One impactful conversation between Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) not only elevates Star Trek: The Next Generation but also helps to define Jean-Luc and Guinan’s relationship moving forward. Guinan joined the cast of TNG in the show’s second season to serve as the bartender in Ten Forward on the USS Enterprise-D. As an El-Aurian, Guinan comes from a race of listeners who often spend their long lives observing the world and sharing advice. On TNG, Guinan becomes one of the few people Captain Picard seeks out for advice and she often helps him look at problems in new ways.
In Star Trek: The Next Generation season 2, episode 9, “The Measure of a Man,” the android Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) finds himself at the center of a trial that will determine whether or not he is the property of Starfleet. After Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) delivers a compelling argument against Data, Captain Picard seeks advice from Guinan, worried that his case in support of Data may not be strong enough. Their brief conversation shifts the trajectory of the episode and pushes Picard to look at Data’s trial from a different perspective.
Guinan’s Complete TNG & Picard Timeline Explained
Guinan, the Enterprise-D’s mysterious bartender, is one of the most intriguing and popular recurring characters on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Guinan & Picard’s Slavery Talk Takes Star Trek: TNG To Another Level
“Property. But that’s not the issue at all, is it?”
When Captain Picard sits down with Guinan in Ten Forward, he feels defeated even though he knows he’s on the right side of the argument regarding Data’s sentience. Picard just needs a push in the right direction to see the truth about what is really at stake in Data’s trial. Guinan knows this, but she does not simply come out and tell Picard what to think. Rather, she leads him to the truth in a way that is clever and subtle. Guinan first talks about how valuable Data is and how being the property of Starfleet will increase his value. Picard questions Guinan and her reply hammers her point home. She responds:
Well, consider that in the history of many worlds, there have always been disposable creatures. They do the dirty work. They do the work that no one else wants to do because it’s too difficult, or too hazardous. And an army of Datas, all disposable, you don’t have to think about their welfare, you don’t think about how they feel. Whole generations of disposable people.
Picard realizes that she’s talking about slavery and that Data’s trial could have much more far-reaching implications than even he realizes. If Data is determined to be property then that sets a dangerous precedent for every android or artificial intelligence that comes after him. Data’s trial deals with metaphysical questions that even the humans of the far future cannot answer, and Picard’s powerful, argument-ending speech finally gets everyone to see this. But it was Guinan who helped Picard see past the surface-level arguments and get to the heart of the matter.
How Picard & Guinan’s Relationship Evolved In TNG & Star Trek: Picard
“I just knew that if I guided you right, set you straight, you’d circle around eventually.”
Guinan had only been around for a few episodes by the time of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “The Measure of a Man,” and her conversation with Picard provided insight into the depth of the relationship between her and the Enterprise captain. Guinan does not treat Picard as her captain, but simply as her friend. And with the amount of trust Picard places in Guinan, it’s clear they have been friends for a long time. Jean-Luc Picard doesn’t open up to just anyone, after all. In TNG season 4, episode 1, “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II,” Guinan refers to her relationship with Picard by saying that it “is beyond friendship, beyond family.”
In Star Trek: Picard season 2, Jean-Luc encounters a younger Guinan (Ito Aghayere) at her 10 Forward Avenue bar in 2024 Los Angeles. Guinan had been planning to leave Earth, but helping Picard locate the Watcher and learn more about the motives of Q (John de Lancie) gave her a reason to stay. After Jean-Luc returned to the 23rd century, he visited Guinan at her Los Angeles bar, where she revealed that she had been good friends with Cristóbal Rios (Santiago Cabrera) and Picard’s ancestor, Renée (Penelope Mitchell). Throughout their long friendship, Jean-Luc and Guinan helped one another, sharing advice and reminiscing about their pasts, and much of their dynamic was set up by one scene in Star Trek: The Next Generation season 2.
- Cast
- Patrick Stewart , Marina Sirtis , Brent Spiner , Jonathan Frakes , LeVar Burton , Wil Wheaton
- Seasons
- 7
- Franchise(s)
- Star Trek
- Showrunner
- Gene Roddenberry
