Today is, arguably, the most important day of the year. It’s Captain Picard Day.
Celebrated annually aboard the Enterprise-D, Captain Picard Day provided the crew with a welcome chance to display their admiration and respect for the Star Trek captain. Naturally, he was no fan of the attention, but Captain Picard Day would still return each year all the same. Like the eventual death of the universe, it’s inevitable.
More importantly than all that, it gives Star Trek fans a chance to reflect on the most British Frenchman in Starfleet. But beyond watching the Captain Picard Day episode itself (The Pegasus, in season 7) or bingeing through a Star Trek series, there must be some better, more inventive way to celebrate the occasion? As it turns out, yes, there is. Behold: your new Captain Picard Day schedule has arrived.
Beverage. Brand. Temperature.
After rising from bed, swap your usual morning beverage (whether it’s a cold glass of orange juice or a rich mug of coffee) for a more sophisticated choice: tea, Earl Grey, hot. It’s the thinking person’s drink and if enjoyed patiently while sitting somewhere quiet, your day will get off to a calm and pleasant start.
Picard seems to drink his Earl Grey tea black, without any lemon or sugar or other such additions. While this is fairly bitter, there’s also a lot of complexity to appreciate in the taste, and it does quickly grow on you. It might even become a regular habit.
Exercise
Even Star Trek captains find time to exercise, so you really have no excuse. On your mission to emulate Picard you have two options. 1) Fencing, 2) Horseback riding.
Admittedly, neither are particularly accessible, but if there’s any day that demands you make an effort it’s surely today. Fencing will ensure you work up a sweat and is a fantastic whole-body exercise. If you want to go down the horse route, you’ll be working your core and your legs. Either way, do this before eating to avoid indigestion.
Build a ship in a bottle (or something)
“Good lord. Didn’t anybody here build ships in bottles when they were boys?” Asks a disappointed Captain Picard in the season 5 episode Booby Trap. The answer, unless you’re eager to please like Miles O’Brien, is most likely no.
There’s no better day than today to rectify that mistake as you settle down into the afternoon. While you’ll struggle to get your hands on a Promellian battle cruiser, it’s easy to find a model Mary Rose, spitfire, or other such things to assemble off of a sprue and delicately piece together. It’s fiddly and often frustrating, but as Picard would tell you, the end result is worth the effort. LEGO would do in a pinch.
Dive into classic literature
While you won’t be able to step into the holodeck to live out the life and adventures of Dixon Hill, the next best thing is probably to scope out some other mid-20th century noir fiction or revert to a short Sherlock Holmes story. Yes, that’s more Data’s terrain, but we’re trying to make do. Fit this in prior to the end of the day, as a warm-up for what’s next.
In the evening, you’ll want to be tracking down the nearest live performance of a Shakespeare play. In an instance of life imitating art, both Patrick Stewart and Captain Picard have a deep love for the English playwright and poet, whose work is best appreciated when performed on the stage. If you’re really struggling, you could make do with watching a Shakespeare movie (here you have plenty of options, but 2022’s The Northman is a creative and brilliantly executed adaptation of Hamlet).
And there you have it: you’ve done the man himself proud. Look, there he is smiling at you below.
For all the latest voyages of the starship Enterprise, check out our Star Trek Strange New Worlds season 2 review, or read our Star Trek Strange New Worlds season 2 episode 1 recap. You can also find out which Star Trek captains would survive in a zombie apocalypse, or learn about the time Martin Luther King Jr convinced Nichelle Nichols not to quit Star Trek.