Weekend Trek “Captain’s Holiday”

Patrick Stewart had a few requests for season three.  One of these was he wanted Picard to have a bit more action and romance than he had been up to that point.  That leads to an episode like “Captain’s Holiday” where he goes on vacation and things don’t go as he might have hoped.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t a good episode.  Jimmy and Tom discuss it below.

“Captain’s Holiday”

Picard’s shore leave is not the quiet time he had hoped for.

jimmy: Shorts are much too short in the 24th century.

tomk:  That’s your big takeaway?  Nothing about lingering camera sweeps across bikini-clad girls pretending to sunbathe on an indoor set?

jimmy:  There were women in bikinis?  I must have missed that.

tomk:  Well, this was Picard’s day off.

Apparently, Patrick Stewart wanted more episodes where Picard has an adventure and even romances a woman.

jimmy:  He certainly did both here.

tomk:  And that’s not even getting into what Riker and the others were up to on that space station.

https://youtu.be/vwrhOd9Do2A

jimmy:  No wonder Riker was all smiles at the end.

tomk:  Well, shooting weird aliens is more of a Worf thing, but yes.

jimmy:  That and his little prank on the Captain about a certain fertility statue.

tomk:  Man, Riker will be on so much Kitchen Duty after that.

Though I get the impression Riker and Picard look for different ways to take a vacation.

jimmy:  That was…fairly obvious.  And Troi wasn’t impressed.

tomk:  Troi has to deal with so much crap from Riker’s womanizing ways.  Does Riker just forget his ex-girlfriend is an empath?

jimmy:  And standing next to him.

tomk:  And sitting with him whenever a new hottie comes walking into Ten-Forward.

jimmy:  Troi should find some different friends to hang out with.  Maybe do some yoga with Beverly.

tomk:  Um…no thanks.

Let’s see…she can sit with Data.  He has no emotions to read.  Geordi is probably a little creepy.  Picard is her boss.  Worf is probably scary.  Crusher probably took her shopping for those workout clothes.  Wesley is a kid.  Crap, the only one left is Riker…

jimmy:  Are they not allowed to have friends outside of the main cast/bridge crew?

tomk:  How many of those people can you name?  Besides Guinan?

jimmy:  Lt. Stephenson.  Engineer Rienhold.  And let’s say, Moe.

Moe wouldn’t be a good choice for Troi to befriend.

tomk:  How about Vash?  Picard’s new friend?

jimmy:  I don’t think Troi would like her.

tomk:  Well, maybe.  By the by, kudos for you for not going with “Vulcan doctor,” “three-boobed woman,” and “the Doc Hollywood girl” for other crew members.

jimmy:  Too obvious.

tomk:  Well, good for you for not going the obvious route.

jimmy:  Thanks.  Back to Vash, she seems like someone who would have popped up elsewhere, but I can’t think of anything else I’ve seen her in.  Probably a bunch of different shows or something.

tomk:  Looks like this is her biggest role, namely a few episodes of different Trek shows as Vash.  She was also on…L.A. Law, the show that dropped Dr. Pulaski down an elevator shaft.

jimmy:  That’s what I figured.  And based on your comment, Vash appears again.

tomk:  Well, I have already seen her on Deep Space Nine, so yes.

jimmy:  Romancing Sisko probably.

tomk:  Well, you’ll see…sort of.

jimmy:  Picard certainly liked her.

tomk:  He may have dipped his bald head in oil and rubbed it all over her body.

jimmy:  Or at least wanted to.  Who knows what was flowing in that cave they spent the night in?

tomk:  Probably a lot of uncomfortable rocks to lie down on.

jimmy:  It certainly looked that way.  And Picard is a blanket hog.

tomk:  Well, she kept interrupting his reading time.

jimmy:  Because he never gets time to read on the Enterprise.

tomk:  Reading on vacation is never a good idea in Star Trek.  The last DS9 I watched, O’Brien took a bunch of stuff to read on vacation only to end up getting arrested, tortured, found guilty, have an execution date set, and gone on trial (in that order) by the Cardassians.

jimmy:  And Picard thought he had it rough getting romanced by several beautiful women.

tomk:  Well, that Ferengi in the Hawaiian shirt and fish people in his room probably didn’t help.

jimmy:  Fish people that came back in time knowing that Picard would find the Necronomicon, but also that he would destroy it.

tomk:  And apparently, we’ll just believe them at face value.

jimmy:  Picard did say “if I believe you” or something to that affect when they first met.  I also have a suspicion that the McGuffin wasn’t destroyed and is tucked away in Picard’s ready room or somewhere similar.

tomk:  He put it in the idol he later smashed over Riker’s head.

jimmy:  Haha, I can believe that.

tomk:  Smashing things over Riker’s head is probably Picard’s new hobby.

PICARD:  Number One, have I shown you my new Picasso?  Take a very close look.  Actually, my nephew painted that. Have you seen my new bowling ball?

jimmy:  RIKER: Thank you sir.  May I have another?

tomk:  No wonder Riker never moved on to his own command until much later…all that cranial damage from Picard stunted his judgement.

jimmy:  All the pieces are falling into place.

tomk:  Like why there’s no privacy in the future?  Strangers can just ask a computer where your room is at a resort.

jimmy:  Or when you will arrive.

tomk:  Yeah. That’s just asking for trouble.

jimmy:  Come to Risa, a stalker’s paradise.

tomk:  No wonder Riker smiles that way when he thinks of the place.

jimmy:  I almost said something along the same lines, but stalker seems a bit harsh for Riker.

tomk:  True. That’s more a Geordi thing.

jimmy:  Poor Geordi. He’ll always have the holodeck.

tomk:  Yeah, that’s the problem.

jimmy:  I’ve told you the holodeck is more trouble than it’s worth. Even Doctors won’t let you vacation there.

tomk:  Holodeck vacations can be interrupted by ship’s business or Lwaxana Troi. Resort vacations get interrupted by scheming jackasses and maybe Lwaxana Troi.

jimmy:  Good point about the potential interruptions and getting pulled back to ship business.  I thought the Lwaxana Troi rouse was pretty funny though.

tomk:  Yeah, but Picard saw right through that.

jimmy:  Did he?  He couldn’t get off the ship fast enough.

tomk:  I would too if people wouldn’t get off my case. We didn’t even get to Worf’s plan yet.

jimmy:  When he wanted to send a security detail with the Captain I thought, “this is why Worf is the MVP, he’s the only one that gets it.”

tomk:  They were working their way down the ladder. After Troi tried, it would go Data, Worf, Geordi, O’Brien, Guinan, Vulcan Doctor, Dixon Hill’s holographic secretary, various women who dated Geordi, the fish in Picard’s office, the Romulan spy working in Ten Forward who isn’t fooling anyone, Q, and finally Wesley.

jimmy:  Wesley may be special, but his plans suck.

tomk:  His plan was to try to have a sleepover in Picard’s quarters.

jimmy:  Yeah, that sucks.

tomk:  I dunno. I’d want to get far away from that.

jimmy:  …

You’re right.  It sucks so much it is brilliant.

tomk:  Picard would probably just send Wesley on shore leave.

jimmy:  That sounds like a vacation right there.

tomk:  Yeah, but not what you need after successful and stressful trade negotiations.

jimmy:  That requires more female companionship and spelunking.

tomk:  His hobby is archaeology.

jimmy:  And being the smartest being in the “room”.

tomk:  That’s not a hobby. That’s a habit.

jimmy: Did you buy the whole romance?  Did Picard and Vash just have no chemistry?  Why did I find it weird that Picard was sleeping with her?

tomk:  Well, she wasn’t hideous, and he’s only human.  But no, not much chemistry.

She’s no Beverly.

jimmy:  I personally find her more attractive than Beverly, but I much more buy the attraction and tension between Beverly and Picard.

tomk:  Well, she’s the bad girl you date when you don’t know any better and think her antics are fun before you realize she is like that. Every. Day.

jimmy:  I’ve been there a few times.

tomk:  Well, someone didn’t learn his lesson the first time.

That someone was Riker.

jimmy:  I was wondering how different a show it would have been with Riker in place of Picard.  He either a) would have went off with that first bikini clad girl that hit on Picard or b) never even got that far as he would have went off with Vash after that first kiss.

tomk:  It would have made Troi upset, whatever it was.

jimmy:  He did that well enough without leaving the Enterprise.

tomk:  Plus, there might have been green slime aliens in the starbase while Picard was gettin’ lucky.

jimmy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28_otKiVSx0

tomk:  Those too.

Though you know what Worf thinks of those things.

https://youtu.be/q_H8zpMu1yE

jimmy:  Haha, probably.  I think those tentacles are a Klingon delicacy.

tomk:  Probably a prime ingredient in GAGH!

jimmy:  GAGH! Deluxe.

tomk:  Well, Picard got that spring in his step back. Did you have any other observations?

jimmy:  Is that all it takes to get your spring back?  I need a vacation.

tomk:  It’s why the Moose is always so cheerful. He never ended his last vacation in 1997.

jimmy:  I thought he was on strike from the bagel place?!?

tomk:  That’s his friend the Beaver.

jimmy:  That sounds like a good show, but not the one we are here to talk about.

tomk:  Well, we could always look at what happens when a difficult telepath comes to work on the ship.

jimmy:  A difficult telepath?  Unlike a usually unnecessary empath?

tomk:  Yes. Unlike that.

Shall we see?

jimmy:  I’m game.

Next:  “Tin Man”