<1> Why didn’t Picard just take a holodeck vacation? Why did Worf allow him to go without security, peaceful planet or not?
<2> What was with the outfits? I couldn’t decided whether I hated the madras speedo worse or the hiking knickers.
<3> That strange way in which Picard destroyed the Tax Utat (sp?): “Enterprise: Code 14, lock onto present coordinates 2 second delay…mark!!”
OK, that was a really well-prepared crew member that was able to act so quickly. Really well-prepared.
And it was really stupid. Picard could’ve tripped and gotten his foot blown off. The coordinates might have been slightly off. Someone could’ve used a voice recorder to mimic Picard and steal his communicator and kill him or anybody they wanted on the surface. Or worse, order him at gunpoint to say that and have the Enterprise kill him where he stood.
Why didn’t the Vorgons shoot him while he was talking?
Why didn’t he just beam them back to the ship?
Why didn’t they ever use that trick before in other episodes? Or have they?
Also, didn’t Riker say at the beginning that the Enterprise was going to be out of communication range? How did Picard know they’d be around?
The easy answer to all these questions is it was that way for dramatic effect
But yeah, I often wondered about that whole visitors from the future thing. And isn’t this the episode where Picard means Vashe for the first time? Can’t meet a human love interest on the holodeck - in spite of Riker’s experience with (what the hell was her name? Musette?).
I know, I know. But they’re usually…better than that. It just seemed stupid and lazy.
I deliberately avoided time-travel questions (Why didn’t the Vorgons go back twenty seconds and stop Picard from using Code 14 in the first place?) for that very reason and tried to focus on the other stupid stuff.
If you ever are wondring about even the tiniest bit of trivia, you can go to what is quite possibly the Nerdiest Site on the Internet; Memory Alpha. Their NQ (Nerdiness Quotient) is exceptionally high there. Although Wookieepedia (Memory Alpha’s Star Wars equivalent) isn’t that far behind. (I’m pretty sure Star Wars is above Star Trek on the Geek Hierarchy)
Also, remember that they were conspiring to get a workaholic captain to take some time off. It’s way too easy to leave a holodeck and go up to the bridge to see what’s going on with the ship. (You can’t even seal him in, because the Captain has all of the computer override codes.) Much harder to charter a ship from Risa and chase after the Enterprise, though Picard could probably have done it if he’d set his mind to it.
Also, add Geordi to the list of those who met a love interest on the Holodeck.
I thought that the Enterprise came back into comm range just before that final showdown with the Vorgons, that Worf told Picard when they’d be entering orbit, and Picard gave him a discreet heads-up for the Code 14 maneuver.
Yeah, I was actually thinking of ‘stuck in the holodeck’ episodes after I posted that. But I’m not sure that it’d be easy to intentionally manufacture such a malfunction, and it might be court-martial-able, especially if the safeties get thrown off too.
IIRC, after the MacGuffin is destroyed, the Vorgons say that it was Picard’s “destiny” to do so (implying that the purpose of their actions was to make sure it happened that way).
And Lt. Barclay, if you expand the definition of “love interest” a bit. And admit it, Barclay is the only one who ever used the holoshed in a realistic manner.
Yeah, that was always pretty hilarious “He’s using this great fantasy machine to act out revenge and sexual fantasies about people he knows! How Bizarre!”
The answer is simple. Picard has to go on vacation on a real planet because his sexual desires are so bizarre and repugnant that the holodeck can’t simulate them.
