25 Best Episodes Of Star Trek EVER
13. Tapestry - Star Trek The Next Generation
Tapestry is an episode that explores the idea of hindsight and the power to affect the life lived. On his death bed, caused by a run in with a disrupter and his artificial heart, Picard is met in the afterlife by none other than Q himself, who offers him the chance to do what many people claim they would love the chance to do: go back and change everything to avoid the butcher's slab.
While there is fun in the depiction of Picard in the old style uniforms, the episode is much more somber affair than the time travel plot line might originally suggest. By changing the actions of the unruly youth that he had been in the past, Picard loses much of what makes him the man he became. He loses his friends. He then loses his passion and is brought to the future again by Q. Now, he is a lieutenant, wearing blue and reporting to the officers who once reported into him.
He asks Riker and Troi to meet with him, that he may ask about moving forward in his career but they both shoot down the idea, claiming that they have never seen a man with the drive necessary to meet those lofty goals. Picard loses his hope and when he calls out to Q, there is a very real chance no one is listening.
The moral of the story is that life, including all of its ups and downs, exists to create the people that we are. Once Picard learns that lesson, he asks Q to put things back the way they were. He wakes up, surviving the attack and finding new joy in the life that he leads.