The Most Emotional Scene Patrick Stewart Filmed For Star Trek: Picard

Reconnecting with one of the finest starship captains in "Star Trek: Picard" has been a joy, but there is a part of me that is very aware of all the time that has passed since "Star Trek: The Next Generation" went off the air back in 1994. I'm so grateful that we're revisiting these characters that we've known and loved all these years, but it's also emotional to watch.

Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Data (Brent Spiner) are two of the best characters to ever have existed in sci-fi television and film, and their relationship is one for the ages. If you never watched "The Next Generation," you must go back and at least watch the episode "The Measure of a Man," the ninth episode of the second season. In it, Picard has to prove that Data is a sentient being. If we ever reach the singularity, this episode is going to come up a lot. Knowing this, it's no surprise that Data is involved in what Stewart considers the most emotional scene in "Star Trek: Picard."

There are SPOILERS ahead for the end of the first season of "Star Trek: Picard," so consider yourself warned.

Indiewire recently interview Patrick Stewart, and he recalled the scene where Jean-Luc Picard says goodbye to Data as they remove his memory chips. I won't go into exactly what happens, but the goodbye (at least one part of it) takes place in a simulation. Picard is a synthetic now, and maybe that means he understands Data better than he ever had before. Picard finally gets why Data would want the entire human experience, including death. His virtual self holds Data's hand while he withers away and disappears, and friends, I'm tearing up just writing this. 

As this is happening, the synthetic Picard is removing Data's memory chips and quoting Shakespeare's "The Tempest." He says, "We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little lives are rounded with a sleep." All the while, a cover of "Blue Skies" sung by "Picard" co-star Isa Briones is playing in the background, and that's the same song Data was singing when he died in "Star Trek: Nemesis." Stewart had this to say about the heartbreaking sequence:

"That scene was so powerful an experience for Brent and myself ... "To the extent that when I began to walk through the door and then turned back and said, 'Goodbye, Commander,' we had to do it several times because the emotion overwhelmed me every time. And as you can probably hear, it is doing so right now. The chair faces my desk in my study, so I see it every day. At times like this conversation, I'm able to sit in it and enjoy the memory of playing what I think was one of the most important scenes that I've ever had to play on film or television."

Excuse me. I have to go weep into my "Star Trek" pillow for a while.

The second season of "Star Trek: Picard" is coming in March.