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In the episode "Tapestry," Picard gets stabbed in the heart. I think that scene is showed a few times on that episode. And in the episode "Cause and Effect" the Enterprise explodes over and over. This means Picard died many times in just these two episodes. It got me to thinking...

How many times does Picard "die" on TNG? In other words, how many occurrences are there where Picard is shown to die or is implied to be dead?

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    We don't know that Picard actually dies in Cause and Effect, only that the ship explodes, and that moments later time reverses itself. For all we know he's alive up to the point where time reversed (though not likely for much longer beyond then). Beyond that though, this question's scope is a bit too broad for this site, in that it'd take going through every episode to get an answer.
    – Zibbobz
    Commented Aug 22, 2014 at 18:45
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    Picard shoots himself in Time².
    – Xantec
    Commented Aug 22, 2014 at 18:48
  • In hind site I can see your point on the scope. It is a bit of a help vampire question. I should delete it so I'm not causing some poor sap to spend weeks of research.
    – TK-421
    Commented Aug 22, 2014 at 18:49
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    @TK-421 I'd leave it for now. There are only a limited number of episodes where Picard dies, and although Zibbobz may be right that it could required someone to watch every episode, there are probably more than a few of us here who have done that.
    – Xantec
    Commented Aug 22, 2014 at 18:52
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    Depends - Do you count things like Inner Light, where he "lives" a racial memory and dies? Or only actual, personal physical death? In that case it would probably be limited to two episodes, the Q episode where he dies and is later brought back and Cause/Effect (As already noted).
    – JohnP
    Commented Aug 22, 2014 at 20:09

2 Answers 2

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Picard is shown dying in:

  • Lonely Among Us - I guess it all depends on how you define "death". Picard is possessed by some sort of energy alien, and beams out of the ship as all energy. He stays that way for over an hour before he manages to separate himself from the entity, Troi senses him, and they beam him back. His body was not in existence for a while, although his consciousness existed - does that count as death?
  • Time Squared - Picard leaves the ship, the ship is destroyed, and he's then thrown back in time where he meets the enterprise and is shot by Picard.
  • Cause and effect - The Enterprise is destroyed, thrown back in time, and then it's repeated a few more times before they finally break out of the cycle.
  • Tapestry - As you mentioned, Picard's heart gives out and he meets Q in the afterlife. (An eternity with Q is probably his version of hell but I digress).
  • All Good Things - At the end, two copies of the enterprise blows up (presumably killing two Picards).

Things I thought about including but decided against it. You can include them if you wish.

  • Shades of grey - The whole crew should have died from embarrassment, unfortunately the episode ran anyway.
  • Gambit- Picard is shot by a weapon that is connected to a transporter. Witnesses assume he's been vaporized, and he's declared dead, but at no point is he actually killed - It's just an illusion.
  • Best of Both worlds - Picard is assimilated and declared lost by Starfleet, but his body is at no point actually dead.
  • The inner light - in a fake memory, Picard lives out a life as another person. Although mentioned in the comments, we don't actually see him die in the episode. In his fake life he grows old and they launch the probe which would eventually find the real Picard. His 'wife' then comes and explains everything that has happened and he wakes up. Although old, we never see him die. (I just rewatched the scene to make sure my memory was correct).
  • Remember me - Crusher is trapped in a static warp bubble and everyone else around her slowly disappears. Left off because the 'real' Picard was fine, it was just the version inside Crusher's bubble that vanished.
  • Frame of mind - towards the end Riker (who is having delusions) is confronted by Picard, Troi, and Crusher. Knowing it's a delusion he shoots himself with a phaser to end the delusion, which causes Picard (and Troi and Crusher) to shatter.
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  • So given the time gap between question and answer, did you go off and watch every episode? (Around 7 or 8 a day, seems doable...)
    – Izkata
    Commented Sep 15, 2014 at 23:43
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    what about those alternate universes where he was dead in Parallels?
    – IG_42
    Commented Sep 16, 2014 at 0:13
  • @IG_42 I thought about Parellels, but we never see a Picard die. The enterprise which is destroyed is one where Picard is already dead and Riker is in command.
    – PopularIsn'tRight
    Commented Sep 16, 2014 at 0:48
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    @Izkata I have an allibi, I swear. :-) I only joined SciFi SE a few days ago, so I only saw this today. I had to go rewatch a few scenes to confirm some facts I was fuzzy on, but mostly I've already watched every episode more than once.
    – PopularIsn'tRight
    Commented Sep 16, 2014 at 0:51
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The original question was how many times Picard was at least implied to be dead. He was clearly so in "Parallels," where, after Worf shifts to the alternate dimension, he and Riker have this exchange:

WORF: If I may inquire, sir... how long have you been Captain?

RIKER: Four years. Ever since Captain Picard was killed during an incident with the Borg.

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    The question says both "implied to die" and "implied to be dead" but TK-421 says "If his death is depicted" in a comment, so I suspect that a situation where Picard simply died sometime in the past, unconnected to the episode, probably doesn't count.
    – DavidW
    Commented Oct 7, 2019 at 19:55
  • The question asked how many times Picard is shown or implied to die. Is your answer really just "one"? The accepted answer already contains at least five.
    – Blackwood
    Commented Oct 8, 2019 at 2:19

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