I have found Star Trek: The Next Generation to be a very inspiring show. I can’t seem to get into any other Star Trek series, but I’ve really fallen in love with Next Generation in particular. It was a family tradition during my childhood, and in my adult years I decided to check it out again as it came on TV, and it felt like coming home.

Going over my impression on the show as a whole would take some time, but there are four episodes in particular that I’ve kept recorded;

“Reunion”: Because it introduces the Klingon Gowron – who I find hilarious…

“Starship Mine”: Because Data makes a total Aspie of himself…

“Peak Performance”: Because it shows Data dealing with pressure and failure the same way I do…

And the episode I want to talk about in more detail is “Tapestry.”

This episode is all about regret. Regreting our mistakes, mourning what could’ve been. In this episode Captain Picard is given a rare opportunity to revisit a time in his life that he particularly regrets and see how things could’ve gone differently. Using Picard’s life as an
example, the episode shows how little things, decisions, and tests of character can drastically affect the person you grow to be.

This episode almost works as a kind of stand-alone, one-hour feature. The take-away is that good. But if you’ve never seen the show and you don’t already know who the characters are and how they relate to each other then some of the dialogue and the significance of certain character interactions will likely be lost. It helps that this is one of the episodes where the Shakespearean training really comes out, and that Q has a role in it all. The dialogue between that character and Picard is always intriguing to me.

One con in this episode is the weird attempt at a love story arc. Though, the love stories in Star Trek have never made sense to me, so that isn’t saying much.

Contrary to Picard, at present I’ve got more years to look forward to than to look back on (I hope), so my perspective as I watch this episode is a little different. I can point to things I regret, sure, mostly in my childhood, though at my current age I don’t feel that my life
has finished being molded yet. Rather than looking at how much my past has shaped the person that I am, I feel as though today I am still shaping the man I will become, therefore, I tend more to regret the things I’ve just done a few minutes ago rather than the things in my distant past.

In either case, this episode really helps to put a good perspective on things, on how my actions yesterday shaped the young man that I am, and how my actions today are shaping the man that I am becoming. – No regrets.