There’s this quote floating around, can’t verify it, where Patrick Stewart says he used to get bummed out every time “Livingston the fish” died and they replaced it with another Livingston. On some level, I get it, you ever go into a dive bar and they’ve got that cloudy, half-dead aquarium full of resentful guppies? Bleak.
I know his current behavior doesn't make him particularly sympathetic at the moment, but as a Picard was best Captain dead-ender (I do not consider the recent Picard series canon and I can do that because fuck you that's why), I feel compelled to defend him, at least unless more facts come out about this.
Suppose the fish actually were dying from stress from constantly being on a TV set. Lionfish, according to the usual unreliable sources like Wikipedia, generally live 10 to 18 years. Why would he get bummed out "every time" the fish died unless this was a recurring event?
It shouldn't have been. They generally have a good lifespan in captivity. TNG lasted like seven years or so. There shouldn't have been multiple deaths of lionfish if they were actually taken care of.
It sounds to me like he was objecting to the conditions the fish lived in, not merely that they were using a fish in the show.
Random anecdote, when I was a kid, my family often ate at a Japanese restaurant run by a family in our neighborhood. They had a huge aquarium in it that was basically an indoor koi pond. After I grew up, and came back years later, every single koi I remembered was still there.
What were they doing to these lionfish that Stewart had to mourn multiple losses?
Sounds like he was correct. They were not taking proper care of those fish.
There are old interviews, circa season 1 or 2, of him being like "I feel the women are.... tokens... I'm so disappointed."
He was right about that, too. I mean with exceptions, like Lwaxana Troi and blow me, I think Whoopie did a top-notch job as Guinan.
