Like his predecessor, James Tiberias Kirk, Jean Luc Picard (Luc is pronounced like "luke"), is a character somewhat larger than the ship or crew he commands.
Picard grows from a hard nose, seemingly incompassionate tyrant, to a caring, loving, and charismatic leader. By the time we say goodbye to the Enterprise and the television series, we find Picard bigger than the series itself. He is the determinate in both the final series two hour episode, he is also the determinate in the STNG movie, Generations. Click here to see another image of Picard from the movie.
Played by Patrick Stewart, it is no surprise the character grows to such dimensions. Stewart's classical training, given the opportunity to flourish in Star Trek, helps him build a character with unquenchable inner strength. In the final episode, his character reacts with the timeline itself. It is clear that Picard has a special relationship with time, as does his young protege, Wesley Crusher. And in fact, through Q, both find themselves outside the natural laws of the universe (or at least as we know them).
Stewart's talent is best showcased by an episode where he is in a hearbeat transported into another world, living a whole lifetime in the space of a few seconds. Returning to the Enterprise as he awakens, his character is forever changed, with probably a more telling effect than even the i transmutation into a Borg.
With the wrap of the STNG television series, and a pretty devastating end for the Enterprise in the Generations movie, one wonders if we will see Picard again. Of course, if Stewart were aminable, he could be written in by the DS9 writers as he went through DS9 on his way to find his girlfriend, say lost somewhere in the gamma quadrant. This theme serves well, since she too is skipping around the universe with Q. Let's see if we have all this straight now. Picard himself has this special friend named Guinan who seems to have a special relationship with time. He has a protege who can step out of the time stream. He has an antagonist who can grossly manipulate the time stream, and his girlfriend is out traipsing around with the antagonist, also, presumably skipping in and out of the time stream. And he himself has a special relationship that has grown quite rapidly from the last episode of the series and on into the film. Sounds like you could build a series just based on Picard and his travels. Hmmm....
