Star Trek 248: Tapestry

248. Tapestry

FORMULA: Qpid + The First Duty

WHY WE LIKE IT: Practically everything.

WHY WE DON'T: Picard's school chums really are drama queens, aren't they?

REVIEW: Where do I begin? From the initial moments when Dr. Selar's name is dropped (which always makes me giddy), this episode is just a joy. Picard dies on the operating table and finds Q running the afterlife, at first subjecting him to being haunted by the people he's killed by his actions and inactions, then taking a page from Quantum Leap and revisiting a moment he regrets from his past. And it's not a cheap invention for the purposes of this story either - it's the very same moment he told Wesley about back in Samaritan Snare, his fight with the Nausicaans.

Q and Picard are a great, antagonistic double-act, both going after the other with wit and energy. "Is there a John-Luck Pickerd here?" remains one of the great Q gags, and it's really fun to see Picard plagued by Q not only in the afterlife, but in his own bed as well. I don't care too much for Picard's school friends, since they're way over the top in their reactions ("I don't know who you are anymore!" sheesh), but they serve their purpose. I guess we're supposed to see young Picard in them. The Nausicaans, on the other hand, are a great creation that might've see more air time. The very definition of macho (which they call "Guramba"), these brutes look extremely tough and have a look and sound just a touch more alien than usual.

Once history has been changed, the episode turns into a what if scenario in which Picard never became a risk-taker and is just a lowly lieutenant in the astrophysics department. Riker's assessment of him as "punctual" makes me laugh every time. Clearly, the lesson is that it's no use regretting anything, since everything you've ever done and experienced has made you who you are today. Is this lesson part of the debt Q has been trying to repay since Qpid? Is it a test on the nature of time to prepare Picard for All Good Things (and not unlike Time Squared, which was meant to be a Q episode)? Did it even happen (that, at least, can be checked with a call to Marta, if she's still alive)?

And on top of all that, Tapestry throws all sorts of nice details at us: Movie era uniforms, our first look at dom-jot, Worf's change of hair to the warrior's pony tail, the things Picard did to earn his rank, and a whole new context for why Picard laughed when he was stabbed through the heart. Nice production design, and a clever way to include the rest of the cast as well.

LESSON: Damn, now I regret talking about the lesson under "Review".

REWATCHABILITY - High: The best Q episode, bar none, and there are a number of good ones! It's also an excellent Picard episode. Not to be missed.