Picard on the other hand is trying to stop him from making a big mistake. Corey states that Picard is acting like his mother and he should go away if he is not going to help. Picard threatens Corey to stop or he will tell the gambling foreman about what he has done and the two walk off.

Picard and Marta reveal their feelings for each other

Picard goes and talks to Marta in her room. They both talk about Corey's rashness. Picard goes on saying that Corey and he will stay friends for years after this incident and hopes that stopping him won't jeopardise that friendship. The conversation gravitates towards how much Picard's personality has changed after graduation. Marta confesses that she finds his new personality "attractive." This causes both to reveal their feelings for each other and they passionately kiss.

Act Four [ ]

The next morning Picard wakes up to a soft caress on his earlobe and turns in bed to Marta. He is shocked to see it isn't Marta at all, but Q, who says to Picard, " Morning, darling. " Q begins taunting him about his relationship with Marta. Picard meets her again, who expresses regret over what they did, fearing that it could have irreparably damaged their friendship. Later, the three friends go to the bar for one last big night out before they get shipped off to their first assignments. Picard tries to engage his two friends in conversation, but both are already feeling distanced from him so it is an awkward and strained affair. Suddenly the three Nausicaans taunt Corey about the game of dom-jot they'd played. Corey gets angry and tries to fight the Nausicaan, but Picard stops him by shoving Corey on to the floor. The Nausicaans walk away laughing, and Picard tries to explain himself to Corey and Marta, meekly telling Corey that the Nausicaan was reaching for a weapon, but the two just walk away from him in disgust, with Corey declaring their friendship is over. At that point, Q appears and congratulates Picard; the fight has been avoided, and he is now alive with a real heart.

" Can I help you, Mr. Picard? " " Mr. Worf? "

Picard is then returned to the present, where, much to his surprise, his life is incredibly different: he is an assistant astrophysics officer on board the USS Enterprise -D , wearing a blue non-command uniform, a mere junior lieutenant with Worf as his immediate superior. Worf then asks him what is he doing on the bridge . Picard, disoriented, asks what is going on. Worf then looks at the PADD that he is holding and tells Picard that the PADD is for chief engineer Lieutenant Commander La Forge . Picard then asks who the captain of the ship is and Data replies that it is Thomas Halloway . Picard goes to sickbay to talk with Dr. Crusher about his situation. When he enters the chief medical officer 's office in sickbay, however, he finds Q sitting at the desk dressed in a 20th century doctor's uniform and speaking in a German accent. Q states that this is what happened to Picard's timeline per their agreement, after he stopped the fight with the Nausicaans. He now can live his life "in safety" running analyses and delivering reports to his superiors, but not in command.

Act Five [ ]

Picard, in disbelief, goes to Ten Forward to get a second opinion from Commander Riker and Counselor Troi sitting together at a table. Picard soon discovers that he won't be promoted any time soon because he "just doesn't take risks" and "doesn't stand out." Picard then asks them if he is a good officer for command. They both agree that he is too timid and has never completed any big goals that he has attempted for himself. Riker and Troi are then called to the bridge and La Forge summons Picard to deliver a report for which he has been waiting. Dejected by all this, Picard goes off to deliver the report to La Forge and calls to Q from a turbolift about the situation, asking if it amusing that he is now a dreary man with a tedious job. The doors open back into the white space where Q is waiting.

Picard laughs after being stabbed

Q reminds Picard that he was given exactly what he wanted; a second chance. Picard tells Q that he cannot live as a man devoid of anything that makes life worthwhile, but Q points out that this is the man Picard wanted to be; the man who never defended his friends from the Nausicaans went on to live quite a different life from the one Picard remembers. Although being stabbed in the heart nearly killed Picard, it also helped him realize how fragile life is, and thus made him more willing to take risks and make his mark on the universe rather than play it safe. Instead, he never achieved anything rewarding, never got noticed, and was certainly not the kind of man who would ever be asked to command a starship. Picard asks Q to let him reverse the changes he made, deciding that it would be better to die in the present with a satisfying life behind him rather than continue living life as an average, dreary man bereft of passion and imagination.

Q returns Picard to the Bonestell Facility, moments before the fight with the Nausicaans. This time Picard doesn't walk away from the fight with the Nausicaans but leaps into it and is eventually stabbed in the heart like before. As Picard looks at the injury, he begins to laugh, knowing history has been set right, and is shown again in the present, lying on the biobed he was placed on after his injury, laughing as he comes to, his bionic heart reactivated.

Picard and Riker speculate afterward in the observation lounge regarding Picard's experience, unsure if it was just a dream or another test by Q. Picard states that part of him can't believe that Q was willing to show compassion by giving him a second chance, but if it was Q, then he is thankful for being allowed to see how important his decisions in life were – he's not proud of many things he did in his youth, but when he pulled on this "loose thread," the tapestry of his whole life came apart. Riker wishes he could have known this young, cocky officer who went toe-to-toe with a massive Nausicaan, and Picard assures him that the stabbing was not his first unpleasant encounter with them, beginning the story from his sophomore year at the Academy on Morikin VII as the Enterprise continues on its way.

Memorable quotes [ ]

" Welcome to the afterlife, Jean-Luc. You're dead. "

" Q, what is going on? " " I told you. You're dead, this is the afterlife, and I'm God. " " You are not God! " " Blasphemy! You're lucky I don't cast you out or smite you or something. "

" I refuse to believe that the afterlife is run by you ; the universe is not so badly designed. "

" After all these years, even now, you manage to disappoint me, Jean-Luc. "

" I find it hard to believe that you are doing this for the benefit of my soul! "

" My only regret is dying and finding you here. "

" Change them? You mean change the past? Q, even if you have been able to bring me back in time somehow, surely you must realize that any alteration in this timeline will have a profound impact on the future." " Please! Spare me your egotistical musings on your pivotal role in history. Nothing you do here will cause the Federation to collapse or galaxies to explode. To be blunt, you're not that important."

"You will go on with your life with a real heart." "Then I won't die." "Of course you'll die! It'll just be at a later time." "What if I don't avoid the fight? What if I won't make the changes?" "Then you die on the table, and we spend eternity together." "Wonderful…" "I'm glad you think so."

" I had no idea you were such a cad. I'm impressed. "

" Penny for your thoughts. "

" … It's a beautiful story. It gets you right here, doesn't it? "

" Flowers! Is there a John Luck Pickerd here? "

" Well, let's see… You've managed to get slapped by one woman, get a drink thrown in your face by another and alienate your two best friends. Doing pretty well so far. The only thing left to avoid is being stabbed through the heart. "

" Vell, vell, vell. Vhat seems to be ze trouble, Leutnant Picard? "

" … You should be happy! You have a real heart beating in your chest, and you get to live out the rest of your life in safety – running tests, making analyses, and carrying reports to your superiors. "

" Your performance records have always been good. You're thorough… dedicated… " " Steady, reliable… punctual. "

" If you want to get ahead, you have to take chances… stand out in a crowd, get noticed! "

" You having a good laugh now, Q? Does it amuse you to think of me living out the rest of my life as a dreary man in a tedious job? "

" I gave you something most mortals never experience – a second chance at life – and now all you can do is complain ? " " I can't live out my days as that person! That man is bereft of passion… and IMAGINATION! That is not who I am! "

" 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 realized 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 ." " You're right, Q. You gave me the chance to change, and I took the opportunity. But I admit now – it was a mistake! " " Are you asking me for something, Jean-Luc? " " Give me a chance, to put things back the way they were before. " " Before, you died in sickbay. Is that what you want? " " I would rather die as the man I was … than live the life I just saw. " (Q nods approvingly.)

" Coward! Like all Starfleet ! You talk and you talk, but you have no guramba . " " What did you say? " " I said, you … are a COWARD! " " That's what I thought you said. "

" 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. "

" I was just trying to imagine a hell-bent for leather, young officer insulting a Nausicaan twice his size. I wish I would have had a chance to know that Jean-Luc Picard. "

Background information [ ]

Production history [ ].

• Final draft script 30 November 1992 [1]
• Premiere airdate: 15 February 1993
• First UK airdate: 18 October 1995

Story and script [ ]

• The episode was initially conceived to have a much broader scope. Entitled "A Q Carol", it involved Q leading Picard through several "mistakes" in the captain's life, in the style of Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol . In addition to the stabbing, Picard was to relive a childhood event in France and an event on the USS Stargazer , which would have possibly involved Jack R. Crusher 's death. However, Michael Piller was not entirely pleased with the premise. Ronald D. Moore explained, " He thought it was pointless. Here are some scenes from your life basically. It didn't have the right resonance so I went back and tried to focus in on one incident to make it a little more meaningful. " ( Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion  (2nd ed., p. 236); Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages , p. 271)
• Moore chose the stabbing incident as it had always intrigued him. " It was an interesting little story about him. That story, to me, said a lot about Picard's character – that he was a different guy in those days. Then he changed. Why did he change? What would be the difference in the young womanizing, hard-drinking, hard-fighting Jean-Luc Picard and the guy that we know today? " ( Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages , p. 271)

Patrick Stewart and John de Lancie during filming.

• However, the basic origins of the story were not as clear. None of the staff could remember the source of the basic "near-death white light" premise. It was only after the episode aired that the producers received a letter from James Mooring , who had initially pitched the idea. The staff were quick to rectify the situation. Jeri Taylor recalled, " I talked to him, Ron talked to him, and they paid him. He was very happy. All he wanted was acknowledgment of this, and we apologized profusely. I hope it restored his faith in our integrity, because we would never do anything like that intentionally. " ( Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion  (2nd ed., p. 236))
• The morning-after scene between Marta and Picard was cut significantly. In the script, Marta gives a speech about the first day at the Academy. Cut references include "Scobee Hall", where an Admiral Silona gave a welcome speech to the cadets, noting that one in three cadets wouldn't make it through the four-year course. The script including the cut lines can be viewed here , while the full, uncut scene is available as a bonus feature on the TNG Season 6 Blu-ray release. Actress J.C. Brandy , who played Batanides, was actually pleased with the cut, as she felt the speech as scripted was too self-pitying and as such not fitting with her character. Ultimately, it was redundant, as Brandy noted. " It said the same thing that the scene showed in one minute. " ( Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages , p. 272)
• Moore revealed that at one point, the Enterprise captain in Picard's future was to have been Edward Jellico . ( Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion  (2nd ed., p. 236))
• Penny Muroc was named for an older woman that Moore had once dated. ( Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion  (2nd ed., p. 236))
• The Bonestell Recreation Facility on Starbase Earhart was named after artist and matte painter Chesley Bonestell . ( Star Trek Encyclopedia  (4th ed., vol. 1, p. 91))

Production [ ]

• Portraying the "afterlife" created some technical problems. With John de Lancie in a white robe on a white background, director of photography Jonathan West and producer Merri Howard were concerned that Q would appear merely as a floating head. Both actors were aware of the difficulties in the shot, and de Lancie felt that it made his performance in the scene somewhat more subdued than normal. Moore, however, noted that this low key result was perfect for this more serious than usual Q episode. ( Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages , p. 271)
• The cityscape view from Marta's quarters, visible at the end of Act Three, was reused from the City of Domes, created to Logan's Run (1976) movie.
• Among the costumes and items from this episode which were sold off on the It's A Wrap! sale and auction on eBay is a Nausicaan knife. [2]

Cast and characters [ ]

• LeVar Burton ( Geordi La Forge ) does not appear on screen but has one brief voiceover line. However, a scene present in the script but not in the episode featured La Forge and "Lieutenant Picard" in engineering, suggesting Picard is treated somewhat like Barclay by Geordi. [3]

Continuity [ ]

• Picard told Wesley Crusher the story of fighting with the Nausicaans and getting stabbed through the heart in the season 2 episode " Samaritan Snare ". He said that, looking down at the knife, he "actually laughed out loud", which he took as a strange thing to do. When Q and Picard reviewed the incident at the beginning of the episode we see that he did indeed laugh after he was stabbed. This episode adds a twist to the laugh, as Picard may be laughing because he knows his life will turn out the way it is meant to.
• The context of the fight was changed from " Samaritan Snare ". In "Samaritan Snare", Picard's encounter with the Nausicaans was a first-time event as they were "spoiling for confrontation". Everyone in the group gives them a wide berth except Picard, who initiates the fight by insulting the Nausicaans. In "Tapestry" the encounter is an act of revenge because the Nausicaans are believed to have cheated Picard's friend Corey Zweller the previous day.
• This episode marks the first on-screen appearance of the Nausicaans.
• Besides TNG's pilot episode (" Encounter at Farpoint ") and series finale (" All Good Things... "), this is the only Q episode of The Next Generation that does not have "Q" in the title ( Star Trek: Voyager 's " Death Wish " and Star Trek: Lower Decks 's " Veritas " are the only other episodes in Star Trek to feature this).
• Q appeared the previous week on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's " Q-Less ". In that episode, Q briefly mentioned that he maybe "should pay [Picard] a visit."
• The exact nature of time travel used in this episode is intentionally left ambiguous in light of the full spectrum of Q's powers and the incident that brought about the chain of events in the first place. As observed by Picard himself, Q's powers and ability to create isolated realms of existence introduce the possibility that time travel is not involved at all, or the whole experience could merely be a hallucination in which case Picard never even met Q at all in the episode.
• In one scene at the Bonestell Recreation Facility, both a Selay and an Antican can be seen in the crowd. These races were first seen back in the season one episode " Lonely Among Us ", and were deadly enemies. A script note for the same scene warned against using the Ferengi before their discovery. [4]
• In the brief scene where Picard is seen as an ensign as he originally appeared, he is not bald. However, in Star Trek Nemesis he is seen in a photograph as bald nonetheless – and as he was wearing the NCO uniform at the time, this is presumably before the fight with the Nausicaans.
• This is one of only five TNG episodes that doesn't have a stardate. The others are TNG : " Symbiosis ", " First Contact ", " Liaisons ", and " Sub Rosa ".
• Picard tells Q that if he had not started the fight with the Nausicaans he would never have needed an artificial heart, and subsequently die on account of it from a "random energy surge 30 years later". Q states Picard is 21 years old at the time the fight happened, placing those events in 2326. As the episode takes place in 2369, it was actually 43 years between the fight and his death.

Reception [ ]

• TV Guide ranked this as the ninth best Star Trek episode for their celebration of the franchise's 30th anniversary. ( TV Guide August 24, 1996)
• Entertainment Weekly ranked this episode #4 on their list of "The Top 10 Episodes" to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation . [5]
• The book Star Trek 101 (p. 74), by Terry J. Erdmann and Paula M. Block , lists this episode as one of the "Ten Essential Episodes" from Star Trek: The Next Generation .
• John de Lancie remarked, " I thought it was a terrific script…There was a speech at the end where I talk about what he would have been, which I thought was a tip-top speech. I just thought that show from beginning to end was terrific. " ( Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages , p. 271)
• Michael Piller was not as enthusiastic about the show. " I wasn't much a fan of that show. I thought it was a wonderful premise, I loved the pitch of Picard dying and having the white light experience and reaching out to the hand and it's Q. It's your worst nightmare come true. I found that from the beginning my greatest fear was that it would be It's a Wonderful Life . When a series gets tired, they do It's a Wonderful Life . I don't think we ever solved my problems with it in terms of getting a fresh slant. I felt that it was one of those Christmas-type episodes where the direction and the performance were sort of flat. Some of the scenes seemed to be very talky to me. It did not have the power and the impact on me that it seems to have had on other people. I'm delighted that it was a meaningful experience for a lot of people and made them think about their own lives because that's what Star Trek is trying to do. They should accept themselves rather than wish they had done something else. " ( Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages , p. 272)
• Ronald D. Moore remarked, " I loved "Tapestry" and while Michael and I had several arguments over it, he was the Exec Producer and could've simply forced me to do it differently. To his credit, Michael let me do the show pretty much as I wanted to. I still think it's one of the best things I wrote and one of TNG's finest episodes. ". ( AOL chat , 1997 )
• As René Echevarria noted, some fans misinterpreted the message the show was sending. " We've gotten some flack about it. People felt it glorified violence and that it basically says Picard tries to go back and not do the violent thing and solve things by reason and it makes him bland and not captain material. We got big, big letters from people saying this is awful and goes against everything Star Trek stands for. I think the point the show made was more subtle than that, and I think they lost sight of it. " ( Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages , p. 272)
• Wesley Crusher actor Wil Wheaton was impressed by this episode, describing it as " my favorite episode of Next Generation" and " a really great example of how everything that happens in our lives, even the shitty things, help shape us into the people we are. " Wheaton also gave a personal illustration of how he himself had experienced the outworkings of that moral, talking about how, although he had suffered hostility while playing Wesley, he had benefited from leaving the series. ( The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years , p. 106)

Apocrypha [ ]

• The novel Q&A shows a timeline where Lieutenant Picard, after being told by Riker and Troi that he needed to step up and be noticed, did just that and by the time of 2380 , had risen to Lieutenant Commander and was a bridge officer on the USS Enterprise -E under Captain Thomas Halloway , as a "final parting gift" by Riker before he left for the USS Titan , where another timeline shows that Picard also became first officer of the Enterprise -E under Captain Wesley Crusher .
• The novel Q-Squared also references the events of this episode. When Q tells Picard he owes him, Picard asks how. Q then puts one hand over his heart and flaps his fingers while making a "thump, thump, thump" sound and Picard instantly knows what Q was referring to. When he asks if it really happened, Q's answer is "yes and no" and he says it's the best answer he could provide and that Picard wouldn't understand any answer beyond that.

Video and DVD releases [ ]

• UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video ): Volume 71, 18 October 1993
• As part of the UK VHS collection Star Trek: The Next Generation - Q Continuum : 5 December 1994
• As part of the TNG Season 6 DVD collection
• As part of the Star Trek: Fan Collective - Q collection
• As part of the Star Trek: The Next Generation - Jean-Luc Picard Collection
• As part of The Best of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Volume 2 DVD collection

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

• Patrick Stewart as Capt. Jean-Luc Picard
• Jonathan Frakes as Cmdr. William Riker

Also starring [ ]

• LeVar Burton as Lt. Cmdr. Geordi La Forge (voice)
• Michael Dorn as Lieutenant Worf
• Gates McFadden as Dr. Beverly Crusher
• Marina Sirtis as Counselor Deanna Troi
• Brent Spiner as Lt. Commander Data

Guest stars [ ]

• Ned Vaughn as Cortan Zweller
• J.C. Brandy as Marta Batanides
• Clint Carmichael as Nausicaan
• Rae Norman as Penny Muroc
• John de Lancie as Q

Co-stars [ ]

• Clive Church as Maurice Picard
• Marcus Nash as Young Picard
• Majel Barrett as Computer Voice

Uncredited co-stars [ ]

• David Keith Anderson as Armstrong
• Michael Braveheart as Martinez
• Cameron as Kellogg
• David Paul Christian as Ten Forward waiter
• Nick Dimitri as Nausicaan
• Inez Edwards as science division officer
• Holiday Freeman as command division officer
• Goldie Ann Gareza as command division officer
• Melanie Hathorn as sciences officer
• Christie Haydon as command division ensign
• Kai as science division officer
• Rad Milo as civilian
• Tom Morga as Nausicaan
• Keith Rayve as command division ensign
• Joycelyn Robinson as Gates
• Buck-toothed alien
• Five afterlife voices
• Four Starfleet officers
• Male civilian
• Operations division officer
• Rotciv member
• Ten Bonestell Recreation Facility customers
• Transporter operator (voice)

Stunt doubles [ ]

• John Nowak as stunt double for Patrick Stewart
• Lynn Salvatori as stunt double for J.C. Brandy
• Unknown stunt performer as stunt double for Ned Vaughn

Stand-ins [ ]

• Debbie David – stand-in for Brent Spiner
• Michael Echols – stand-in for Michael Dorn
• Nora Leonhardt – stand-in for Marina Sirtis
• Lorine Mendell – stand-in for Gates McFadden
• Richard Sarstedt – stand-in for Jonathan Frakes
• Dennis Tracy – stand-in for Patrick Stewart
• Guy Vardaman – stand-in for John de Lancie

References [ ]

2327 ; adolescent ; Ajax , USS ; ambulatory case ; amusement ; artificial heart ; assistant astrophysics officer ; asteroid ; astrophysics lab ; B-2 Spirit ; baby's breath ; barokie ; best friend ; bio-regulator ; blasphemy ; Bonestell Recreation Facility ; bouquet ; cad ; cadet ; cardiac arrest ; career ; Class of '27 ; compressed teryon beam ; cordrazine ; cortical stimulator ; deep space assignment ; delivery man ; disorientation ; dom-jot ; Earhart, Starbase ; Federation ; gambling foreman (occupation); gambling foreman (individual); God ; graduation ; guramba ; Halloway, Thomas ; head mirror ; imagination ; inaprovaline ; inept ; intention ; internal bleeding ; isocortex ; ladies' man ; Lenarians ( Lenarian attackers 1 ); leutnant ; lieutenant junior grade ; liver ; magna-spanner ; magnetic device ; Milika III ; Milika III ambassador ; Milika III away team ; ministration ; Morikin VII ; mortality ; Narth ; Nausicaan ; Nausicaan language ; Nausicaan outpost ; Nausicaan sword ; penny ; postmortem status ; pulmonary support unit ; Rigel ; rose ; Selar ; senior officer ; sense of humor ; sophomore ; spleen ; Starfleet Academy ; Stargazer , USS ; Stargazer captain ; stasis unit ; statistical analysis ; stethoscope ; straight nines ; toast ; transporter room 4 ; trigonometry ; turbolift ; ward three ; wrist

Other references [ ]

• Spacecraft Systems Status : Bussard collector ; captain's yacht ; class M ; gross vehicle mass ; impulse engine ; main shuttlebay Mars ; navigational deflector ; observation lounge ; phaser bank ; service docking port ; shuttlebay 2 ; shuttlebay 3 ; torpedo launcher ; umbilical connect port ; Utopia Planitia ; warp nacelle

Deleted scenes references [ ]

Lynch ; Scobee Hall ; Silona ; trioxina

External links [ ]

• " Tapestry " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• " Tapestry " at Wikipedia
• "Tapestry" at StarTrek.com
• " Tapestry " at MissionLogPodcast.com , a Roddenberry Star Trek podcast
• "Tapestry" script  at Star Trek Minutiae
• " Tapestry " at the Internet Movie Database
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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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Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season 6, Episode 15

Where to watch, star trek: the next generation — season 6, episode 15.

Watch Star Trek: The Next Generation — Season 6, Episode 15 with a subscription on Paramount+, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

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Marina Sirtis

Counselor Deanna Troi

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Picard is near death and Q makes him relive a tragedy from his Starfleet Academy days.

Majel Barrett Roddenberry

John de Lancie

J.C. Brandy

Clint Carmichael

Clive Church

Marcus nash.

Rende Rae Norman

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

Edit locked.

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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Star Trek: The Next Generation : "Tapestry"

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.

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"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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Published Dec 22, 2022

Star Trek's Tapestry: A Q Carol

How a classic Christmas tale inspired one of Star Trek’s finest hours.

StarTrek.com / Rob DeHart

The Christmas episode has long been a staple of television, but Star Trek fans hoping to curl up with a festive installment this holiday season may find themselves wanting. With its humanist outlook, Star Trek has never produced a traditional Christmas episode. And it has only referenced the holiday a handful of times, fleetingly.

In " Dagger of the Mind ," an episode of Star Trek: The Original Series , we hear briefly of a Christmas party. In the film Star Trek Generations , we get a glimpse of an imagined world where Captain Picard celebrates Christmas with his family. And, in the Star Trek: Voyager episode " Death Wish ," Captain Janeway’s ship is momentarily transformed into a Christmas tree ornament by a member of the Q Continuum.

StarTrek.com

But, despite this meager offering of yuletide references, scattered across some 60 years of TV and film, the franchise does boast one installment that could be described as a kind of Christmas episode. It is based on one of the most famous Christmas stories ever written — Charles Dickens’ short novel, A Christmas Carol . And it is also one of the most popular episodes of the entire franchise — " Tapestry " from Star Trek: The Next Generation .

In Dickens’ original tale, the protagonist is Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly and ill-tempered old man, who despises Christmas and rejects the spirit of generosity and thanksgiving associated with the season. But, when Scrooge is visited by a succession of ghosts on Christmas Eve, who show him visions of the past, present and future, he is persuaded to change his ways and become a kinder, gentler man.

Image reproduced courtesy of Dickens collector and bibliophile Dan Calinescu, Toronto.

The plot of "Tapestry" diverges significantly from the original story. In the episode, the noble Captain Picard takes the place of the cantankerous Scrooge. Rather than three ghosts, he is guided by the omnipotent Q. And, instead of simply seeing visions, Picard is literally sent into the past and given the opportunity to change an event from his youth.

With such major differences from the plot of A Christmas Carol , fans could be forgiven for not realizing that "Tapestry" is based on the classic Dickens tale. But this inspiration is well documented. A 1993 article in Cinefantastique revealed that the episode’s original title was "A Q Carol." In the audio commentary for "Tapestry," available on the Blu-ray release of Season 6 of Star Trek: The Next Generation , episode writer Ronald D. Moore is even more direct about his inspiration. He reveals that his idea to base an episode on A Christmas Carol came from hearing about Patrick Stewart’s one-man theatrical adaptation of the story.

Stewart devised the play himself, and it made its stage debut during the early seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation . He continued to perform it throughout his time on the series, taking the show to Broadway, London, and many other locations during breaks between filming. It was a major success, drawing attention for Stewart’s depiction of over 30 characters during each performance, without props or costume changes.

According to Moore, Stewart’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol was much discussed in the production offices for Star Trek: The Next Generation . And it seems to have received a knowing reference in the Season 4 episode " Devil’s Due ," which includes a scene of Data performing as Ebenezer Scrooge on the Holodeck, while Captain Picard (played by Patrick Stewart) offers advice on his performance.

However, when the time came for Moore to attempt his own adaptation of Dickens’ tale, several challenges came up. Moore’s original conception of the episode saw Q taking Picard back to several points in his life, much as the Ghost of Christmas Past does to Scrooge in A Christmas Carol . This included returns to Picard’s family home in France, as well as scenes aboard the Stargazer , where Picard had his first command. But these frequent changes of location and the abundance of guest actors required, would have made this a particularly expensive episode to produce. And it might have proved difficult to do all of this material justice within the confines of a 45-minute episode.

Furthermore, series executive producer Michael Piller was unsure about the idea. According to Moore, he “thought it was pointless.” But Moore was also having uncertainties himself, admitting that it “didn’t have the right resonance.”

As he developed the episode’s story further, Moore decided to focus on a single event from Picard’s past – a bar fight he had started in his more rambunctious youth, which was previously referenced in the Season 2 episode " Samaritan Snare ." That episode told us that the fight had ended with Picard being stabbed through the heart, and his life was only saved thanks to the transplant of an artificial organ. Moore picked up this thread in his final script for "Tapestry," where we learn that the artificial heart has failed, and Picard is given a chance to return to the past and prevent the bar fight, enabling him to survive in the present.

Even as this new version of the story drifted from Moore’s original conception, some elements from A Christmas Carol were retained. For instance, in one of the early scenes, Q summons the voices of all the people that have died because of Picard’s actions or inactions as a starship captain. The scene is remarkably similar to one from the first chapter of Dickens’ book, in which Scrooge is confronted by the “wailings” of ghosts.

Likewise, the end of the episode seems to mirror Dickens’ story. In the final scene of "Tapestry," Picard speculates on whether his time travel with Q was real, or just a dream. While, in A Christmas Carol , Scrooge awakes on Christmas morning, as if all his experiences with the ghosts occurred in his mind while asleep.

Picard’s final speech also seems to draw on similar imagery to A Christmas Carol . In the speech, Picard envisions his life as a tapestry, stating that though there may be threads from the past which he regrets, if he were to remove them, the entire tapestry would be unraveled. Similarly, in A Christmas Carol , the ghost of Scrooge’s old business partner Jacob Marley depicts his life as a chain, “I wear the chain I forged in life […] I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.”

Even where "Tapestry" and A Christmas Carol diverge in story and imagery, they retain a thematic similarity. For example, while Picard is given the chance to change his past (unlike Scrooge, who is merely allowed to see it), this opportunity is ultimately revealed to be illusory. It is part of Q’s game, used to teach Picard the lesson that his past regrets were essential to making him the man he would become.

Thus, Q plays the same role as the ghosts in A Christmas Carol , acting as a kind of guardian angel to Picard, and even sparing his life at the end of the episode. And the result is similar – both Picard and Scrooge see their lives from a different angle and gain a new insight into themselves. Both experience a kind of revelation, and emerge as happier men, more content in themselves, and more understanding of others.

So, though Star Trek fans may never get a true Christmas episode in the traditional sense, "Tapestry" represents a worthy substitute. It encompasses many of the themes and sentiments common to the season, inviting us to reflect on our lives with gratitude, in spite of our regrets, and reconceptualize our futures as the new year begins.

Whether one celebrates Christmas or not, we can all take a lesson from Scrooge to “live in the Past, the Present, and the Future”. In this way, we can maintain a fuller perspective on the tapestry of our lives, with an acceptance of what has been woven, and a determination to thread new patterns as we go forward, for the betterment of ourselves and for others.

Christian Kriticos (he/him) is a freelance writer based in London, England. You can find more of his work at www.christiankriticos.com.

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Tapestry Stardate: Unknown Original Airdate: 15 Feb, 1993

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