What If Picard Had Died In The Best of Both Worlds II?

[Captain2395]

It's interesting speculation but the series would have struggled to recover from losing Picard. He's my favourite captain. He's a great actor. He played the role really well, I felt.

TNG might have churned out some stale episodes but Picard's performances were consistent. In fact, I think he improved from the first two seasons visibly.

 

[DarKush]

Picard is my favorite Trek captain, but I have been really intrigued by this idea since I read about it a couple years ago.

I think it would've been cool if Picard had stayed assimilated. Bringing Shelby aboard would've added more interpersonal conflict and sexual tension.

I think Frakes had the acting chomps. His scenes with Elizabeth Dennehy crackled. He always worked well against an antagonist.

 

[Charlie Kelly]

No way! Picard is my favourite character on TNG, killing him is something I would definitely not wanted.

Charlie

 

[K-Star]

I wouldn't have liked it. I really don't like Shelby and would much rather have Data as First Officer. If they could've offed her too...

 

[Vulcanian]

How would he die? By that deflector beam thingy?

Pardon me for asking.

 

[Anwar]

When they destroy the Borg ship at the end the shock of being cut off from the Collective kills Picard.

It would be similar to Spock's death in that everyone thinks that after the Cube is destroyed it's all okay, but Crusher calls Riker down to the Lab where Picard is dying from his implants self-destructing.

Then after Picard says goodbye and dies, the end would be the same only it's Data now the 1st Officer talking to Captain Riker while Shelby says goodbye, and after Data leaves Riker gets up and stares off into space.

 

[Saturn0660]

you're on to something there.. That would have been a good ending..

 

[DanCPA]

And with that you could have introduced a new "kick-ass" woman operations officer

I love Picard (infact my first name on this board was "the picard") but if they could have pulled off better shows, I would have supported it. I really don't see how it would have been beneficial to kill him off... Maybe mid 6th season to shake it up!

 

[jtkirk]

Wouldn't have been as good without Picard, but i think the series would have survived with Riker & Shelby. Picard IS the Captain of the Enterprise & he is a great actor, Riker is just kinda BLAH (dull) as an actor! Acceptable, but BLAH!

 

[Who_Trek]

Had Picard died, they could not have written the stories that they did. Persoanlly I think the show would have not have been any better or worse for the absence of Picard, but different. Riker would not have been a Picard, but then, he would not have been expected too, and the stories would have reflected this.

It would have made TNG a much darker show, for one thing. For instance, look at how the destruction of the da Vini in the ST: SCA novel "Wildfire", and how it changed the tone of the whole series. .

 

[Spider]

Who_Trek said:
Persoanlly I think the show would have not have been any better or worse for the absence of Picard, but different.

There were actually few shows that took specific advantage of the acting chops of Stewart. Inner Light for one, and Frakes just is not the type of actor to do that episode. However, Frakes is most certainly good enough to play a starship captain on TV and proved it countless time on TNG.

I still wish that instead of the other shows, we had gotten a Captain Riker series instead. But, whatever.

While we are on the subject, let's, for disucssion purposes, say Stwart did leave. The writers are working on The Inner Light, so who plays the role Stewart did? I would suggest Colm Meaney, surprisingly enough. I don't know what he would have been doing on the bridge, but I think he could have taken on that role.

 

[theARE]

Spider said:

While we are on the subject, let's, for discussion purposes, say Stwart did leave. The writers are working on The Inner Light, so who plays the role Stewart did? I would suggest Colm Meaney, surprisingly enough. I don't know what he would have been doing on the bridge, but I think he could have taken on that role.

Maybe you think that because DS9 did a semi-similar thing with O'Brien in Hard Time (When he was given 20 years of memories of being in jail)

Not exactly the same I know, but Meaney was excellent in that episode if memory serves.

 

[Who_Trek]

IMO, Mr. Meany was almost always excellent.

 

[Kegek]

We may not even have had episodes like "The Inner Light" or "The Chain of Command", as they pretty much hung themselves on Patrick Stewart's versatility as an actor... knowing full damn well he'd deliver every time.

But if they did, Colm Meaney would be superb in both of them... and indeed he was, when they were retitled "Hard Time" and "Tribunal".

 

[Anwar]

Hmm, if they had used Riker in place of Picard in "Chain of Command" that means Frakes would've had to slim off the blubber or otherwise viewers would've been in for something more disturbing than torture scenes...

Also, if he was down there and either Data or Shelby were the XO dealing with Jellico, I don't think there'd have been as much conflict since Data was basically Jellico's yes man that whole two-parter and Shelby was on the same wavelength as him.

 

[Nebusj]

Anwar said:
Hmm, if they had used Riker in place of Picard in "Chain of Command" that means Frakes would've had to slim off the blubber or otherwise viewers would've been in for something more disturbing than torture scenes...

Or they could have rewritten it so that Data was the one captured and tortured. Think how funny it would be!

MADRED: This pain-generating mechanism was on its lowest setting. I have just turned it up by fifteen percent.
DATA: You have increased the pain, yes, but only by fourteen point seven three percent.
MADRED: That stupid Lemec! He was supposed to put fresh batteries in this thing!

 

[Ceridwen]

As much as I love both the character of Captain Picard, and the performances Patrick Stewart put into that character, I think that getting rid of the character in "The Best of Both Worlds" (whether by leaving him assimilated or killing him) would have been best for Trek creatively in the long run.

Somewhere along the way, the powers that be got stuck in this mindset that we needed to have those same characters always there, week in and week out. The show was allowed little room for growth or change, and by shaking up the show so much, so fairly early on, it would have allowed the writers to treat the situations these characters found themselves in a bit more honestly.

That said, while I think it would have been better for the show creatively, financially who knows what would have happened? A lot of people like Star Trek because it's comfortable television (and I admit, that's certainly part of the appeal), so I don't know how it would have affected the viewership in the long run.

 

[Kegek]

Ceridwen Troy said:
As much as I love both the character of Captain Picard, and the performances Patrick Stewart put into that character, I think that getting rid of the character in "The Best of Both Worlds" (whether by leaving him assimilated or killing him) would have been best for Trek creatively in the long run.

I'd tend to think yes and no.

Creatively, killing Picard was best in the short run - namely, it would have made the ending to "The Best of Both Worlds" far more satisfying if Picard died.

In the long run, I don't think TNG would have sustained its momentum through seasons four, five and six as well as it did without Stewart or Picard, a character who I think was integral to the shows success, commerical and creative. It's just not as interesting without him.

But also in the long run, not killing Captain Picard set a dangerous precedent. Although they made a point of him slowly normalizing in "Family", generally Star Trek used the reset button approach where-ever applicable. I think good examples of stories where going with the original, bolder ending may not have sacrificed series drama include:

* "Second Chances", where they toyed with killing off Commander Riker and replacing him with Lieutenant Riker.
* "Second Skin" (on DS9) which originally ended it with it being ambiguous as to whether or not Kira Nerys really was a surgically altered Cardassian.

I don't think the problem was that they weren't taking chances at every opportunity... they just weren't taking the right ones, and pretty soon just taking none at all.

 

[Chensams]

I was pissed as hell when I thought they were going to kill him. I didn't like Picard in the beginning but slowly grew to love the character. He made TNG (along with Data), IMO.

 

[Smiley]

From a storytelling standpoint, they could not have killed Picard immediately after the command for Mr. Worf to fire. The threat would have been over in the teaser sequence. It might have been realistic for Picard to die when the cube exploded at the end of the episode, but that's not dramatically satisfying either. I'm quite happy with the series of events that we got in the two-parter, and I'm very glad that we got four years and four movies more of Patrick Stewart in TNG.