Brilliant Patrick Stewart was Star Treks all-time greatest captain

Sir Patrick Stewart, the incomparable actor who died Wednesday at age 86 after a brief battle with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy Body dementia, had an Alpha Quadrant-sized task ahead of him back in 1987.“Star Trek,” initially a canceled TV show that grew into a hugely popular and culturally influential franchise, had been synonymous with one man for more than 20 years: William Shatner.By 1987, Shatner had boldly gone as Captain James T.Kirk across three television seasons and four major films.

And now “Star Trek” was coming back to TV after a two-decade hiatus — without him.The new man in the U.S.S.Enterprise’s captain’s chair was to be Patrick Stewart, a 46-year-old classical actor from Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre.

Most contented as Shylock or Titus Andronicus, he had appeared on a few UK TV shows in the 1970s and ’80s, like “I, Claudius” and “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.” But Stewart had done nothing on the scale of the daunting mission he was about to embark on.Many people thought the series would flop.

And next to nobody in America knew who he was.What was clear is he certainly wasn’t James T.Kirk.

Unlike Shatner’s thick blond hair, Stewart was fully bald.Shatner played a rule-breaking lover and a fighter, Stewart was an erudite Brit who exuded raw authority and spoke with a sonorous baritone.

How could this possibly work?When “Star Trek: The Next Generation” premiered on Sept.28, 1987, audiences finally got to hear Stewart as their new captain, Jean-Luc Picard, speak that famous phrase: “Space, the final frontier.”He was perfect — dashing, funny, powerful and paternal in ways both warm and scary.

As far as I’m concerned, Stewart is simply the best to ever do it.Yet his almost-40-year association with “Star Trek” was not writ in the stars.He worked hard to get there. Stewart endured a difficult upbringing in a house with no hot water or indoor toilet.

Born in 1940 in Yorkshire...