Star Trek’s Patrick Stewart Secretly Hated Jean-Luc Picard’s Pet Fish

Most Trekkies know that Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) kept a pet lionfish in a globe-shaped aquarium in his ready room. Only deep-cut Trekkies know, however, that the fish was named Livingston. Some have assumed it was named after Harold Livingston, the screenwriter of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” but the fish could also have been named after the Scottish football team, for all we know. No information has been given about Livingston the lionfish. 

Indeed, no one knows if the fish was Picard’s personal pet, or if lionfish were merely standard-issue in-office animals in Starfleet. It seems likely it was the former, as the latter seems too exploitative for the life-respecting Federation; no 24th-century bureaucracy would wrangle thousands of fish merely to install them as background critters in captains’ ready-rooms. 

In the episode “Chain of Command, Part I” (December 14, 1992), Captain Picard was transferred off the U.S.S. Enterprise-D and replaced with Captain Edward Jellico (Robby Cox) a very different type of captain. Picard was stern and aloof, but always open to suggestions, and happy to listen. Jellico, in contrast, was buttoned-down, strict, and discouraged fraternization. He expected orders to be followed, and didn’t want gossip. Jellico was by no means a bad captain, but his tight-laced command style was very different from what Trekkies were used to. Jellico, perhaps rightly, wondered out loud why the captain’s ready room had a fish in it, and ordered it removed. 

As it so happens, Jellico’s on-screen decision actually addressed a real-life concern that Patrick Stewart had about Livingston the lionfish. Cox was interviewed by StarTrek.com in 2016, and he recalled the controversy with the fish, as well as how much he liked Jellico. For one, he felt the character to be practical and efficient, and not unlikeable at all. 

Cox noted that Jellico, with his strict command style, actually undid a lot of long-standing issues some Trekkies had with the series. For one, many “Next Generation” fans might note that Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis) didn’t wear a standard Starfleet uniform. Her outfits might have been employed to offer a little visual variety to the usual tricolor jumpsuits usually seen on the series, but there was no in-universe reason to have her dress in low-cut tops or open-collar blue dresses. Jellico was the one who finally made her put on an official uniform. Or, as Cox less delicately stated, “Having Troi put on a damn uniform? Give me a break! This is an officer on a ship, and she’s running around with her boobs hanging out?” 

Cox then shared a little bit of trivia about Jellico and Livingston the fish, and noted that the writers finally undid a problem Stewart always had with the depiction of pets on “Star Trek.” Why would an enlightened captain, Stewart felt, keep an animal encaged? Cox recalled the complaint: 

“I’ll tell you something else that people might not know. Jellico made them take the fish out of the ready room. And here’s a secret: Patrick (Stewart) hated the fish in the ready room. Patrick was always after them to take the fish out. His point — and it’s a point well taken — was, ‘We’re doing a series about the species of the universe, about the dignity of different species, and we have a captured species swimming around in the ready room? That’s immoral.'”  

After “Chain of Command,” however, the fish was restored. 

Livingston continued to appear in “Star Trek” until the 1994 feature film “Star Trek: Generations.” In that film, the Enterprise crash-landed on Veridian III, utterly destroyed. There is a scene at the end of the movie showing Livingston’s broken tank in the wreckage, its tenant presumably killed in the crash. The fish wasn’t seen in any subsequent films. 

Cox, then, only temporarily granted Stewarts’ wish. Stewart, it should be noted, is an active animal rights activist, so he objected to the fish from the start. Audiences may understand the visual appeal of a fish tank in the background, but it didn’t make a lot of in-universe sense. As Cox recalled: 

“[Stewart] never wanted the fish there. Now, it makes for pretty good production values to have those fish swimming around, so visually I could understand why the producers wanted to do it. So, them having me take the fish out of the ready room was actually sort of a bone they threw to Patrick.” 

Maybe the greatest irony of Captain Jellico’s anti-fish attitudes, though, is that Stewart didn’t have any scenes in the ready room for most of the “Chain of Command” episodes. Jellico was in command of the Enterprise while Picard was leading a covert mission to investigate a Cardassian biological weapon. Picard was then captured, thrown into a dark room, and tortured by the dreaded Gul Madred (David Warner). Stewart didn’t even have the opportunity to enjoy the empty fish tank.