Rest in peace, Patrick Stewart

Darmok, when the tears fell.

I don’t accept this, I reject this. We are in the wrong timeline.

Patrick Stewart dead? When we lost Dolly Parton and Tim Curry just recently? And Walter Koenig days ago? No. I am going to pass on all of this.

All right, if there’s one thing I learned from my TV dad, it’s that we have to face things. We have to look at hard things squarely and deal with whatever is going on.

So it is true, but it still seems incredibly wrong that Patrick Stewart is gone. He was the center around which a big part of the universe revolved. Loss doesn’t begin to describe it.

This is not in any way a coherent appreciation, because I just found out about Stewart and a lot of emotions and memories are colliding in my brain right now. When I was on the jury of the Peabody Awards, one year we gave awards to post-Star Trek projects by Scott Bakula (Men of a Certain Age, which is great) and Stewart (The Hollow Crown, which is great). At the Peabody Awards ceremony that year, at one point, I was in a green room with two Star Trek captains – and one of them was Jean-Luc Picard – and so of course, my husband and a bestie had to talk me down and remind me to breathe.

I would not have survived graduate school without being able to turn the TV on every day at 6 p.m., when a local station aired Star Trek: The Next Generation reruns. Every day, I needed Stewart’s warm baritone soothe me into thinking I could make it; the show was a load-bearing part of my life at that time. Even now, TNG remains a comfort watch. I could list everything that makes me groan, then or now, but there are many, many good things about it, and that list begins with Patrick Stewart.

Because this news is so fresh and raw, this isn’t a coherent appreciation. But here are a few thoughts.

• The first two seasons of TNG were a mess. There were some good episodes, a solid cast and many promising elements, but a lot of the show just didn’t work. Without Patrick Stewart grounding the whole thing and treating it seriously, as an artist and a professional, it simply would not have worked. Without the linchpin he provided, the whole attempt to revive Star Trek on the small screen would have very likely died on the vine. If Stewart ever thought a TNG premise or situation was ridiculous or dumb, he never played the character that way.
• He also anchored TNG’s transition to the big screen, and of course, not everything in the TNG movies works either, but once again, but Stewart remained charismatic and eminently watchable. “A lot of actors with classical training have found themselves in science-fiction or fantasy. I think it's because they require a certain heightened style, both of language and behavior, and the world that we came from in classical theater gave actors a bit more presence,” Stewart told Alan Sepinwall. And Stewart was able to supply that without ever going over the top.

• What unites both of these first points is Stewart’s ability, as Jean-Luc Picard, to remain serious without ever being ponderous or condescending. I don’t say this as a dig, but as Kirk, William Shatner usually had a little twinkle in his eye. That’s not to say that Shatner took nothing seriously, but he had definite hambone proclivities and was willing to go big in a way that sometimes winked at the audience. Stewart did not do that. His captain was a game, curious, thoughtful man, and always took new people and cultures on their own terms. He didn’t laugh at the show or the audience, and that’s one reason Stewart is so beloved. Picard’s approach usually could be summed up as, “This is an interesting situation — I wonder what I can learn here.” And I have to believe that spirit was at least partly informed by the actor playing him.
• Each Starfleet captain is a story that we tell ourselves about what leadership should look like. At times Star Trek, as an overall franchise, has unfortunately reflected any and all bigotries that exist in the world. But through it all, Stewart, as Picard, projected an image of masculinity that was …well, it was usually kind of wonderful. Picard wasn’t a violent, angry, manipulative or deceptive man. He listened to everyone — really listened — regardless of their rank, gender, race, or where they came from. His relationship with a strong, intelligent woman – Beverly Crusher – was one of the best parts of TNG. But beyond her, in general, people followed Picard all over the galaxy and into battle because he led and made decisions with intelligence and compassion — and both parts of that formula mattered.

• I cannot engage with any discussion of Picard without mentioning that he starred in "Captain's Holiday," a TNG episode in which the Enterprise — once again — visited a sex planet, and in which Stewart wore body-hugging silver booty shorts. And he pulled that look off!
• It is incredibly funny to me that Picard’s greatest enemy, always, was extended contact with children. Give him the Borg or the Romulan fleet over an upset child every day of the week.
• It’s meaningful that Stewart, who grew up in a home in which his father was violent, was open about that and about how that affected him. I am glad, for all our sakes and for his sake, that he found a refuge in the arts.
• Part of what made TNG so beloved was that it was — like a lot of shows of that era — a sampler. Each season had all kinds of episodes — silly ones, fun ones, serious two-parters, heists, holodeck malfunctions, plus the usual array of “roll up to a planet and solve their problem” outings. Stewart could do all of it, the comedy, the romance, the action-adventure, the trials, the millionth weird space anomaly. Everything from Picard being tortured to Picard living a whole lifetime in the blink of an eye — he could execute all of that with gravity, dry wit and subtlety. The man had range. Again, TNG was an ensemble piece and everyone got their moments to shine, but Picard was in almost every episode and Stewart could do anything, absolutely anything, that the show required of him.

• The first couple of seasons of Picard were too often a chore, but that was almost never the case when Stewart was with his former TNG castmates. When the show finally wised up and put the band back together in Season 3, I’m sure I’m not the only one who teared up when all of my TV moms and dads were finally gathered around a table once again.
• I will leave it to others to talk about Stewart’s fine work in the X-Men movies, in other roles, and on the stage. For me, he’ll always be Jean-Luc Picard, the finest of captains, the best of men.

Voyage well among the stars, Patrick Stewart.