Tapestry

I'll get this out of the way quick, we all know this is a thoughtful episode, but it relies on you not knowing where it's going, and not thinking very deeply about it as it's going there to make any sense. The great final point is totally mixed up and doesn't actually make any sense whatsoever.

Picard wants to not be the sort of reckless youth who gets stabbed through the heart in a fight over a game of a pool. An event which one presumes helped lead him to become his on-show persona, a responsible man who is somber, sober, and wise. His youthful self was brash, reckless, and stupid, and he's grown to be the polar opposite of that.

Except now, according to Q, if he doesn't get stabbed through the heart he becomes too somber and not reckless enough? Are we supposed to believe that getting stabbed through the heart made him realize to never change? Picard repeatedly states in this episode and others that he's changed a lot since he was young. But he didn't change? And if he doesn't get stabbed through the heart he doesn't realize how precious life is, and realizing that is what causes him to do risky stuff in the line of duty? But if he never almost died and has no brush with death, he doesn't appreciate the fragility of life so he doesn't do reckless things? And by suffering no consequences for being hot-headed and irresponsible he over-learns the lesson to not be hot-headed and irresponsible?

Of course, I can easily see where the writer tripped over their own two feet on this. Picard regrets that as a young man he was a bit of an idiot and user of other people. And therein could be a lesson that, "Hey, who you were, even if you weren't perfect, is what helped make you become the much better person you are now." What a great literary theme for an episode. Except none of it makes any sense as written, as Picard learned a lesson getting stabbed, that lesson was to get serious. Because being serious and thoughtful is how he's shown as succeeding in life. So he can't now go back and time and be serious, and therefore become a failure because he never learned to be reckless and take risks. He was already reckless and took risks, he learned to temper that with foresight and reason.

If Picard avoids getting nearly stabbed to death what that should teach him is there are no consequences to being an immature jerk. So instead of being a milquetoast nobody thirty years later, he'd be an irresponsible, people user thirty years later, just like he was at 21. But the writer missed that, because they were thinking they wanted to show how taking risks and being daring is what made Picard a success. But Picard doesn't regret being a responsible 30-something who is willing to take charge in the moment, he regrets being a dumb 20-something who almost died in a bar fight. And there's just no way to make getting stabbed in a bar fight and then using the incredibly flimsy excuse of a near-death experience to paper over this moral idiot plot work. It just doesn't work if you're paying attention.

Also the morning-after scene with his female friend, who had been gazing at him in desperation up until that point, just really stuck out like a sore thumb. The "we ruined our friendship because we had sex," really feels dated nearly 30 years on, it's painfully clunky. Nobody would write a line like that nowadays, you can tell that's a writer raised in the 1950s, in a time with very different ideas about sex and sexuality. And of course, these are supposed to be 21 year-olds living centuries from now, for them to sound like they had to be born during the Eisenhower years really sounds goofy.

It's still a good episode because everything else in it works well, the acting, Q, the fun of Picard going back in time, but the point of the story really has lost it's luster watching this now as a more discerning adult.

Q in his dalliances decides that he needs to invade Picard's space one more time and force him to live an incident in his life over one more time. There are opposing forces that are at work here. First of all, the whole immutability issue. Events are tightly connected to one another and random acts create random results. The opportunities and choices are not self determined with an eye toward the future. When Picard decides to avoid trouble with those bad guys, he now engages in a whole new randomness. He should be aware of this, but Q forces him to see what happens. The second may have more to do with opportunity than with integrity. His being just a dull starfleet anyone is an interesting result of his "inaction." Many factors, among those the prejudicial decision of someone in power could have just as much to do with this. Also, is one act a definition of a person; especially where one's heart is in the right place (so to speak). This is an inconsistent, though provocative, episode.

This is one of my favorite Q episodes--and it's among my favorites of the series. Part of this is because of the excellent continuity with an earlier episode ("Samaritan's Snare") and part of it is because the show clearly shows that Q IS a friend to Picard and is clearly helping him.

When the show begins, Picard is dying as a result of some sneak attack. His fake heart has given out and the Doctor is trying desperately to keep him alive. Then, suddenly, Picard awakens and he's in what could be Heaven...that is until he sees that the part of God is being played by Q! Here Q is welcoming him to the afterlife, but Picard naturally believes that this is one of Q's tricks once again.

Over the course of the show, Q allows Picard to time travel back to his impulsive period just after he's graduated from Starfleet Academy. This is because this is a HUGE regret for Picard--when he got his original heart destroyed in a foolish fight with some Nausicaans (which was alluded to in the prior episode). Picard always felt ashamed of this incident and his stupid youth--yet through the course of many flashbacks to his past and present, Picard comes to realize that his mistakes actually made him a better man and better leader.

As I mention in the summary, this episode is highly reminiscent to Dickens' "A Christmas Carole" with Picard seeing alternate paths for his life. It ends much differently and has many wonderful moments (the best is when Picard awakens after a night of hot sex--you just have to see that one!). All in all, very memorable and a great episode about who the Captain really is down deep.

'Tapestry' hits on the very real (and almost universal) human trait of regret; that need to do it all again for a different outcome. And there is a distinctly Dickensian ring to this. But one of the reasons I think this episode is so effective is that it gives Q (somewhat the perpetrator of all of this) some serious dramatic weight. I have to admit, I've never been hot on the character; he's usually played impishly and for comedic effect. But here, his disgust with humanity is played beautifully, and De Lancie's scenes with Stewart are a pleasure.

The other reason is the pivotal turn - the wax-on, wax-off scene that brings it all together. Seeping Picard in science green and coasting on an adequate career is indeed jarring, and just about the clearest reminder that those things we regret are integral to who we are.

It's an incredibly potent episode.

9/10

Time travel always has problems and Tapestry episode is no exception. Others have mentioned some of this so I'll add another perspective to it. When Picard returns to the past and chooses to not fight the Nausicaans and ends up a junior science officer why does the show assume he'd be unhappy in that role? If the course of his life choices took him to become 'junior science officer', took him anywhere, why would he not like it there or at least why not blame himself for it? Instead Picard becomes a perpetual whiner. If he got there by his own his choices, he'd find a way to accept his state in life, whatever it is. But Picard plays the whiner to Riker and Troi because he isn't on the fast track to a command job. It isn't realistic. On the other hand, if his whining was rooted in the fact that the time traveler Picard had all the skills of the Picard we know at the beginning of the show, then why wouldn't the time traveling Picard up and do what it takes to get a command job immediately. The story really falls apart if you think about, as all time travel shows do. But I won't say the show gets ruined by these failings, TNG is one of the best so I forgive and try to look at what it was trying to say which was that some of our personal regrets from growing up may be misplaced. And don't be so sure we totally understand how we are best shaped. Also it was certainly fun to watch Picard out of place, beneath those who are usually his underlings. The turn-about was entertaining even if it didn't add up.