I also want to mention his hilarious role as bullock in American dad, the way he takes a role both so seriously and ridiculously makes him so fantastically hilarious.
I love him and will miss him.
Really high quality writing for its time.
The original Star Trek was Roddenberry's vision of utopia. The benevolent dictator always makes the right decisions. He's surrounded by his loyal band of perfect lieutenants, who apparently have zero desire to advance, and have no flaws at all. Any and all of them are willing to sacrifice themselves for the others. None do anything bad (unless it's a plot device with an explanation that absolves them).
Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed watching ST very much. Just keep in mind that that it's a fiction.
It was actually quite pleasing to see the subplot of them them repeatedly failing until they got out of their predicament by other means.
It's a rarity to see something like that in fiction.
(That one, at least, has Geordi literally saying, "that's impossible", but comes up with a solution.)
The best dialog ever:
Lawyer: Mr Spock, I understand you know something about computers?
Spock: I know all about them.
Always makes me laugh.
Whereas Voyager, which was written after Roddenberrys passing, leaned heavily into inter-crew disputes.
I have a feeling this might be no small part in why TOS and TNG are the two ST series that contain 90% of the "only comes up once" sci-fi plots / concepts / worldbuilding that people ever make reference to when talking about "things from Star Trek" rather than when talking about Star Trek. TOS and TNG, while definitely soft sci-fi, were to some degree trying to create 22-minute-long works of literary Speculative Fiction, modelled after the sort of things you'd read in serial SF magazines of the 1950s. Later ST series are emphatically not that, and nor do they try to be.
An annoying facet of ST episodes is the morality lessons they push, like on every episode of The Brady Bunch.
But as you said, I think it ends up with a higher quality show.
Roddenberry was after someone younger. There’s even a casting show reel of Stewart wearing a toupee and speaking with a very bad French accent.
I see him in this episode:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xA6QbwPGlgk
I've read both Suetonius and Tacitus on the subject of Augustus and the Julio-Claudian dynasty:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julio-Claudian_dynasty
Those who lack this family knowledge would want to start with the first episode of I, Claudius.
Ever since I watched it, I half jokingly suggested that it should be a mandatory watch before you're allowed to join the workforce.
Don't forget he voiced the Poop emoji in that movie. If only we could tell his younger, Shakespeare-acting, self.
The episode is classic sitcom "wrong conclusion escalates out of hands" so I highly recommend watching it in full instead of the clips but if it's not on your streaming platform, Stewart's scenes are cut together in
https://www.audible.com/pd/Patrick-Stewart-Performs-the-Comp...
https://youtu.be/tSukMQHQLIs?t=172
To be an actor of that level, yet still have so much fun in American Dad! is so cool. He will be greatly missed.
I didn't bother him, as much as we both wanted to (he looked busy), what struck me was how casual Sir Patrick Stewart was in his faded sweatshirt talking to some awestruck kid and his mom.
Good startup advice. Good life advice.
You're the captain sir, you're entitled
Hmmm, I'm entitied to ramble on about something everyone knows
Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise
Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise
Make make make make it so
Good life advice as well
Anyway, it's a sad day, but I do appreciate that both his work and the influence he's had on people like me live on.
Some of the best television ever made if you ask me.
I was surprised by how many of my friends considered the character 'hot'; on paper, one would expect young people to write him off as a balding goody-two-shoes.
To have a character whose main traits included compassion and reason was a good influence on my generation of men.
My condolences.
I've got fond memories of visiting in the summers as a kid and watching TNG episodes he'd taped on VHS.
He was host at an academy awards event for technical achievement a few years back. Usually they send some random actor who jokes about how nerdy everything is. Having Patrick Stewart there was very popular he was 'one of us' even though he said himself he knew very little about tech. Had a chance to talk to him a bit afterwards and got to tell him how well appreciated he was by that audience. Gracious and funny, exactly how you might imagine he would be.
A sad loss.
His performance (as well as how the character was written) still today illustrate what I view as an ideal male archetype. Fair, honest, in control of his emotions yet passionate. Thank you for the gift your performance has given me Mr Stewart. My life would likely have turned out a lot worse without a solid example of that a good man could be
I hope our current environment is one that can elevate someone of similar talents to an equivalent stature, but I worry our media is not up to the task.
When I think of our civilization, the Ressikan Flute often comes to mind.
Pour one out. https://picard.ytmnd.com/
Star Trek TNG + Captain Picard acted as a male role model, a different moral philosophy, and a celebration of nerdy people as competent and important in the world
Lewy body dementia was what Robin Williams had but they didn't discover until after his death and I guess he was misdiagnosed during life.
https://lewybodyresourcecenter.org/robin-williams-lewy-body-...
Rest in peace captain :(
That page talks about what to do if somebody with LBD is thinking about suicide. After seeing what that disease does, interfering with those plans seems inhumane to me.
I watched a parent die of LBD.
After that experience, I'd also be inclined to go with "let them" as the most-correct solution to that particular dilemma.
And to think he was filming Picard just a few years ago.
Shatner is doing remarkably well for 95 years of age, I saw him performing with a band at a rock show just this summer!
Oh, any links?
"Seeking Major Tom" might be of interest to you.
Google sez:
William Shatner’s heavy metal album, titled What the F Is Heavy Metal?, does not have an exact release date yet, though it is tentatively scheduled for winter 2026 or 2027 via Cleopatra Records.
Album Details
• Title: What the F Is Heavy Metal? • Band Name: The *uckers • Expected Release: Winter 2026 / 2027 • Label: Cleopatra Records • Format & Content: Features a mix of original tracks and heavy metal/hard rock covers (including Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Metallica, and Ozzy Osbourne). • Notable Collaborators: Rob Halford, Tony Iommi, Zakk Wylde, Brian May, and Dave Lombardo, among dozens of other rock and metal musicians. • Live Debut: Shatner and his band debuted songs from the project live at Riot Fest in Chicago in September 2026. • William Shatner on Instagram Ladies, gentlemen, SWs fans… I have explored space. I have explored time. Now… I explore distortion. Yes. You read that correctl... • USA Today William Shatner debuts heavy metal band at age 95 At 95, William Shatner is starting a heavy metal band Greta Cross USA TODAY Sept. 17, 2026Updated Sept. 18, 2026, 9:14 a.m. ET Wil...
It's really enticing to think that there's some nice controllable reason why some people live longer (assuming you don't smoke, do drugs to excess, etc.) but really it's mostly genetics and chance.
I visited a cardiologist today, who has seen thousands of patients. He remarked that two big factors in staving off heart disease are staying slim and long term aerobic exercise.
Those two factors are under one's control.
(Nobody said it was easy, though.)
These seem within one’s agency.
We may not live long enough to know who wins.
This was a person who from a relatively young age looked old, but more importantly behaved with a sort of dignity and thoughtfulness that projected way beyond his years. I'm not really sure how to assimilate the news because on the one hand obviously this was going to be happening sooner or later. He has always just felt old. But on the other, he's felt old for my whole life, so why shouldn't he just continue on that way without bound.
Edit: Oh man, I can't believe I'm crying at work over an actor.
William Shatner was just on earlier this month, incredible he's still going strong at 95.
(I looked up the original script, it’s “Kiazi’s children. Their faces wet.” But I’m gratified that you knew what I meant.)
But he start losing his hair at 17 and really struggled with it. A turning point came when a friend (a Hungarian judo black belt) and his wife wrestled him down and physically cut off his toupée with scissors.
His agent even had him do the Star Trek audition in a wig, but luckily the crew had better ideas.
https://www.facebook.com/teamcoco/videos/sir-patrick-stewart...
You might also have missed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptfmAY6M6aA
I met Patrick when we organized a Star Trek convention. He was even kinder and gentler in person than in his role as Picard.
Really enjoyed his stuff. Always enjoyed that he could do both the grand and the silly with equal aplomb.
It might of been Im not sure, not the case? But perhaps against a white wall it was clear we were the only ones standing for the performance and in turn it felt he was performing for us. It just felt like that.
I ofcourse have no idea if he was just looking in our general direction but it weirdly felt like it and I thought it was kind.
Ive never had such a "he was doing it for us" self centered view of any other performance Ive ever been to, but I always remembered this, and like to believe it was true.
The play itself was about him being an old dying forgetful man. It was so convincing I somehow left thinking that surely he was but ofcourse it was just excellent acting.
I’ll be re-watching The Inner Light in his honor tonight.
1. The Drumhead
2. Tapestry
3. The Inner Light
4. Chain of Command
5. Darmok
I know a lot of people would put "Family" on that list, I just can't say I enjoy that one too much. I also like his dialogue in "Yesterday's Enterprise", but I wouldn't call it a Picard-focused one.
Extremely sad day for the geeks in us. Good bye professor X.
Now cheer up me lads, t’is better to have loved and lost, than never have loved at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZn6c4CeJCc [The one on Pogo’s channel doesn’t include clips of Stewart, just his voice. This is a reupload of the original]
He was a wonderful actor and by all accounts a wonderful person.
He really was able to translate the literature to acting relevance for me (as a lit person)
Let me go and fix that.
One of the things I particularly liked is that he admits to the mistakes he made, and the times when he wasn't the human being he strived to be.
I was more of a Shatner movies Star Trek kid but I remember watching The Next Generation when it first came out and liked it. RIP to a legend.
So - when TNG began airing, I would have been about 15 - right squarely in the perfect formative timeframe - it was "ours" more so than the original series ever was.
From 2000s, culture has been more diluted across the medias.
So it's the passing of real talent without replacement. I think we live in a pretty dead culture now. Just my opinion of course.
But if you dont know any better I guess its fine
Sir Patrick, my captain, you will be sorely missed.
Vivaldi's poetry ... left something to be desired (think Vogon), but Patrick Stewart made it noble.
(Highly recommended.)
No being is so important that he can usurp the rights of another, but yesterday we lost someone very important.
I also really liked him in a Christmas Carrol (1999). I thought he played the role really well.
It was inevitable, though you always hope for an exception. I don't think I've ever seen any work of his I didn't deeply appreciate.
~ Capt. Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: Generations
I'll never forget this line, and what it means. I think of it often.
I didn't know anything about him other than his work, which is perhaps as fine an epitaph as any man could have.
Absolutely.
> I would like to understand though since Stewart was filming up until this year? What was the time frame like, was it a more sudden onset or was he able to manage somewhat while continuing to film and work?
AFAIK, his last role as a film actor was in Doomsday, which comes out in December 2026 but filmed late last year. The timeline does seem incredibly quick for a natural death from Alzheimer's disease and Lewy body dementia if he wasn't somehow secretly and very effectively hiding it for the past near-decade.
I suspect (but obviously don't know) that he may have checked out on his own terms rather than literally dying due to the disease progression. I understand why people don't like to talk about it, especially given legal issues faced by anyone who may have assisted in many jurisdictions.
In California it can be legal to assist but technically only if a doctor decides you will live less than 6 months, which IMO is an awfully narrow requirement. I wish people could be more open about it (and that the laws weren't so stupid).
In any case, shocking and sad news. I never would have guessed we'd lose Patrick Stewart before William Shatner. 86 isn't exactly young or anything, but he seemed to still be incredibly vibrant in very recent productions.
I can still hear the voice: "Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before."
Watching Star Trek TNG episodes when they first aired in the late 80s had a powerful effect on my imagination as a child. It would not, and could not, have been the same show without Patrick Stewart. RIP.
Never have I seen such presence and charisma squeezed into so short a scene.
Wait, was that a Picard quote, in fact? It has the right tone. (Nope, looks like it's from Age of Ultron.)
I often think of Picard looking down at us, through a force field in the Enterprise D, sees our wars, our inequalities and slowly shakes his head: "Savages". In his role as Picard he was a bit of a teacher to me.
Instead I’ll go find my old DVD box set of “I, Claudius” where he had a memorable role too.
Wow, what a loss. So many iconic characters, so much inspirational
non-x Alt text:
We announce with great sorrow the passing of Sir Patrick Stewart yesterday at his home in Los Angeles, in the loving care of his beloved wife Sunny, following a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer's Disease and Lewy Body Dementia. He has been held in the warm embrace of family and friends, surrounded by live music, prayer, tears, laughter, and the kind of profound emotion that only he could inspire after a lifetime of devotion to us all. We will forever cherish the peaceful ease and reflection on his face, an enduring reminder of his invincible grace.
A son of Mirfield in the West Riding of Yorkshire, he travelled from the Royal Shakespeare Company to an equally acclaimed career spanning six decades on Broadway, the silver screen and television.
His sonorous voice and singular talent will forever be synonymous with indelible performances in every genre. He explored the human condition in all its poetic complexity and brought hope not only to the far reaches of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but into science fiction's most iconic final frontier aboard the Starship Enterprise.
His professional accomplishments were humbly matched by his philanthropy and activism on behalf of human rights, survivors of domestic violence, global refugees, veterans' mental health services, and animal welfare, particularly his cherished foster pitties. He was a Knight, Chancellor, motor sport enthusiast, and lifelong Huddersfield Football fan. He will be remembered for the dignity, compassion and humanity he brought to every role - in his art and life.
"Like me, Jean-Luc has lived an unusual life that has taken him far beyond the bounds of normal human experience. But he is also someone who has remained true to his earthbound roots, for they are what gave him his identity. In the end, he feels the call of home, as do I." - Patrick Stewart, Making It So: A Memoir
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to:
Johns Hopkins Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center Fund https://alzresearch.org/giving/
Alzheimer’s Foundation of America Caregiver Resources https://alzfdn.org/donate/
He wasn't an engineer or scientist but I'd wager a majority of the readership of HN, at least those over 35 or so, grew up inspired by Capt. Jean-Luc Picard.
Yes, mostly.
Star Trek (particularly, but not only, TNG) was seminal sci-fi entertainment in the childhood, teen or young adult eras for many now-40+ nerds who went on to work in tech.
Patrick Stewart has done a lot of other great work as well, and should be remembered for that, but his role as Picard in Star Trek: TNG makes him highly relevant to this site.
Nah, it's SciFi. They'll find a way of writing them back in. Won't they?
