10/30/2026
Our kind of service leader….
So, I had a whole Scary Review finished for Star Trek: Picard. I was going to bitch at length about the squandered potential, the confusing plot elements, the way they eventually just said "f**k it, this isn't working... LET'S BRING EVERYONE BACK! INCLUDING THE ENTERPRISE D!"
Well, now doesn't seem like a good time for that. We've lost THREE actors from the franchise in the last couple weeks. First was Michael Forest, who played Apollo in Who Mourns for Adonais?. Then, of course, Walter Koenig, who played Chekov, and just last month had encouraged fans to see him at an upcoming convention "before I die". And, of course, we have now lost Patrick Stewart.
You might want to sit down. For once, I’m going to say something nice about somebody. If you experience dizziness, there’s probably an unopened AMT Enterprise kit nearby you can breathe into.
It takes a hell of an actor to put on burgundy space pajamas, stand in front of a blinking wall, and make a speech about humanity to someone with latex glued to their face that leaves you wanting to become a better person. Usually, when a man on television tells me how to live, he’s about to sell me supplements or explain why his private jet is essential to the Lord’s work. But not Patrick Stewart. Patrick Stewart actually made me listen.
Captain Picard could spend forty minutes trying to understand a completely unreasonable alien civilization, and somehow you’d sit there thinking, “Yes. Diplomacy. Patience. We should try that." Meanwhile, I’m ready to sever diplomatic relations with the person ahead of me at the gas station because they’ve waited until their total is rung up to begin counting their handful of dimes.
That was the beauty of Picard. Here was a man who could command a starship, appreciate art, admit he was wrong, and settle a dispute without acting like somebody had questioned the size of his dick. He made intelligence compelling. He made restraint look powerful. He could say “Mr. Worf” with enough authority to make you straighten up on your own couch. Pretty damned unusual for at TV character. All delivered in a smooth English accent, despite the character being French. (Kurtzman Trek would have some convoluted three episode plot line just to explain that.)
You could not have pulled any of that off with a lesser actor. Stewart gave Picard the humanity to make all of it work. Actually, forget making it work... making it MATTER. Underneath the uniform and the voice was someone who could be lonely, frightened, stubborn, or absolutely devastated. Sometimes the scene needed a speech. Sometimes he could just sit there holding a flute and ruin your entire f**king evening.
But my favorite thing about Patrick Stewart might be his willingness to be completely ridiculous. All that Shakespearean training, all that gravitas, and absolutely no obligation to spend every waking moment behaving like a commemorative statue. He talked about Beavis and Butt-Head being his favorite TV show. He voiced Avery Bullock on American Dad. He narrated Ted. Somewhere, somebody has heard that voice say "ever bang a dead mermaid?" and then had to sit through a perfectly respectable episode of The Next Generation with the knowledge lodged in their brain. Beautiful.
There's just something I have always respected about somebody who takes their craft seriously, but absolutely refuses to take themselves seriously.
There are actors you enjoy watching, and there are actors whose work becomes part of how you think about the world. Stewart belongs in that second group. He helped make decency memorable without making it dull, and that’s a considerably harder trick than firing a phaser.
It's hilarious to me that those manosphere guys like to invoke Romans, Vikings, and Wolves, when the absolute pinnacle of masculinity is right f**king there, unwinding with with Dr. Crusher after having just talked the Romulans out of destroying a settlement. Again.
Thank you, Sir Patrick.
Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.
And everybody else, try acting like you’ve served aboard his ship for five f**king minutes. The world at large would be so much better for it.
