Trivia / Star Trek: The Next Generation S3E19 "Captain's Holiday"

• Actor-Inspired Element: Patrick Stewart took credit for having thought up the idea of Vash. "I said I've got a feeling our audience might like to see the captain just getting blown away by meeting somebody new," he stated.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: Director Chip Chalmers remarked,
  "Captain's Holiday" is one of my favorites because it was the first. This episode was also terrific because Patrick is such a wonderful actor. The other thing for me is that I got a wonderful actress, Jennifer Hetrick, and we had such a good time working on the show...I can look back at that show and smile for a lot of reasons, but certainly the happiest result is that we proved Patrick Stewart is extremely funny."
• Romance on the Set: Patrick Stewart and Jennifer Hetrick (Vash) started a somewhat stormy, on-again-off-again affair following this episode.
• Wag the Director: A major driving force for this episode was Patrick Stewart's boredom with Picard's uptight Non-Action Guy characterisation up to this point, and requests for the character to get to take part in some "shooting and screwing".
• What Could Have Been:
  • Risa was originally just meant to be the location of a framing story, a place where Picard would find a sideshow attraction that shows him his greatest fear— being promoted to admiral, Kicked Upstairs and spending the rest of his career sat behind a desk, while Riker continues on a life of adventure captaining the Enterprise. Gene Roddenberry rejected this idea, as being afraid of one's future wasn't part of his ideals for 24th century humanity, and suggested retooling the story so that Risa became the primary setting (the original idea was later revisited the following season in "Future Imperfect").
  • Another of Roddenberry's "suggestions" was to have copious amounts of girl-on-girl and guy-on-guy action taking place in the background throughout the episode. A progressive idea for 1990, but Rick Berman and writer Ira Steven Behr pointed out that not only would they blow the budget on extras alone, but that it'd likely never get past Paramount's censors even if they did film it.
  • The hunt for the Tox Uthat was originally going to be a straight-up Maltese Falcon-esque plot. While Michael Piller liked the premise, he also felt it was too much like a Magnum P.I. episode. It was Ronald D. Moore who pitched the idea/twist of the artifact and Vash's rivals actually hailing from the far future.
  • An early version of the script ended with a repeat of the opening scene in Act Two, implying that eventually the Vorgons will be successful in obtaining the device. According to Michael Piller, "We thought it was a little confusing and we cut it. It was sort of a Twilight Zone ending and it didn't quite work."
• You Look Familiar: Sovok is played by Max Grodenchik, who would later play Rom on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

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