"Make It So"

-Jean-Luc Picard, Captain, U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701D

Having recently come across a couple of hilarious videos about Captain Picard on Video.Google, I've decided to dedicate this post to the captain of what is by far the best Star Trek series: The Next Generation.

She's going to kill me for posting this, but my Mom has a thing for Picard. As she said a while ago while discussing balding (I believe the context was the reasons why bald should be left bald as opposed to a comb over, so this came out of nowhere), "I think bald is beautiful. Think of Captain Picard: he's a hunk!"

Found this online:
101 Reasons Picard is better thank Kirk as a Starship Captain
1. Two Words: better voice.
2. Picard's ship's counselor traded in her miniskirt for that great low-cut neckline.
3. Kirk fought over women. Picard had women fight over him.
4. Picard fire both photon torpedoes AND phasers at the same time when in battle.
5. Picard's ship is better than Kirk's -- better, faster, stronger.
6. Picard hates children -- Kirk once rescued a bunch of patricidal little maniacs, tried to console them, and almost lost his ship and crew in the process.
7. Picard was responsible for Beverly Crusher's husband dying, berated her son constantly in her presence, yet still managed to make her fall for him.
8. Though admittedly he's seldom a patron, Picard's ship actually has a BAR.
9. Kirk fought others himself, Picard has others do his fighting for him.
10. When nurse Chapel re-appeared as Troi's mother, she fell for Picard.
11. In seven years, Picard never developed a gut like Kirk's.
12. Picard was never killed by his first officer.
13. Picard's family made alcoholic beverages for a living.
14. Kirk kept losing security guards throughout each season; Picard has kept Worf for seven years.
15. No member of Picard's crew was EVER based on a member of the Monkees.
16. Two words: better actor.
17. Picard can do better impressions of his first officer.
18. Picard single-handedly saved the Federation, the Klingon Empire, and all of humanity while still a lowly captain.
19. Picard's a better musician than Kirk, while admittedly that's not saying much.
20. Picard's crew members sleep with one another on a regular basis.
21. Picard's crew gambles.
22. Picard's engine room has that neat warp coil that glows.
23. Picard's ship has better control panels instead of a series of Lite-Brite boards.
24. Picard would never star in a show like "T.J. Hooker."
25. Picard would never have allowed Charlie X aboard his ship.
26. No sideburns. 'Nuff said.
27. Picard's first officer never seized control of the ship to transport a former captain anywhere.
28. Despite the Borg incident, Picard is still welcome back at Starfleet HQ. Kirks name is an anathema to Starfleet HQ and alien races alike.
29. Picard never ordered his ship to self-destruct as a bluff; when he orders it to do so, he MEANS it.
30. Picard's ship was never taken over by its own computer and made to attack other Starfleet vessels.
31. Picard has never been made into a bad Filmation cartoon.
32. Picard was able to bring Denise Crosby back from the dead. Need we say more?
33. Picard infiltrated Romulus, posed as an intergalactic mercenary, and was tortured extensively after capture by the Cardassians -- and never broke a sweat.
34. Picard has never been demoted.
35. Picard has never had his body taken over by a former lover.
36. Picard has never developed amnesia and thought he was an Indian.
37. Picard has never encountered aliens from weird planets like "Zatar."
38. Picard's quarters have a window.
39. Nobody ever back-slaps Picard.
40. Picard was never involved in any hokey shootouts at the OK corral.
41. Picard is a caffeine addict. (All that Earl Grey tea.)
42. One word: Leadership.
43. Kirk is not a sex symbol. Never was, never will be.
44. If Picard had a son, he wouldn't lose a fight to a Klingon whose commander was Christopher Lloyd.
45. Speaking of losing, Picard has never lost a first officer to a man who once made a career out of selling Chrysler Cordobas, either.
46. Picard would never be so stupid as to go rock climbing without equipment and rely on an overweight first officer with rocket boots to save his butt.
47. Picard would never stand for playing "Row Row Row your boat" around a campfire.
48. When Picard enters a room, people fall silent; when Kirk enters one, they keep on drinking.
49. Picard has that cool, futuristic artificial heart.
50. When Picard has an alternate reality experience, it's worth watching and caring about.
51. Picard never expects the impossible from his engineer.
52. When Klingons are aboard Picard's ship, they don't go rampaging about with 17th century weaponry.
53. Picard has more class than Kirk ever had.
54. If poor judgment were bricks, Kirk would be a housing project.
55. Picard had the chutzpah to admit when he screwed up instead of putting on a face which only made things worse.
56. Picard doesn't rely on the Organians to help him settle intergalactic squabbles.
57. Picard gets along with the aliens aboard his ship.
58. It's unlikely Picard ever contracted a sexually-transmitted disease.
59. One word: diagnostic (Never heard it on the old show.)
60. All that cool technical jargon (Also never heard on old show.)
61. Picard has hair on his chest.
62. Picard can actually make being bald, middle-aged, and scrawny look sexy & macho.
63. Kirk sat alone in the middle of his bridge; Picard kept counselor Troi within easy reach and view at all times.
64. Picard has never mutinied or had his crew mutiny against him.
65. When Picard gets drunk, he tracks mud all over the house and gets in a fight. When Kirk gets drunk, he passes out.
66. Picard hired Whoopi Goldberg to work in his bar.
67. Picard is not afraid to mind-meld.
68. Picard's ex kept her name even after the divorce; Kirk's kept it a secret even from her son.
69. Picard likes solving mysteries; Kirk couldn't figure one out if he tried.
70. Picard has never messed up with the transporter.
71. Picard has never been bitten by a mugatto. Nor has he ever allowed shape-shifting salt vampires aboard his ship, either.
72. Picard has never aged prematurely.
73. Picard wasn't afraid to take on Satan.
74. Picard knows Gilgamesh & is able to recite it.
75. Picard argues with his captors while being tortured, Kirk merely screams in agony.
76. Picard never brought a woman back from the 20th Century only to have her blow him off in front of the entire Federation assembly.
77. When Picard talks, people listen.
78. If Picard were a late-night talk-show host, he'd be Dick Cavett. If Kirk were a late-night host, he'd be Chevy Chase.
79. NO ONE laughs when Picard's Doctor says, "He's dead, Jean-Luc."
80. Picard has never kissed a Romulan.
81. Picard has never crashed in San Francisco bay in a pirated spacecraft.
82. Picard would never have brought "Nomad" aboard his ship.
83. If Khan came aboard Picard's ship, Picard would have had the common sense to restrict what technical manuals he would've been allowed to review.
84. If Picard found a huge glowing sphere in the middle of outer space only to discover it was controlled by a child with an ugly puppet, he'd be pissed.
85. Picard would never ATTEMPT hand-to-hand combat with a gorn.
86. Picard would never have dropped the charges against Khan.
87. Kirk actually tried to defend the idea of intragalactic war with the Klingons.
88. When Kirk went back in time, he frequently messed with history to suit his own ends.
89. Picard probably would have found the Galileo 7 in less time than it took Kirk.
90. Three words: Better costume variety.
91. Kirk tries, usually unsuccessfully, to respect other cultures. Picard tries, usually successfully, to get other cultures to respect him.
92. Kirk's occasional game of choice is 3-D chess, Picard's is poker.
93. "Picard" has more syllables than "Kirk."
94. Can't forget those neat collar insignias.
95. Picard's not afraid to deal with more advanced cultures & has done so on a number of occasions.
96. Picard's been on both Klingon birds-of-prey AND the heavy cruisers (and lived to tell about it).
97. When Picard goes undercover, he makes it look easy.
98. Though Picard has contempt for aliens like the Cardassians, he doesn't let it show.
99. Kirk wears boots -- Picard wears shoes. And as we all know, it's gotta be the shoes...
100. Assimilating has never been a problem for Picard.
101. Picard has never trashed Gene Roddenberry.


Ok, now for those videos I mentioned at the start of the post. I don't know the story behind this first one (if it was part of an episode or just some random extra bit or what), but you can clearly see the influences of his career stage acting prior to Trek (the link takes you to video.google.com, where the clip will start playing automatically as it streams, if you have a slow connection you might want to pause it until the gray bar showing the amount downloaded so far fills up most the way for smooth playback):
http://tinyurl.com/ay8ww

I don't know who first made this, but I believe the "Picard Song" had been around the net for a while before someone made this video to go with it. Basically it's a bunch of lines from Picard remixed to a techno beat with video clips to match it. What's sad (or cool, depending on how you look at it), is that I actually recognize a significant majority of the clips it shows. Yeah...
(Same warning about streaming from above applies here; runtime is a little over 5 minutes)
http://tinyurl.com/7uw59

Feel free to comment on your thoughts of the video or additional pro-Picard reasons for the list above.