The Captain Picard Time Loop Nobody Ever Noticed
Did you know that one of the best episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation owes its existence to one of the weirdest ones? In “Samaritan Snare,” the alien Pakleds are so memorable that it’s easy to forget the B story in which Captain Picard bonds with Wesley Crusher over many things, including the topic of Starfleet Academy. Picard mentions laughing when he got stabbed in the heart as a cadet, and the later episode “Tapestry” confirms that he has been stuck in a time loop, one that most fans have never even noticed.
All Because Of Q
The reason we know Picard is in a time loop goes back to “Samaritan Snare,” when he told young Wesley Crusher how he laughed when he was stabbed in the heart. “Tapestry” lets us see this whole incident in greater detail, including the fact that Picard is laughing because Q has effectively restored his timeline. “Tapestry” is a season 6 episode, one that retroactively clarifies that Picard is in a time loop and that Q’s restoration has effectively always been a part of his life.
Revealed In Tapestry
Even by Star Trek standards, this Picard time loop revelation is weird to understand, but don’t worry: we’ll break it down quicker than Geordi La Forge can fix the warp core. In “Tapestry,” the Enterprise-D captain nearly dies, and he sees Q, who claims to be God. Eventually, the alien goads Picard into admitting that he has some regrets in his life regarding his artificial heart…specifically, the irresponsible barfight where he got stabbed through the heart and made the artificial replacement necessary.
Suddenly, Picard is alive again and in his young body, and this is the beginning of our time loop. True to his word about regretting that bar fight, the future captain holds his friend back from fighting some burly Nausicaans, a move that averts conflict but shames his friends. This keeps Picard from ever getting stabbed in the heart, but when he awakes in his present day, he is no longer captain of the Enterprise-D…instead, he is an unambitious junior science officer who never really impressed Riker or Troi.
Soon, the would-be captain realizes the life lesson that Q was trying to teach him: that nearly getting killed in that bar fight taught him that he couldn’t always play it safe and that some risks (like sticking up for a friend) are worth it. Defiantly, he tells Q that he would rather die as the man he was than live as this lesser man. Picard is sent back to that night, and he goes ahead and fights, laughing as he falls to the ground after being stabbed.
Confirmed Earlier In Samaritan Snare
Thanks to “Tapestry,” we know that his laughter is tied to his relief that his original history has been corrected. However, the fact that he laughs at this moment was established back in season 2 with “Samaritan Snare.” That means Picard is effectively in a time loop in which he had always laughed and Q had effectively already intervened, sending his future self into his past body and prompting the uncharacteristic chuckling.
In the world of Star Trek, Picard’s adventure is a milder example of a time loop, especially compared to crazy events like the entire ship constantly reliving the same day in “Cause and Effect.” That makes the loop easy to miss on your first watch through TNG. As for us…well, we’ve lost count of how many rewatches we have done, leading to a realization that we didn’t even need a godlike alien to provide: fandom is, at the end of the day, a time loop unto itself.
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