S01E12. Captain’s Holiday Transcript

Josh Woodward (singing) 00:00:00
Let’s pretend it’s the end, of this whole ugly story
We vanquished the foe and we triumphed in glory
There’s nothing but rainbows and blue skies ahead
Hallelujah, amen, it’s the end

We threw off the yoke, and we broke all the shackles
We tore down the walls, and we burned down the castle
The oppressors all scattered, and naked, they fled
Hallelujah, amen, it’s the end

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:00:38
Welcome to Before the Future Came, a Star Trek podcast. We are looking at the utopian ideals of Star Trek as we voyage from one work to the next, following a breadcrumb trail of motifs. We had a really busy start to the year, so thank y’all for your patience with us skipping the month of February. Last episode we discussed Inquisition, which had a character who is supposed to go on a trip. This month we’re talking about an episode which involves a successful vacation: Captain’s Holiday. It’s the 19th episode of season three of Star Trek: Next Generation. It’s written by Ira Stephen Behr and directed by Chip Chalmers, both Star Trek regulars. I’m Melissa, a witness to a great moment.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:01:27
I’m Gregory, the Risan symbol of sexuality.

Lucy Arnold 00:01:30
And I’m Lucy, and I prefer to be acquainted with the women I kiss.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:01:35
Excellent. All right, Lucy, you picked this month’s episode, so please give us a summary in your own words.

Lucy Arnold 00:01:44
Stardate 43745.2. I do feel like I need to provide a glossary for this episode. So the Horga’hn is a Risan symbol of sexuality. Jamaharon are presumably orgasms you don’t have by yourself. Tox Uthat is a legendary device left behind by a visitor from the future, capable of halting all nuclear reaction within a star… maybe. So now you can understand this summary.

Two Vorgons beam down onto Risa. They look for Captain Jean Luc Picard’s room, but don’t find it. They embrace hope and determine that he will show up. Meanwhile, on the bridge of the Enterprise, Picard is grumpy, but the ship is status quo. When Picard retreats to his ready room, Troi and Riker have a little tete-a-tete and notice that Picard has been under a lot of strain. Troi thinks he needs a vacay, which causes Riker to experience sexual arousal. Now—

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:02:47
To be fair, most things cause Riker to experience sexual harassment.

Lucy Arnold 00:02:55
Or anger. Now, Crusher enters Picard’s ready room, and it quickly becomes clear that the vacation conspiracy is in full force. Picard comes up with several good vacation Ideas, including a symposium and a visit to the holodeck. Crusher is not impressed. Picard is then snippy with Riker, who wants to tell him all about the women on Risa. Troi delivers the coup de grace for the conspiracy team by noting that her mother is planning to join them while the ship is having repairs. Suddenly, Picard thinks that a rise of vacation sounds like a solid plan.

Troi and Riker come by Picard’s quarters to critique his perfectly reasonable packing choices. James Joyce is perfect beach reading. Riker asks Picard to buy him a Horga’hn, and I’m sure he has no secret agenda with this request. Worf wishes Picard would take some security, which Picard declines. I doubt that will turn out to be important.

Picard sets foot on Risa and is immediately smooched by Vash, who has her eye on a Ferengi nearby. Vash says, “Never mind, I guess I don’t know you after all,” and bustles off. Picard—official weirdo—complains that she could have shook his hand instead, while the two Vorgons from the teaser stare at him with no attempt at subterfuge. The camera then spends 10 full minutes male gazing all the way down a femme body, a Risa guest who’s probably just trying to catch a nap. We then see a couple making out. Somehow, 1990 had the ability to make horniness incredibly gross.

That’s my summary. It’s completely objective.

Picard, who has never attended a swimming pool, is annoyed when someone splashes his copy of Ulysses. And I’m sorry, Picard, but Joyce would tell you to put his book down and find a lady whose farts you might sniff.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:04:38
Ugh, what?

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:04:40
This is real historical fact from James Joyce’s love letters.

Lucy Arnold 00:04:42
I am just providing objective summary. Next. Next, Picard is harassed by a hoverball which was being used by Joval, an employee on Risa. Joval is pretty pushy. It turns out that Picard bought Riker that Horga’hn this morning, and it’s a symbol of sexuality, which means he’s seeking the jamaharon. Her confusion cleared up, Joval is pretty nice and leaves Picard alone. Picard immediately hides the Horga’hn under his towel because he is not seeking jamaharon, but the elucidation that can only emerge from Ulysses.

A shadow blocks his book, and it’s that Ferengi Vash was eyeing earlier. The Ferengi ignores Picard’s desire to be left alone, not pursuing jamaharon. The Ferengi wants Picard to talk to Vash, who is her, and return a disk. Picard tells him off, and the Ferengi concludes the conversation by insisting that the disk and the woman are his.

Now Vash joins Picard on his chair, where he has finally decided that Joyce cannot help him. He tells her that he is not seeking jamaharon, and she says she wasn’t trying to help him with that. Picard is immediately apologetic and they introduce themselves to each other properly because Picard likes to be acquainted with the women he kisses. Me, too.

Picard susses that the Ferengi was talking about Vash when she tries to find out more about what the Ferengi says. Picard tries to leave the most reading unfriendly pool in the Alpha Quadrant, but they run into the Ferengi. The Ferengi, Sovak, wants the disk and Vash says it’s not his. Vash slips something crystalline into Picard’s coverup before he stalks off. Sovak says he wants to pay Vash her weight in gold for the disk, which she declines.

Vorgons are scanning Picard’s room when he arrives. They Ajur and Boratus have traveled 300 years into their past to find Picard. I doubt he is even through the first few pages of Ulysses at this point. They are interested in the Tox Uthat, a legendary device that Picard has heard of. This device can halt all nuclear reaction inside a star. These two Vorgons are the security team assigned to retrieve the device from the time period when its creator hid it. In reading historical records, they found an account that Picard had found such an item while vacationing on Risa. And now here we all are.

They ask him to return it to them when he finds it. Picard sort of agrees to do that. As soon as they leave, he puts his hand in his pocket and discovers… his copy of Ulysses! I’m kidding. That wouldn’t fit in anyone’s pocket. It’s the crystalline disc Vash hid there. Picard, finally interested in something besides Irish perverts, immediately heads to Vash’s room, which has been tossed. She’s putting it back together a bit. He wants to know if the disc has anything to do with the Tox Uthat. Vash reveals that she has been the personal assistant to a professor who devoted his life to searching for the Tox Uthat. She says that the disc contains his records, including maps and notes.

Picard proposes that he go look for the Tox Uthat and Vash stay here. She proposes that she doesn’t have to follow his orders, and Picard looks very much like he likes a brat. Perhaps he will seek jamaharon after all.

The two of them switch into their Indiana Jones attire. But before they even get out of the hotel lobby, Sovak is there with a gun. He informs Picard that he paid Vash to steal the disc, but she double crossed him. She says that’s not true, but not in a really truthful kind of way. They disarm Sovak and Picard punches him out cold. It’s dark, so Picard and Vash take a break from tracking the Tox Uthat. Vash confesses that she did take Sovak’s money and absconded with the disk. They then settle down for some flirting and sex.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:08:21
They’re in a cave at this point. One of Star Trek’s many famous caves.

Lucy Arnold 00:08:25
It looks kind of like the same cave.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:08:28
Yeah, it’s always basically the same cave.

Lucy Arnold 00:08:32
Picard and Vash then track to the spot in the late professor’s notes. Vash can’t get a reading on her Tox Uthat tracker, so they get their shovels out to start digging. Suddenly, the Vorgon show up, excited to observe a historical moment. Vash feels betrayed by Picard, who does admit that he didn’t tell her because she would have used her agency to do something else if she had complete information. But then, she hasn’t been completely upfront either. Someone else can sort out these ethics. Maybe Picard brought a book? And Sovak is here too.

Apparently, Vash burned a copy of the disc, but Sovak was still able to read the data on it. Now the digging is punctuated by villainous cackles. After a lot of digging, Picard finally gives up. Vash agrees with Picard. The professor’s findings were wrong. Sovak is upset and the Vorgons are puzzled. The Vorgons beam out. Sovak jumps in the hole to keep digging himself. Picard and Vash head back to the hotel. Picard soothes Vash and she says she needs to be alone. I guess Picard didn’t help her find jamaharon.

Riker informs Picard that they have arrived at Risa, and Picard tells Riker to initiate transporter code 14. At his signal, Picard lurks in the hotel lobby to see Vash heading out. “Leaving so soon?” he asks creepily. He then demands that Vash tell him where she hid the Tox Uthat. He contends that she planned the whole thing and wanted Sovak to come upon them digging to prove that she hadn’t found it. Picard suspects that she’d already been to the site and found the Tox Uthat when she first arrived on Risa. She smiles and gives it up. The Tox Uthat is hidden inside of a Horga’hn. Picard and Vash admire it.

The Vorgons beam in again. Vash says, “Wait a minute! The professor notes that it was two Vorgons who tried to steal the Tox Uthat in the first place!” Whenever the first place was. Picard demands the Vorgons give proof of who they are. Instead, they shoot Vash. Picard initiates transporter code 14 and the Tox Uthat is blowed up. It’s not blowed up. The Vorguns tell Picard that history recorded that he destroyed the Tox Uthat.

Vash seems fine, if you were worried. She hangs out while Picard packs because he can’t pack without company. He asks her what she’s going to do and yells at her when she tells him. Seems healthy. That’s the end of the episode. They do get back to the Enterprise.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:10:51
Textually, in the episode, it does get blown up, right? It’s, it gets retconned in some novel that it was secretly sent to the Daystrom Institute? We don’t have any evidence that that Picard was lying, destroying the Tox Uthat.

Lucy Arnold 00:11:05
I guess you’re right. I guess I have other knowledge of, or things I’ve read where that it got, that it was a different story. And I guess the beam looked really fake to me. But that’s probably just 1990.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:11:20
Yeah.

Lucy Arnold 00:11:22
But, yeah, you’re right.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:11:23
Great episode.

Lucy Arnold 00:11:24
Maybe he blowed up the Tox Uthat.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:11:28
I really liked this episode. It’s goofy.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:11:33
Yeah, it was, you know, not without its flaws, but I thought it was a good romp. Like, it is a good romp.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:11:44
Well, we’ve each brought a topic for discussion and mine is vacation and the nature of leisure in Star Trek. It is kind of wild to me that Starfleet has a system by which a captain can be overworked and have to be pressured into taking a break and to have the vacation in mind be resting and fucking. Like it’s a, it’s a very, very 20th century capitalist view of time off.

Like, vacation is a really, really recent invention. We came up with vacation in the, in the kind of European American world in the late 1800s. And it starts out as this, like, thing that rich people do, right? Like there are tours of Europe and things were a thing, you know, pre-1850. And then sort of the health craze of, of like going on health retreats and taking in the right waters and, and going to places that have the right atmosphere. That sort of leads to the idea of going on holiday and then it becomes this commercial thing because railroads exist and so railroad companies realize that they can promote vacation destinations to the middle and lower middle class and sell more railway tickets. And that also comes along at roughly the time when like there’s some labor clearing up going on.

So like it’s… Vacation’s only existed for a century; holiday if you’re in the UK. And like the idea that centuries in the future the idea of vacation will still be like, well, weekends aren’t really relaxing. Like, you presumably they get… Picard gets days off, but he’s not like really getting to relax on those and that, like, there’s no room in his life for just doing nothing. Like, in a world where like they don’t—Picard doesn’t get paid, right? There’s no money in the Federation, there’s no money in Starfleet. Why, why is he on this grinding mindset?

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:14:09
Because he’s in a military that we aren’t calling a military.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:14:14
I guess, but like we know that they have, you know, shift rotations and, and all of that. It’s, I don’t know, it’s, it’s weird that like he has to be pushed to be to go on vacation. And when he does go on vacation, it’s just like idleness is sort of this society’s vision of like what time off is like. And they’re even like scornful of him wanting to read books in his time off instead of just getting jamaharon and like that’s, that’s weird. And I mean the episode clearly thinks that like, no, this was a vacation for Picard.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:14:56
Right.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:14:57
Picard’s vacation is going on an archaeology adventure. I, I didn’t quite remember the details of this episode. I half expected that like maybe part of this had been organized by Risa, that like, because it’s a vacation planet that like they’d arranged for the perfect kind of, what is it? Love Boat style or Fantasy Island, one of those…

Lucy Arnold 00:15:18
Like in Total Recall?

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:15:22
Yeah, yeah, Total Recall. That sort of vibe would have been a fun twist for this episode. But yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know that this vision of work and labor and time off and vacations and leisure like, fits into their sort of non-capitalist Star Trek world.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:15:46
Yeah, it’s got shades of the sort of bullying that Spock occasionally got in Original Series for how he liked to spend his vacations and an unwillingness to take them. And it’s also, like, I don’t know what American vacations were like in the era of this episode, but, like, they didn’t even try to send him to Disney World, right? Like, they sent him a place where you do nothing other than nothing and sex. You know, they… No tourist attractions. At least not as, as spoken aloud. I think Risa gets a bit more nuanced in later episodes. This is its introduction. But it is weird. It’s kind of weird.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:16:32
I guess, like, sometimes Star Trek is like, here’s this cool vision of the future. And sometimes Star Trek is like, here, this, this practice is exactly the Same in the 24th or whatever century as it is right now today. But, yeah, I guess in this future the only way to go on vacation is to lie by a pool and pull bitches.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:16:59
Oh, god.

Lucy Arnold 00:17:02
I guess what my topic is that I’m wondering is really an inquiry question. And it is: what would it be like to have a really nice day where nobody talks about owning women? Because, I mean, I guess it’s just not 1990 anymore. And I was just sort of astonished by the objectification and misogyny in the episode. I know that is because I, I don’t know.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:17:31
Exist in linear time?

Lucy Arnold 00:17:34
Yeah, but I mean, you know, and I remember the Ferengi stuff, but this Ferengiis super gross. Like, he’s like, “I, like, want to have this woman.” And it’s, I don’t know. It’s, it’s not, it doesn’t feel good to watch it now in 2025. I don’t know how it felt to watch it in 1990. Maybe that was a really good time. And then I also thought, though. it’s really not… I feel like Star Trek knows the Ferengi are kind of gross with their woman stuff, but when you see it happening right next to Riker being all kind of, like, talking about the women on Risa, it just… I don’t know. That didn’t, it just felt a little bit gross from him, too. It felt just very single, single story, you know?

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:18:34
Yeah. Like, there’s, there’s very little, like, personhood assigned to the women of Risa. They’re, they’re sybaritic, they’re sensualist. And that’s essentially the only description we get of the Risan culture.

Lucy Arnold 00:18:46
Well, and I did think, you know, I thought the, the woman who works there who comes by talks to… I know I wrote her name down. Joval. Like, she seems like a very reasonable human being. Like, I think the actor did a good job. But the way Riker talks about her and other women like her, it, it, it’s gross. And, and I think there’s also, and you know, I get this is another 1990 thing, but it just presumes a real cis heterosexuality, too, from everyone, right?

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:19:27
There’s, there’s a weird behind the scenes fact on that because apparently it’s—so the story goes—Roddenberry wanted same-sex couples in the background kissing. He wanted like weird kink stuff going on. And basically the director, everyone else involved seems to been like “And that was clearly a terrible idea. So we didn’t do that.” And it’s like, hmm, maybe that would have been good. Maybe you could have had some more people in skants.

Lucy Arnold 00:19:52
It would have helped a little bit. But it doesn’t help that like even Riker, when he’s talking to Picard, he assumes heterosexuality, right? He assumes this would be what anyone would want. So there is just an assumption of what people would want.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:20:08
Oh, I, I took that as possibly him knowing Picard is straight, but… I mean he’s, he’s talking to Picard, right? Like they’ve been together for three years at that point. But maybe you’re right.

Lucy Arnold 00:20:23
I mean, you’re probably have a more generous reading than me and that’s fine.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:20:27
Yeah, I don’t know that I’m inclined to be that generous with Riker.

Lucy Arnold 00:20:32
And then I thought, and you know, I think that same-sex couples kissing in the background would have helped a little bit because I did think the camera was a problem in this episode. That one scene like literally goes on for 10 years. I was like, how long are we gonna look at this woman’s body, like, it’s wild. And there is a little bit of like there was a guy whose whole butt you see like walk through in the background. So it’s not like they don’t have, you know, any, I guess, equality. But it definitely felt pretty male gazy to me. And then the capper for me was the end with Picard’s reaction to Vash, like, she can do what she wants, bruh. And then he yells at her about what she’s gonna go do and get in trouble? Like, that’s unacceptable. Like, I don’t care.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:21:24
It’s very like, very paternal. Like in one of their first encounters, he’s like, “I’m gonna go solve this on my own. You stay here.” And then one of their last interactions is, “You’re gonna go to a dangerous place. You can’t do that.”

Lucy Arnold 00:21:42
Yeah. I mean, he has the same attitudes about ownership that Sovak does at the end of the day, right? Like, he acts like he hates Ferengi and thinks that they are disingenuous, but his behaviors toward Vash are not particularly different, although she clearly likes him better. But, you know, his attitudes suck. Like, I was—like, when he yelled at her at the end, I was just like, you’ve got to be kidding me. That’s, it’s just not okay. So I… And I understand, too, you know, that since, you know, we’re apparently going to actually do the Handmaid’s Tale now in 2025, I might be a little extra sensitive to some of these things, but it just does remind me, like, how recent any kind of progressive ideas about women and bodies, like, everything is really new, you know. And 1990, doesn’t, I mean, doesn’t feel like that long ago, but it’s a long time ago. And I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m sad.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:22:50
Yeah. It was notable to me that we get… we get five women in this episode. We get two health professionals; we get a hospitality professional; we get a weird, pretty neutral alien; and we get a femme fatale. And, like, those are all the kinds of women that this episode imagines is, you know: people without femininity, people who take care of other people, and people who are somehow uncharacteristic for a woman. And, like, there’s no room for any other kind of woman in this story.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:23:34
It did land… To hear the Ferengi say, “I will have this woman. I want to own her,” felt different to me than Picard’s also shitty opinion that “You should be careful. I’m going to tell you, you should be careful.” I think wanting. I don’t think that Picard was seeking to own Vash in that statement, right?

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:24:09
Yeah.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:24:10
I think those are two degrees of difference. I don’t think Picard had an opinion as shitty as the Ferengi did in that moment. He shouldn’t have yelled at her, like, both, both bad opinion or, you know, both bad actions. But I do think there is a difference between, “I want to own this woman” with the sort of leering sexuality added on to that from the Ferengi, and knowing what we do at that point of Ferengi culture, flat though it is. I think that is different than Picard yelling as he’s walking out the door.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:24:48
I think Picard’s mistake is, like, is paternalism. right? Or, you know it’s his captainness coming out. He does seem to think that Vash is, is very capable and, you know, a person in her own right and all of that, but he still is like, “And I know better and I can. She wants my advice on how to stay safe and presumably will listen to it.” And like, what, what? You’ve, you’ve known this woman only a short time, but it should be obvious to you that neither of those is the case.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:25:18
Right. Nobody fucking asked what if, if he thought this was going to be a good plan for her to go forward with, right? Like, he just completely volunteered that shit.

So I’m going to expand on something that’s been talked about by both previous topics, which is bodies. Bodies of the people in this show, this episode. This episode wanted to be so goddamn sexy. It wanted so bad to be very sexy. And in—apparently there is another Star Trek behind the scenes book that I haven’t read that maybe I should or shouldn’t pick up. William Shatner Presents Chaos on the Bridge. Ira Stephen Baer said that Patrick Stewart kept saying that the trouble with the show is that there’s not enough f’ing and f’ing, fighting and fornicating. And that is how this episode got made.

So this, the biggest thing, like Lucy said, the biggest thing you notice first is that this camera is making sweet, sweet love to so many bodies in the course of this episode. It struck me as interesting that there is relatively little focus on breasts and a lot of focus on tummies down. A lot of crotch shots. Picard gets a lot of chest time, but it’s not a boob focus, which is a very kind of a marker between a certain kind of prurient interest. And there’s a lot of clothing playing peekaboo. You know, Star Trek is doing its love of asymmetry in this episode, which I suspect our later discussion of wardrobe will cover. But you’ve got Picard in this sort of unbuttoned, flap-in-the-breeze, catch a little bit of lower belly kind of look. And this might be, it’s almost the most naked we ever see Picard. Like these shorts—

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:27:23
Outside of like torture scenes, yeah.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:27:26
The torture scene is the other one.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:27:28
I think this, this episode sort of feels like there was a conversation where someone was like, “Well, we can’t just have scantily clad women. We’ll, in service of equality, we’ll also have scantily clad men.” Without diving any deeper than that into like, oh, what is like… I mean, I’m sure that people, that people at the time who were attracted to men found Patrick Stewart hot in this and found this titillating. But the ways in which he is being portrayed and the ways in which the scantily clad women are being portrayed is different. He’s being portrayed as, like, at ease, casual, comfortable, showing off. And they are very much on presentation.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:28:13
Right.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:28:14
Being tempting, being revealing, being seductive. They’re, yeah.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:28:20
Yeah. These people are sort of draping themselves over Picard’s legs while he’s lounging on—you know, every time someone comes over to ask him to have sex, they’re, they’re sort of lounging over him. His body is the masculine body we see the most and, you know, like the most nude most consistently. And Vash is actually the femme body we see the least of, right? Like, she’s the most clothed, but they don’t treat her maidenly, which I thought was interesting, right? They weren’t doing a dichotomy here between, you know, her as some sort of pristine figure.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:28:58
Yeah. The show knows Vash fucks.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:29:00
Oh, yeah, 100%. She’s the one to initiate physical contact. She’s enthusiastic about sex with him. You know, there’s… She’s not, you know, sort of a blushing girl. And as I was looking at this, I was thinking about, like, what… Aside from, I’ll say, aside from misogyny, right? Like, we could, this is just baked in. This is what they’re doing. One interesting thing that the, that this sort of partial nudity is doing is serving as an interesting cultural divide. So, like Sovak the Ferengi stands out. He is not dressed for this party. He is in full clothing all the time. The two Vorgons that look like statues stand way the hell out. Early in this episode, Picard walks past the two of them and I was like, are they wearing a cloak? A cloaking device? How did, how did he, how did he not turn around and look at them?!

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:29:52
I’m trying to assume that, like, they’re working there because they look like they’re dressed to blend in, not with other people, but, like with the walls.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:30:04
With the statues. And then Picard and Vash are immediately popped out of this culture once they put on their Indiana Jones clothes, right? They are no longer doing Risa once they are, once they’re there.

Another thing this is doing is giving the audience some eye candy in the form of Picard specifically. I don’t know where y’all were when you watched this episode the first time. I was with a middle aged woman who was like, “Oh. My goodness. Let’s watch this episode.” And Picard just being so casual and hairy chested and all of this. Which is different than Kirk, right? Kirk, Shatner shaved his chest for his kind of brand of sexuality. I think Riker also maybe has a hairy chest, but like, is not doing, you know, is not in this episode doing this work and is, you know, such a himbo.

But like, this is providing an interesting view of Picard’s masculinity. And I think it contrasts with what we see of Picard when he’s holding a Tommy gun, firing it and shouting in the movies later, right? Like, that’s also a kind of masculinity and supposed hotness, I guess, for him. But it struck me how like really hot and cold and maybe kind of a product of its era as being such a long running, having such long seasons this kind of episode is, right? Where they’ve got Riker as this kind of oversexed character—and put all that in quotes like, whatever, I’m too, I’m too ace to be worried about all this, but, and then they have Picard as this perpetually undersexed character.

But every once in a while they want to shake it up, right? So they throw Picard in this situation and they have Riker be a good friend to a woman at some point and. And then they have to get back to those standards because they only have a writer who wanted to do that so often, right? That’s out of character for this, for this character. And they’re still kind of tangled up and wanting to be intellectual as a show as far as sci-fi goes, they still have their kind of theatrical leanings. And so there, there are these interesting flashes, and this nudity is kind of part of this. Like again, when’s the next time we see Picard this naked? It’s when he’s being tortured by Cardassians, I think, who seem to like to strip people naked. So it just struck me as, as, like that, that early camera, that camera work and the way just pans down legs and hips and everything was absolutely striking. I see some of the things that, you know, this enables, but I was kind of shocked. I was like, what year is this? We got Picard out here in these shorts. It’s a lot. But yes.

Lucy Arnold 00:33:01
I learned that Picard has nice legs.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:33:07
Yeah, he does.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:33:09
Good looking man.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:33:11
I was honestly surprised by his confidence. Not to say he shouldn’t have been confident walking around in whatever, but like, you know. I’m not an actor, obviously, I have no training and such. But if you were like, “Hey, suddenly go wear a bathing suit out in public.” I don’t, right? Like, it’s just not, I’m not comfortable doing so, and I wouldn’t be comfortable doing so on camera. So he just sort of strutted out there. It’s kind of cool. All right, so with our main topics covered, let’s do a quick lightning round of other interesting things we spotted.

Lucy Arnold 00:33:48
So I want to talk about liminality, which is actually the thing I’m most excited about about this episode. But I wasn’t sure how much discussion it would provoke because this is probably going to be more of a mini lecture. So I’m sorry, but—

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:34:05
I’m eager for it.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:34:06
I’m here for it.

Lucy Arnold 00:34:07
Liminality is like a threshold zone, you know, and you can use it sort of colloquially, too. You know, like, you can talk about liminal spaces, like your doorway, or you can think about liminal spaces like, a lot of people will talk about college as being a liminal space where people transition from youth or adolescence to adulthood. So there’s lots of different ways in which people use it.

I first learned the word liminality—I have a very clear memory of first reading the word in Michel Foucault’s Madness and Civilization, and I knew that it was a word that would mean something to me for the rest of my life. And so I watched this episode, and I did think that this was operating using liminality as part of its storytelling device. It’s hinted at by the choice of Ulysses as being one of the—James Joyce’s Ulysses, which is based on the Odyssey, which is a story of a man who wanders far from home, has adventures, and then returns home, right? And that’s going to be the pattern that we’re going to see in this episode.

It’s also another use you may have heard, is “carnival”. Risa has a kind of sense of carnival where people can be whatever and do whatever because you’re away from normal life. I know Gregory talked about the vacation idea, and that can also be that sort of removal from your normal, like, real life world. In, like, 1920, Arthur van Gennep talked about liminality from a sort of philosophy, philosophical perspective. And he talked about there being these sort of phases to liminality. One of them is pre-liminality. So that’s the leaving something behind. And you see it in the episode. They have the packing scene, which is, I noticed right away was pretty odd, right? Because, like, who hangs out, like, I don’t know, Riker and Troi, like, hanging out while he packs. That’s weird.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:36:17
It had the vibe of, like, making sure he was actually going and wasn’t gonna, like, hide in his closet.

Lucy Arnold 00:36:23
Yeah. And then they run into Worf too, who wants him to take security, which he refuses. So you see him going through these phases of leaving the normal world of the Enterprise and then coming to Risa, which that would be van Gennep’s idea of “liminality rights”. Coming to vacation, coming, beaming down to Risa. Immediately being greeted with Vash’s kiss, which, you know, she’s doing her whole thing, but that is, some ways is like an initiation to the world of Risa and the whole, I don’t know, search for jamaharon or whatever.

And then you also see the postliminality, which is the return with the new identity incorporated into your regular life. You notice there’s a second packing scene at the end where Vash is hanging out with Picard while he packs at the end. So that’s the sort of, like, that’s the return, right? And then at the end too, Troi and Riker are talking to Picard and Troi was like, you know, “Was it fun or whatever?” And Picard just says, “Uh-huh.” And I thought that was, you know, it’s an interesting moment because it’s not a normal Picard response. So I think what you’re seeing there is sort of some of the newness, some of the experience of the liminal space returning with Picard there at the end.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:37:42
And also sort of like the inability to discuss what happened on Risa in the context of this, this normal life.

Lucy Arnold 00:37:50
Yeah, it doesn’t fit.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:37:51
He can’t. Yeah, he’s not able to sum it up in a way that makes sense on the Enterprise.

Lucy Arnold 00:37:58
For sure.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:37:58
And it doesn’t have the same feel as, like, “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” It’s not that sort of lewd, like, you know, debauchery. It is such a different experience. That’s, I hadn’t, that’s really cool. I hadn’t thought about it that way.

Lucy Arnold 00:38:11
Well, and some of the things that y’all have already mentioned, like the clothing, right? Clothing is really different. It works really different. When you’re in this liminal space, you know, nobody’s in uniform. Like, people are making different weird choices, but nobody’s like, a Starfleet officer.

There’s that scene which I noted in the summary, that Vash doesn’t follow orders, right? She is out of the order. She’s literally out of order. She fits in really well in this sort of liminal space that is outside of the sort of Starfleet order. The Vorgons are from a different time period entirely. They’re also sort of out of sync, right? And it’s, Picard is sort of like he did in that episode, you remember, the one where he lives a whole life with the flute? Yeah. So, like, here, too, he lives a whole different life of sort of intellectualized adventure and a sexy woman who doesn’t listen to him, but does value him for things for which he is not valued in that normal life, right? On Starfleet. So there’s like, this whole experience there.

And furthermore, about Vash. So this is unrelated to what I mentioned previously about van Gennep, but in Jungian psychology, there’s the concept of liminality as well. And there, interestingly, the concept of liminality is often associated with the archetypal trickster. And I think that’s Vash, right? Vash is the trickster character. She’s double crossing Sovak; she’s double crossing Picard. She is, she’s a trickster at every moment. And so her being a part of his life in this liminal space, I think is another, like, sort of component of this experience.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:40:02
And there’s kind of like, there’s two layers to that, to that liminality, because we get the kind of stripping away of normal life and arrival on Risa. And then when they set out to do the actual archaeology, it’s a really weird transition because they… Picard punches out Sovak, the Ferengi, and, like, clearly enjoys doing it. And then they’re like, “Okay, let’s go.” And then it just cuts to them, like maybe lying on the ground in a cave. Like, there’s no travel scene. There’s nothing. It’s as if they woke up or fell asleep and suddenly found themselves in this very, like… What’s, what’s the word? Like, earthy physical space. No technology. It’s a bunch of stone. They’re using shovels. People suddenly appear. Like the, the Vorgons show up and then Sovak shows up and, like, there’s not transition between spaces.

Lucy Arnold 00:41:08
Very Midsummernight’s Dream.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:41:11
Yeah. And then they emerge back up into Risa and then back up again into the Starfleet world. And there’s these layers of reality that happen.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:41:20
And this also makes me think about when I started… So I started watching Doctor Who and what would have been, what, 2005? The Christopher Eccleston season. And at some point in there, they introduced the character of River Song, who is a trickster archaeology type. Also treasure hunting archaeology, whatever she’s doing. Also incredibly disruptive to Dr. Who’s whole shtick. And as soon as the character was introduced, I was like, “Oh, this is like the archaeology lady from Star Trek.” And I immediately like hardcore linked those two. And so as I was coming back to this episode and watching this again, I was like, yes, definitely the same type of character, kind of fitting the same role by disrupting this main character out of, out of their flow. It’s, it’s fascinating.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:42:13
That’s, that’s a kind of a classic archetype, like not just femme fatale, but like the… What is it, Romancing the Stone or Indiana Jones again, that… What’s her name? The, the, the, the more adventurous woman from Indiana Jones. I forget. But like that idea of like, here is this woman who is both a sort of intellectual rival and, but also like has a, maybe a different, slightly different attitude towards archaeology than you do. And, and is, is that tricks—Is that like, you don’t ever really know what her motivations are. She’s always lying to you in some way. Like that’s a, that’s an archetype that, that both I think River Song and Vash are, are playing in.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:43:04
Yeah. Well, this feeds nicely into my, my lightning round item which is talking about archaeology versus treasure hunting. This woman is purportedly an archaeologist. That’s her title. That’s what she gets in future episodes. She, she first claims that or implies that she’s going to hand this artifact over to the Daystrom Institute. And, you know, she was the assistant of this professor or whatever. Then it turns out to be stolen or lifted off of this professor’s estate. And then it turns out she wants to sell it to the institute for a profit, not give it.

And Star Trek is… There’s, Star Trek has long been interested in archaeology, right? It wants to, it’s a handy way for it to fill the gaps between the time of Star Trek and human presence of viewers when we are watching it, as well as to fill in backstory on aliens. But this has a shockingly little amount of science in it.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:44:17
Yeah, there’s no “ology” happening.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:44:21
No!

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:44:22
No one’s interested in finding out anything.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:44:23
Like, it started the moment the two Vorgons were introduced and they were like, “We’re from the future.” I’m like, “Scan for chronitons, my man! Scan for something that says these people are out of time.” Right, okay, fine, whatever. We’ve already talked about how I think Picard had an admirable amount of suspicion in the end. He’s no Julian Bashir or anything.

But even when they had the object in hand, as soon as you say time travel, right? Like, where is your—There was no sense of investigation about the object that was about to happen, right? They were going to dig it up and then give it away either to the Vorgons or to the Institute or sell it or whatever. There’s no sort of talk of scientific information or, like… You tell me you have an object from the future that’s been around in, around for 100 years. I’m like, can we carbon date this shit? Like, what does that even show, right? Like, what’s the, what do you get when you start analyzing this thing?

And, you know, Picard is kind of portrayed as having this more academic interest, but that’s not really borne out in the material. It’s just that he’s not treasure hunting in the way that, that she very clearly is. So this episode, what, what this got me started thinking about is when did we in popular culture start having discussions about returning items from museums, repatriating items from museums? Because Picard wants to just hand this item back over to the Vorgons, which is noble and admirable until he finds out that he shouldn’t. And this episode predates society having those conversations. But, I mean, Greece has been asking for its stuff back from the British Museum since, like the 80s, right? So, like, people have been clamoring for the colonialist powers to, to hand that stuff back for a while, but it just hasn’t been… It hasn’t been in the popular zeitgeist until the last 15 years or so.

Picard’s lack of sort of criticality kind of reflects some of the problems that happen when you go to repatriate artifacts. Which is, who do you give it back to? Who represents the people who should get this item back or these human remains or whatever? And I thought it was an interesting touch. I wish they had, like, made a meal out of that. But I was like, give me more of this. I wonder if later episodes that mess with archaeology kind of dabble in that space.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:47:03
It’s, it’s… This is one on the, on the scale of, like, in the middle of which is Indiana Jones and the far end of which is Tomb Raider, this is on the Tomb Raider side of things, right? Like, it’s there… some study was done and now they know where a thing is and so they just gotta dig it up and put it a place. And Picard’s on the kind of Indiana Jones it belongs in a museum side. And there’s not really anyone in the story who’s like, maybe this thing has a place where it actually belongs.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:47:39
Well, he wanted to hand it back.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:47:41
Yes. But the future people are very much presented as suspicious, right? We—the episode doesn’t seem to weigh in on whether they’re really trying to recover the object or just see history played out. But yeah.

Lucy Arnold 00:47:57
I feel like they wanted to change history, right? I mean, unless they were lying at the very end, too, when they said history recorded that he destroyed the Tox Uthat.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:48:10
Yeah. It’s unclear whether they were lying to Picard. Like, whether they were trying to get Picard—or just trying to observe Picard destroying the Tox Uthat and make sure that that happened. And so previously, they said they wanted it recovered. Or whether they did genuinely want it recovered and were just sort of resigned to the fact that they’d failed at the end.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:48:35
Oh, one other interesting thing about this whole thing is: if you were to take this artifact and drop it into almost any other Star Trek episode, it would immediately be treated as a weapon.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:48:47
Yes. Yeah.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:48:48
And it never is here.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:48:50
Right. It’s, it’s clear from the way they initially describe it that it is a weapon, like.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:48:55
But Picard is—

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:48:56
Nobody cares.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:48:57
Nobody cares. It’s kind of refreshing. Also kind of silly, because, of course, Picard would have any sort of, you know, strategic thought of this thing, but it was shocking to me. I was like, no one’s talking about the fact that this could just wreck complete star systems.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:49:16
Well, I think it’s time for us to talk about the Ferengi and about racialization. I don’t—weirdly, I don’t think we’ve talked on about this in detail in the show before. I think we mentioned it in passing at one point. But the Ferengi are problem.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:49:33
Early Ferengi, especially.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:49:34
Early Ferengi, especially. The actor for Sovak here is Max Grodenchick, who plays, I would say, the best Ferengi in Starfleet: Rom, who is a really great character. One of my favorite characters in Star Trek. But here—

Lucy Arnold 00:49:52
I wondered if it was him, but I forgot to look it up.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:49:55
Yep. Yeah. And this is, this is years before, and this is when they were kind of still trying to figure out what’s up with the Ferengi. And these, this portrayal of Ferengi is racist and antisemitic. It’s,it’s awful.

I’m not putting any shade on Grodenchick. He’s Jewish himself. He’s playing a script, taking direction, all of that. Not, not criticizing him. But like, Ferengi are very, very racialized in general. They’re subjected in, in the early Next Generation, especially to like, all of the major steps of racializing someone and othering a group of people. They’re simultaneously like, really dangerous and cowardly, right? They’ve got that, that fascist enemy thing of like, “Oh, well, we need to be very, very careful of these people. But as long as we’re mean to them, they’ll back off.” There’s that thing where, like, Sovak threatens Picard and then immediate Picard stands up and Sovak immediately backs away.

They’re, they, you know, have exaggerated body features, right? They are caricatures of themselves. The Ferengi have huge ears, they’ve got weird jagged teeth, right? Again, are they primitive and bestial or are they weak and conniving? They’re both at the same time. And this is, this is the way that races get caricaturized, caricatured and racialized, like by white society. You know, like their vision of otherness, of other kinds of people. Our vision, I guess; I don’t subscribe to it, but I am white.

And then specifically the, the Ferengi are Jewish caricatures. I’m going to, just going to say that unequivocally. They’ve got—and heads up, I’m going to mention a few fucking awful antisemitic stereotypes here, but they’ve got big noses. They are greedy. Sovak is a moneylender. Sovak is a money lender who, like, lends out money and then just, doesn’t just wait for it to come back. He like, pursues it and like, wants the treasure that, that is his reward for lending that money. And there’s a shot in this where when Vash is passing the data disk off to Picard, there is a shot of Sovak that is like pure antisemitic caricature. There’s a famous, there’s a meme that goes around in right wing circles. It’s a drawing of a supposed Jewish merchant that is just the silhouette of Sovak hunched over, hands wringing to indicate greediness, face clearly visible with a prominent nose. Like he looks like fucking Shylock. Fucking like, the most antisemitic thing you can get in this, in this episode. And there’s nothing, nothing to counteract that, right? Like, no one in the episode is like, “Well, not all Ferengi are like this,” right? Not even that level of milquetoast objection. Because the Ferengi at this time were kind of supposed to be a villain species.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:53:35
And in fact Picard says, “Yes, I’ve dealt with you a lot. I know exactly what you are.”

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:53:40
Yeah.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:53:40
Oh yeah.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:53:41
You see a Ferengi, you can assume they’ll be greedy, that they can’t be trusted, etc, etc, like never—only briefly does Picard even consider that maybe Vash screwed this dude over. Because that is what happened in this story. What happened in the story was Vash said, “Hey, Sovak, give me some money and I’ll get you this information.” And then she ghosted on him.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:54:04
Yep.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:54:05
Sovak is—aside from being a horrible misogynist, which again, womanizing is a, is a racializing thing where he is simultaneously very aggressive with women but unable to actually get what he wants.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:54:17
Yeah.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:54:18
That weird, weird mixture of dangerous and weak. And like, other than him being a terrible womanizer, like, he kind of did not much wrong in this episode. Like he, he is just trying to get back the. His investment and, and until he like pulls the gun on them.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:54:39
I was gonna say he does pull a gun on them.

Lucy Arnold 00:54:44
Twice.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:54:42
But up until that point, yeah, he’s just kind of following his investment around. But this episode very much villainizes him and doesn’t even really give a shit about him as a person. Like, I don’t… Do we see him after he’s left in the cave digging?

Lucy Arnold 00:55:04
No,

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:55:05
I don’t think so.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:55:06
Yeah, so it’s just they, they have him show up and like make people work at gunpoint. Like the, the same sort of like fears, antisemitic fears of, of, of, you know, this, these powerful employers. And then he gets his comeuppance by being forced to labor like the normal person. And then he’s gone from the story.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:55:31
Right.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:55:32
And it’s terrible, it’s bad, it’s… They do much better with the Ferengi later on. I think they do a lot to redeem themselves with, by, you know, portraying them as a culture, making it clear that different Ferengi believe different things. Being like, oh, here’s where their cultural attitudes come from. Here’s the Rules of Acquisition. Here’s the way that their society is.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:55:56
And a society that can change. Which is something that I think is like striking about the DS9 era as opposed to Original Series, right? Where you see multiple societies shift and change over the course of DS9. That… they, they ain’t there yet.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:56:15
Yeah, but at this point, Ferengi are just this, you know, subhuman, capitalist, greedy, weaselly group that’s just a stand in for the racialized other. And it’s bad.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:56:34
It’s real bad. Well, in addition to the deep stuff?

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:56:40
It’s pretty deep.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:56:41
It’s pretty damn deep. We’re also all big Star Trek fans. So let’s head to Ten Forward to talk about stuff we geeked out about. I’m gonna start with the plot device of a lack of pre-vacation research.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:56:59
Great.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:57:01
Picard made like an almost offensively low amount of research into this place before going.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:57:09
If someone asked me to get them a gift at a place I was going, I would google the gift. I would be like, let me make sure I know the difference between, you know, the tourist trash and the real thing. Or something. Anything.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:57:24
Anything. When I—now admittedly… I have anxiety. So we’ll just, you know, we’ll just—

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:57:35
So say we all.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:57:37
—just put that out there. If I go to a resort, one of the many things I’m going to google is, “Do I need to tip? Do I need to tip cash? What’s covered, what’s not? Can I walk around in my swimsuit or should I wear pants otherwise?” Right? Like, there are all sorts of things that if you’re going somewhere new, you tend to just do even just a 10 minute search on to make sure you don’t just put your foot all the way in your mouth. He went out and bought a souvenir that was a gift for someone. It probably wasn’t marketed as a souvenir because it’s not! You use it while you’re there. That’s not a souvenir. He got it, went through the process of purchasing it, set it on his, you know, the table by his lounge thing and like never at any point read the sign that said this is a sex object when he purchased it.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:58:34
You know, there was a little, a little thing being like the history of the Horga’hn or whatever it’s called.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:58:41
Yeah, yep. And like, why was it just out on the table and not like in a bag? Why didn’t he take it back to his room? He’s got, he’s got Ulysses in one hand and a sex statue in the other. It is, it is a convenient plot technique that I still kind of love when it’s, when it’s not like, offensive-offensive, right? Like in this case it’s the vehicle for plot. And aside from the things we’ve already discussed, it’s not the worst, right? There could be a horrible colonialism thing happening here that, that isn’t.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:59:18
And not the most, I think the most contrived I’ve seen is the one where Wesley gets or gets sentenced to death for walking on the grass. And it’s like, someone should have known. Someone should have read something to know that maybe we should be careful here.

Melissa Avery-Weir 00:59:34
We know Starfleet puts cultural officers, cultural somethings on ships and that they brief officers and so on before letting them down onto planets.

Gregory Avery-Weir 00:59:47
In our world today, you can go—I mean, maybe not since the most recent presidential inauguration—but you used to be able to go to the Secretary of State, Department of State website and just look up their, like, heads up for going places. And, you know, sometimes it’s wrong, sometimes it’s bad, but they’ll at least be like, “Hey, when you’re in Risa, careful about displaying the Horga’hn, or you’ll get approached by people looking for sex.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:00:09
Yeah.

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:00:10
Excuse me, “jaharon”.

Lucy Arnold 01:00:12
Jamaharon.

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:00:13
Jamaharon. Thank you. Which gets a call out in a Lower Decks episode.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:00:19
Excellent. That’s where it belongs, honestly.

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:00:20
Beckett Mariner knows about jamaharon.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:00:24
Of course.

Lucy Arnold 01:00:27
Counterpoint. I think Picard was being a really thoughtful friend. He went and got the Horga’hn first thing. He’s like, okay, let me strike that right off of my to do list. Now I’m gonna read Ulysses.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:00:41
I think both of these things are true. I think he was being a good friend. I think maybe he should have kept it in the bag.

Lucy Arnold 01:00:49
I mean, they probably don’t give it to you in a bag because they think that you’re gonna carry it around.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:00:52
Because you’re gonna use it.

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:00:54
Yeah.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:00:55
Very fair.

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:00:56
Maybe Picard was like, “Can I get a bag for this?” And they’re like, “No, no, no bag. Have it out. Set it by your, set it by your chair.”

Lucy Arnold 01:01:06
Also, on my last vacation, I literally did so little research in advance that I didn’t even realize that the Star Trek museum had closed until I was there. So it’s not an impossible thing that it could happen.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:01:25
It’s not. It’s not.

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:01:27
That’s fair.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:01:29
I feel like if I’m traveling with someone I trust to take care of these details, then I don’t necessarily feel like I have to have that, like, degree of control, right? I think Picard has a certain… I expected him to bring up the fact that he was a Starfleet captain way sooner in these altercations than he did. He’s got a certain, you know, swagger about him that’s just like he’s just gonna move through a space and the space is gonna accommodate him.

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:01:55
In your defense, Lucy, you were not crossing international lines, let alone interplanetary lines. So you know, slightly more familiar space.

Lucy Arnold 01:02:05
Yeah.

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:02:07
So I want to talk about wardrobe! Costumes! They’re amazing. We’ve talked a little bit about this, but just Picard is wearing the sluttiest bathing suit. He is wearing these tiny shorts that, like, package fully outlined. I mean, it was the 90s. Short shorts were in vogue, but, like, that… This man’s body is all out, and it’s amazing. He’s—so you mentioned that kind of asymmetrical jacket he’s got and these tiny, tiny shorts. And his, his outfits generally this episode are real amazing. Like, there, there’s a whole lot of, like, very low collars, like, often baggy collars, like, slouchy sort of boho collars.

A lot of, like, weird textured layers of cloth. The outfit that he wears to beam down is, like, almost frilly. He’s like, I would—If you had asked me how, if I wiped my memory of the outfits of this episode—which would be very hard—what would Picard wear casually? And I’d be like, you know, at the most revealing, a peasant blouse maybe, right? Like, I can see breezy clothing. I can see, you know, linens and lightweight stuff.

But, like, shiny booty shorts and a pretty much completely open robe are not the direction I would guess on that. And I think, Lucy, you covered very well, most of the women’s outfits are not good in this episode. I think Vash’s, like, adventurer’s gear is real cute. I, I didn’t go back—I should have gone back at least at the end of the episode and maybe this is true of his, of Picard’s adventuring gear throughout. He has jodhpurs on. He has those pants that are, like, gathered at the knee and baggy at the thigh.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:04:20
Oh, that’s what those are called? Okay.

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:04:22
Yeah. So they’re, I think, originally a, like a equestrian outfit, but, like, when, when he and Vash do their wardrobe change into adventure mode, it’s amazing. Like, they, they’re out of, you know, an adventure serial with their outfit. Sovak: you, you’re correct that he—you mentioned, I think, Lissa, that he’s out of place there, but he is in vacation wear. He is wearing, like—

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:04:50
Oh, that’s right!

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:04:52
—below the knee, almost Bermuda shorts. And, like, I don’t remember if it’s floral, but a gaudy top that very much looks like he’s on vacation. The, the Vorgons, like, they’re, they have this outfit that looks like it’s made out of like a pot scrubber. Like, it’s very crinkly and shiny and rough looking. There’s just like a wild amount of attention paid to, to the wardrobe and a bunch of like, interesting choices. They don’t go the easy route of being like, yes, Picard’s in a t-shirt and board shorts or Picard’s in a seersucker suit or whatever.

Lucy Arnold 01:05:37
The Vorgons actually have a hint of a swimsuit over their chunky clothes too. If you look, it’s kind of like they’re wearing panties on top of their clothes.

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:05:48
I didn’t notice that. That’s amazing! If you compare it to the set, like, the set just sort of looks like the most generic, like third-rate resort or like a Rainforest Cafe or the lobby of a hotel that says it’s near the ocean but isn’t really. But the outfits are amazing.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:06:10
Yeah, there’s lots of—I don’t remember if I described it earlier, but sort of like peekaboo type outfits. Like gauzy things that move on and off, revealing. Or someone’s got on a single style bathing suit that has a, you know, a hole in the tummy, right? That sort of look that’s like revealing. Lots of high cut, very 90s high cut, bikini bottom type stuff. Yeah, the wardrobe is wild.

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:06:46
Yeah. Several people are wearing like little, very lightweight coats or jackets that go over their other clothes but are almost translucent or transparent. And at one point it kind of looked like one of the misogynist background extras was like full titty out and they had a blur her as she walked close to the camera so that you couldn’t see her nipple. I’m not sure if it was just artful costume design or if they actually had to do something optical, but everyone’s wearing like weird, translucent, gauzy outfits.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:07:22
Yeah, it’s pretty great.

Lucy Arnold 01:07:24
I’m putting a picture of the Vorgon’s full outfit in the chat so that y’all can see it.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:07:35
Oh, my god.

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:07:36
Oh, wow. What is happening in this picture? We need to put this in the— Oh, this is the explosion. Yeah, this is the transporter protocol 14.

Lucy Arnold 01:07:46
But you can kind of see the metallic panty situation there.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:07:51
Uh-huh. It’s amazing.

Lucy Arnold 01:07:54
Well, Vash’s outfits were very good. And Vash is my fan thing. I loved her a long time ago when I watched Next Generation and she did not disappoint me, unlike everyone else. I really, I really liked that despite all of the terrible ways people behave toward her. I felt like her sexuality was for herself. And I felt like her, she had agency. She was choosing what she was gonna do. And sort of like fun. Like, she seems like she has fun doing the things that she does. And even if she was affectionate to Picard at the end, I mean, she also was dismissive of his concerns, like, you know, you can’t tell me what to do, as we’ve already been over. So I continue to like her a lot and might go ahead and rewatch the episode I know where she hooks up with Q later.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:09:10
Yes.

Lucy Arnold 01:09:11
Sorry. Spoilers, I guess, for something that’s like 25 years old. And then just a sort of second shout out to James Joyce’s Ulysses, which I—is not a Star Trek fan thing. And I’m not recommending it because I don’t think anyone should read James Joyce’s Ulysses on a recommendation. I think you should only read it if you’re moved to read something that will… harm you.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:09:43
Oh, no!

Lucy Arnold 01:09:44
But I mean, in a good way. Like, because it’s, you know, one of the best novels ever written, so it was nice to see it there. I’m glad he packed it.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:09:57
How does one become moved to read it if not based on a recommendation?

Lucy Arnold 01:10:03
You just have to feel it. Just have to feel like you should read it.

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:10:10
Sometimes if there’s too much pressure on the brain, it can trigger an episode. I think Vash, like, Vash is doing the femme fatale thing. I think I said that earlier. Like, she is the, the mysterious, duplicitous woman, but like, very often that character is someone who manipulates a man into doing her work for her. Like the, the classic woman who goes into a detective’s office and lies to him about the true nature of what she wants investigated so that he is tricked into getting into trouble and she can stay clean. But Vash does her own stunts. Like, she, if Picard hadn’t been there, she would have been fine. She would have found some other way to plant the—I mean, at the point at which… I don’t remember if this was put in detail in the summary, but the point at which we meet Vash, she has already defeated Sovak.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:11:18
Right. She just needs to shake him.

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:11:19
Yes, she has already, at the point at which we first see her in the episode, gone, dug up the artifact, hid it inside a sex object, and, and is now just looking to figure out how to get Sovak to the dig site again to think that there’s nothing there. And Picard’s just, you know, helpful second body to help her out with all this.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:11:46
She doesn’t need access to his power. She doesn’t need labor.

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:11:51
She needs a pocket. And it’s helpful that he punches Sovak. And that’s about it. That’s about all she needs them for.

Lucy Arnold 01:11:59
She probably could have punched him.

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:12:02
Yeah, yeah, she would have taken care of that. But. But it’s nice that she didn’t have to, you know, and she got laid. I think that dovetails pretty nicely into our next episode. At the end of each episode, we pick the next thing we’re watching based on a connection from this episode. And this episode had an amazing femme fatale in the form of Vash. So next time, let’s watch the 20th episode of season four of the Next Generation, Qpid.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:12:35
Yes!

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:12:36
An appearance by Vash is interrupted by the godlike being, Q. It is the episode that Lucy just mentioned, and if that’s not too tight of a connection, I hope that, that we can check that out.

Lucy Arnold 01:12:47
Y’all know I have a superpower. When I want something to happen in TV, I get it immediately. So I guess I should have predicted that.

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:13:02
So that’s roughly one season after this is when Vash reappears. She doesn’t show up again until Deep Space Nine. And yeah, you can find that on Paramount+ streaming or, you know, anywhere that shows Star Trek or your uncle’s DVD collection—

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:13:26
Hey, now.

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:13:28
—or wherever you steal Star Trek from. The episode is Qpid, Q-P-I-D upon on either “stupid” or the mystical figure. This is the Robin Hood episode also. So yeah, it’s, it’s chock full of weird, weird imagery.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:13:50
Excellent. That’s going to be fun. All right, so next time we will be discussing Qpid on Before the Future Came. You can find links and show notes at beforethefuture.space. Please rate us five stars on Apple Podcasts or if you found the show. You can send us comments on our website. You can contact us on Instagram or TikTok by searching for Before the Future Came. Or talk to us on Mastodon at @beforethefuturecame or email us at onscreen@beforethefuture.space.

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:14:28
I’m Gregory Avery-Weir and you can find me at ludusnovus.net or on Bluesky gregoryaveryweir.bsky.social.

Lucy Arnold 01:14:37
I’m Lucy Arnold and sometimes blog intertextualities.com and cannot otherwise be found online.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:14:47
Uh-oh. I’m Melissa Avery-Weir and I live at irrsinn.net and on Mastodon at @melissa. Our music is Let’s Pretend by Josh Woodward, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. Thanks for listening.

Josh Woodward (singing) 01:15:09
I’m sure we’ll all live happily ever after
Surrounded by butterflies, children and laughter
It’s a fairytale story, so let’s just pretend
Hallelujah, amen, it’s the end
Happily ever after, the end

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:15:34
Is it the same material that’s also embedded in their skulls?

Lucy Arnold 01:15:39
I can’t speak to that.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:15:41
I thought they had their hair pinned up. You know, when you go swimming, you know you want your hair up out of the way.

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:15:48
No. Definitely have holes in their skulls, revealing some sort of special effects fabric.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:15:54
Oh, my god. Absolutely amazing. Stunning.

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:15:59
Yeah, it is. It is a different material. The panties are kind of a mother of pearl look.

Melissa Avery-Weir 01:16:06
We have to stop saying “panties”.

Gregory Avery-Weir 01:16:10
The bikini bottoms are this mother of pearl pattern, and the skull windows are like more of a golden sort of, I don’t know, astronaut blanket sort of look.