![]() When Starfleet came to take away Data’s daughter, Lal, Picard stood up to authority and refused to hand over the young android. Somewhere in my mind, Picard’s actions in “The Offspring” had made an impression. ![]() This led to a nasty court battle, and ultimately a threat from me to get on a bus back home at any opportunity led a child psychologist to put the kibosh on my multi-state existence. By the time I was 12, he had remarried to his third wife, an heiress who lived in Columbus, Ohio who demanded he obtain joint custody of his children, which would have required my sister and I to live in another state for half of the year with two people incapable of caring for us. My father was clearly disappointed I didn’t play organized sports, and was confused by my interest in things like writing, music, and yes, Star Trek. I had health problems as a kid, and was limited in the physical activities I could take part in until I was a teenager. From that moment on, Star Trek and Jean-Luc Picard would become foundational parts of my life. It was transformative, and it helped me understand what people are capable of at their best. And yet as I watched this crew of visibly distraught Starfleet officers, there was this thin, bald man at the center of it all, keeping everyone’s minds on the mission at hand, and then offering a shoulder for them all to cry on when it was time to grieve. I was rattled by Tasha’s death more than was probably warranted for a character I’d never met before, but I felt that sting all the same. I had never really encountered death, not even in fiction (TNG was what I would refer to as my first “grownup show”). The first episode I saw happened to be “Skin Of Evil,” in which Lieutenant Tasha Yar meets a swift and violent death. But more than anything, I remember Picard.
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