'Tapestry' Review by SFDebris

[Kirk1980]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUsNqRXMbEE&feature=channel

Outstanding review and my comment regarding it was as follows (edited to take out commentary on Abrams Trek since it would be out of place here)...

"This is probably one of the few TNG episodes which you could really say was the flowering of the classic series message...that life is our choices, who we are is what we have been and that each moment should be lived joyously.

Which brings to mind two things...

1) ------

2) ------

 

[Hober Mallow]

It's not just the message or the story, but how well that story is told. Tapestry is such a well-told story. The power of the story, I think, is its simplicity. Picard wants to live. If he changes a pivotal moment in his life, he will. He succeeds, only to discover he no longer has the same life. The resolution is when he decides it's better to die the man he was, so he goes back.

It's the classic emotion vs. emotion plot that the most successful stories of all time employ. For Shakespeare's Hamlet, it was vengence vs. indecisiveness. Hamlet wants to avenge his father's muder, but his own nature prevents his from taking direct action. The heart of the play is Hamlet's conflict within himself. For Picard, you might say it was self-preservation vs. pride, or something along those lines. The heart of the story is Picard's conflict within himself, which he resolves by choosing one outcome over the other. That simple choice defines Picard's character. It's such a simple yet powerful story, one of my favorite TNG episodes. I'll take it over STV any day.

 

[Anwar]

Yeah, I know some folks (even Michael Piller) saw it too much as "It's a wonderful life" but it really isn't. The message isn't as sugary as "You have managed to have a positive influence on others with your life", it's the more harsher and realistic "You cannot pick and choose what events in your life you'd like to keep and what to discard because you are the sum of all your experiences and past choices, good and bad".

 

[MikeS]

I loved Picard's line at the end about picking at loose threads and unravelling the Tapestry of his life. We all have loose threads we're not happy with and this shows us why we should learn to accept them if not embrace them. Perfect episode in so many ways.

 

[john titor]

One of the best and way better than any of that BSG stuff.

 

[Cyke101]

^Apples and oranges, I would think. Even with BSG's much stronger religious bent, nothing in there was as powerful or as flamboyant as Q. He's his own man

Anyway, I love this episode for the reasons everyone's cited above, especially since it is, I believe, a much more thought out and character driven story than most other covers of "It's A Wonderful Life." The episode,also gave us one of my all-time favorite lines:

"I refuse to believe that the afterlife is run by you. The universe is not so badly designed!"
--Picard zinging the HELL out of Q

 

[Anwar]

Like I said, this episode isn't "It's a Wonderful Life" at all.

 

[flemm]

A great episode. My only significant criticism is that we don't really see enough of Picard's new life to fully absorb why he is so horrified by how much he changed. It's not just that others don't treat him as anyone of consequence. It's that he's become a non-entity, dead in spirit, if not in flesh, or at least nowhere near as fully alive as he had been. A few more scenes to let this sink in, and I think the episode would have been just about perfect. But whatever. Such are the contraints of a tv show. Still one of the best of TNG in my view.

 

[Furtados_Feet]

His review made me cringe with all the sentimental crap at the end he couldn't quite manage to put into a comprehensible sentence. Apart from that it was fine, its not very entertaining to watch reviews of good episodes.

 

[Cyke101]

Like I said, this episode isn't "It's a Wonderful Life" at all.

Or it could be such a radically different take on the film that it ends up becoming its own entity. I suppose it could be like how TWOK is inspired by, but ultimately different than, Moby Dick.

Regardless, a great episode all around, and certainly one of my faves.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

I enjoy the episode a great deal, but I always had one problem with it. I never quite bought that if Picard didn't have that run in with death he would end up where he is. TNG always presented Picard as a very driven and focused individual even as a boy. He was exceptionally well regarded at the academy. I think he would have had a bright career regardless of the experience. Also I am not sure why Picard that that life was so horrible. Was it that he was doing that job at his age. I mean I am sure there were astro-physicists on board the Enterprise who were Lieutenant j.g.s and actually liked their jobs.

 

[Anwar]

One promotion in 40 or so years, ouch.

It wasn't the knife wound in itself that made him the more driven man, it was the near-death experience itself. We can have all the dreams we want when we're young but actually living up to them is another thing. Picard's near-death experience made him see that he could have died then and there, having accomplished nothing, and thus made him more willing to take every risk and gamble that he encountered, because he had better knowledge than most over how easily he could just die at random and wanted to accomplish something in what time he'd have.

 

[TedShatner10]

His review made me cringe with all the sentimental crap at the end he couldn't quite manage to put into a comprehensible sentence. Apart from that it was fine, its not very entertaining to watch reviews of good episodes.

He's like the Nostalga Critic, he's at his best when he's tearing something to pieces.

 

[Anwar]

"You weren't born to create, you were born to tear apart! To nitpick!"

 

[Myasishchev]

I enjoy the episode a great deal, but I always had one problem with it. I never quite bought that if Picard didn't have that run in with death he would end up where he is. TNG always presented Picard as a very driven and focused individual even as a boy. He was exceptionally well regarded at the academy. I think he would have had a bright career regardless of the experience. Also I am not sure why Picard that that life was so horrible. Was it that he was doing that job at his age. I mean I am sure there were astro-physicists on board the Enterprise who were Lieutenant j.g.s and actually liked their jobs.

Indeed. The message could even be read, "even if you're very successful, you suck if you're not in the 99th percentile." But it probably shouldn't be.

Of course, there's also Tuvok. He was taking orders from someone forty to sixty years younger than he was, and not nearly as bright, and it didn't seem to bother him.

Regarding Tapestry, though, I also wondered did Picard, when he entered the changed reality where he was a "lame" blueshirt, have all the memories of both Real Picard and alt-reality Picard? I imagine it would be a tremendously disorienting experience to not have the alt-Picard's memories and training. Maybe he wanted to get back into command because he had no idea how to even begin doing astrophysics.

Was there an alternate Q in that universe, as well? Would Riker and Troi know what he was talking about if he had explained the situation to them?

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

He's like the Nostalga Critic, he's at his best when he's tearing something to pieces.

There's a real shortage of people like that in this world.

 

[GhostFaceSaint]

This was a great review and I agree with him on the point of the episode. Tapestry is one of my all time favorite Trek episodes.

By the way he dosn't have to be the Nestalga Critic, or the Angry Video Game Nerd, or do only shows where he tears things to pieces to make a point and thus entertain you, I like the fact that he chose an episode he likes, took a position, stated an argument as to what the episode was about and why it works.

As a side note there are other fans of Trek who strangely don't get Tapestry and need an insultingly obvious message so they don't have to think about things, many of them hang out at the Star Trek.com forum which I can no longer stand to post on any more because of their ignorance and close-mindedness of many of the people who hang out there. Trek BBS has become my new Trek forum home and I like you people generally better than the ones on the other forums, even when you are disagreeing with me at times, you know not to be a jack-*ss about things here. Anyway Tapestry is sadly an episode which was needing someone to make an opinionated statement about what the episode was about and why it is a mature episode at that. Tapestry is sophisticated and the unsophisticated often miss-understand things even when they are told to their face what the message is, which John De Lancie did in the end of the episode. OK I am done ranting now.

 

[TedShatner10]

He's like the Nostalga Critic, he's at his best when he's tearing something to pieces.

There's a real shortage of people like that in this world.

He's a fairer and more grounded critic of the Star Trek than most.