Remember Patrick Stewart With His Star Trek Co-Star Brent Spiner's Hilarious Impressions

When you do seven seasons of television, four movies, and a three-season encore with someone, you can't help but develop a familial relationship with them. It might run the gamut from warm to dysfunctional, and there may be a full-scale falling out, but you can't choose your TV family. The casting director can, but as long as there's an audience, you're stuck with them.

When Walter Koenig died earlier this week, we were reminded that he had a somewhat chilly relationship with his "Star Trek" cast mate William Shatner. So it was nice that Shatner wrote a touching remembrance, because, y'know, life is too damn short. Fortunately, life is long enough that we got to see Brent Spiner lightly roast Patrick Stewart over and over again with a dead-on impression of his co-star. Spiner could scarcely make a convention appearance or do an interview without being asked to trot out his impersonation of Stewart's sonorous baritone. It wasn't broad in a Rich Little sense. It was nuanced, elegant and deeply affectionate. Stewart didn't love it, but it was a tool Spiner and Jonathan Frakes used to get their Shakespearian-trained co-star to loosen up.

Just listen to Spiner bust out his Stewart at the 2016 San Diego Comic Con (and watch Shatner howl with approval).

Spiner knew these requests were coming, so he made the audience beg for it. Here's a fun instance of this:

There's a deep, deep rabbit hole of Spiner goofing on Stewart, and I encourage you to tumble down it because we need the laughs nowadays, but here are a few more highlights.

Impersonations are tough. They might sound great in your head, but you'll know straight away if you're hitting the mark via the reaction from your audience. It's a rare talent, one that has been mastered by comedy gods like Eddie Murphy, Dana Carvey, and Bill Hader. The difference with Spiner's Stewart is that a) he knew it irked his friend just enough, and b) torturing your friends is a part of the bond. Spiner explains as much here:

This one's a little shaky, but I don't think Spiner has ever been in better voice as Stewart. This is a scream.

And here, you get a long run-up to an impression that arrives at the 3:45 mark, but you should watch it all. Spiner so clearly adored Stewart, which meant getting a kick out of his innocuous egotism. You could puncture Stewart's star bubble, and he'd (grudgingly) roll with the punches. He loved performing. He loved performers. He learned to love making an fool out of himself (with the help of Ricky Gervais). He was a joy to behold.