Looking back on it now, the cast of Sir Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean Luc Picard seems like a no-brainer.
Stewart commanded the crew of the Enterprise for seven seasons and four feature films. But the actor recently admitted that, at first, he felt miscast in the iconic role.
“Why would they cast a middle-aged bald English Shakespearean actor in this iconic role as captain of the Enterprise? It made no sense,” he told Deadline.
So why take the role? Stewart explained that creator Gene Roddenberry insisted on it.
“I guess Gene … had some sort of instinct for it, and his producer Rick Berman was a champion of mine,” he said. “Even so, it all felt borderline lunatic back then. It took me a good while to grow comfortable in that role.”
This isn’t new news. Patrick lived out of a suit case for the first season sure he wasn’t going to be around the series for long.
Stewart and Frakes are the reasons I could not get into TNG . . . oh, and Burton.
But especially the first two. They obviously were well liked by droves of fans, so they won’t feel hurt by my lowly opinion.
It made sense to me, in that just re-doing Kirk wouldn’t have worked, so they had to try to create a very different kind of captain.
Looking Back now you can see it in his acting. In addition while this show was hot when it was on and I liked most of it from Season 3 onward, today it looks outdated for some reason to me.
DS9 holds up with time much better. I know a lot of people are uspet becuase DS9 started getting a war arc and were not happy about the violence in the ST universe. Sometimes you just have to fight even if you do not want to. Some entities cannot be reasoned with or bargained with as much as we would like to believe.
I would put DS9 2nd after TOS mabye even in the #1 spot. I would put STNG in 3rd or 4th place now-Personal Opinion obvioulsy 🙂
Picard was IMO the best ST captain but I did have a bit of an issue when they tried to make him an action star. To quote Magneto “that’s what the Pawns are for.” This was more a problem with the movies I think but he was usually at his best on the bridge. I definitely remember the awkwardness in the first few seasons but the real test of a captain at the end is asking yourself who would you want to follow and Picard always gets my vote.
Sorry y’all. I thought Stewart was a great Captain.
And if you remember, the first season or so, Picard was trying to get used to the Enterprise himself.
For one thing, he absolutely did NOT like the idea of children being onboard.
And if I’m not mistaken, he wasn’t too keen on Data either.
Picard…and Stewart…warmed to their roles, and I believe that Stewart was robbed of at least one Emmy if not a few nominations.
LeVar Burton was a nod to having a Black person on the bridge.
Yes, I said it.
You had to have ONE…and Geordi was it.
Me? I was fine with that because I adored Lt Uhura. Hell, I wanted to BE Uhura. I wanted to go to Starfleet, etc.
And I really didn’t like Data at first. Around Season 3, I started to like him.
Oh, and Sir Patrick Stewart could read the bloody phone book to me and I’d be happy-happy-happy.
Let’s not forget that William Shatner had some Shakespeare in his past, too, and Roddenberry was a big Shakespeare fanboy.
Funny to read Stewart’s comments, though, because I was unimpressed that first year of TNG, too. I thought the captain seemed stiff and not strong. But Picard and Stewart both grew, and I think he became a fantastic captain.
And I agree about Stewart reading the phone book. I saw him on stage years after TNG, when he was doing a one-man touring show reciting bits of famous leaders. Most of the audience was there, of course, because of his role as Picard. But out of probably a two-hour show, the only nod he did to his Starfleet past was to tug on his shirt – which brought loud applause, naturally.
Glad he grew into a great role.
I think Stewart was a good choice for what Roddenberry originally intended for the show: The captain stays on the bridge while the first officer leads the away teams. They deviated from that quite a bit after Roddenberry’s death, but it worked in the main. Likewise, when I first saw Frakes as Riker, I immediately saw where they were going his character: A slightly younger version of Kirk, just a few years before he became captain. Riker, though, was a bigger problem as the show progressed. They kept struggling for a plausible explanation as to why he was still a first officer instead of accepting his own command.
@Jzipperer: Lets just skip past the point that Shatner had Shakespearean acting experience and slide the inference that his chops are anywhere NEAR Stewart’s right off the table and into the trash 🙂
The entire cast of TNG Season 1 and nearly all of Season 2 as well as the writers were just plain awful, lets face it. Looking back now, those first two seasons are flat out unwatchable and its because of what the writers, actors and the show overall eventually grew into.
But back in the beginning, Stewart wasn’t the only one uncomfortable in those really big shoes. Data was laughable (both the character and the actor). Riker was little more than a yes man to Picard, no depth at all. Troi’s usefulness was shouting out that she sensed that the aliens were angry as they bombarded the Enterprise with weapons fire. The dialogue and plots were terrible.
But it was brand new Star Trek on TV so I for one didn’t notice at the time. It wasn’t until Season 3 where the writers and actors had somehow grown to be in perfect lockstep and the result was some amazing television. TNG took Star Trek to a new level.
I for one feel that all other incarnations of Trek need to measure up against TNG. The only one that came close IMHO was DS9.
…and another thing 🙂
I think its pathetic the way series television is done these days, especially genre stuff. If TNG had premiered in 2010, it would have lasted 5 episodes tops while The Jersey Shore winds up for its 3rd season….
Everything was shaky that first season. Acting, writing, direction, not just him. It isn’t a surprise he felt off. There was stuff off everywhere and for me the show doesn’t start coming together until the third season. Even then a lot of the acting was typical ’80s style with the exception of Stewart and a few others. It is the product of its time.
I did like how they made him distinct from the earlier series. He had the personality of a sea captain with all of the classical strengths and weaknesses. I don’t think I was old enough to appreciate it at the time, but rewatching it now he is the most interesting of the that cast. He is my favorite captain just under Sisko (BAMF). My favorite captains are ranked descending by baldness. Sisko got extra bad ass when he shaved his head.
I’m really not sure what I can add here but I really think Patrick Stewart owned his role well from season three and on, lol. Anyway I know that this isn’t news but honestly I can’t really imagine anyone but Patrick Stewart in the role. Maybe he’s confused about it but most fans simply accept as a fact.
Don’t forget that the first season went on during a writers’ strike. They had to reuse old ST-OS scripts. I thought seasons 1-2 were good, 3-5 were the best SF on TV given the times and are still great, then 6-7 started interesting experiments with plot but also gave Dr. Crusher a stronger part. Only problem I have in rewatching is the incessant technobabble.
Actually it was the second season, not the first. And they didn’t “reuse” old TOS scripts, they used a script originally meant for the Star Trek Phase II series that never got on the air.
One thing that was reused from TOS was Diana Muldaur.