Patrick Stewart: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

1. Captain Jean-Luc Picard - Star Trek (various, 1987-2002)

It would be insane not to include Stewart's most famous performance on this list, and probably just as insane not to place it at the top.

Picard was introduced in 1987 in Star Trek: The Next Generation, a TV series set 70 years after the final mission led by Captain James Kirk (William Shatner). Unlike in the traditional series, the Klingons have become allies of the Federation, with the main enemies in the series being the Borg, the Romulans and a mysterious God-like entity known as Q. After seven seasons, the TV cast branched out into four films, beginning with Star Trek: Generations, in which Captain Kirk was finally killed off by A Clockwork Orange star Malcolm McDowell.

While much of The Next Generation era was silly, ridiculous or just plain underwhelming, the show always managed to pull through on the strengths of its central performances. Stewart is brilliant as Picard, possessing enormous intelligence and great cunning married to a deeply rooted moral compass and lacking the obvious and irritating vanity that dogged Shatner's performance. Debate will continue to rage between Trekkies about which was the better captain of the Enterprise, but it's almost impossible to not be impressed by Stewart, in what remains his finest performance.

Having been engaged by Stewart's best performances, now let's look at five occasions when his judgement was severely warped...