It easily ranks as one of the most useful and ubiquitous memes on the internet, and now that facepalming-Picard has been turned into a display-ready bust, Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s beloved captain has all the more reason to disappointingly hold his head after awkwardly losing one of his arms.
It’s certainly the norm for busts of famous subjects to only feature a small part of the torso supporting a detailed head and neck; it’s a clever space-saving way to fill an entire gallery with iconic sculptures. But if you’re going to include an arm, which is absolutely essential in this case, you might as well go ahead and toss the other one in there for balance.
Besides, Picard clutching the armrest of his captain’s chair with one hand, while holding his head in the other, only adds to the drama and sense of dismay in this iconic freeze-frame. With his right arm and hand completely missing, it instead looks as though Picard is lamenting his missing limb; presumably lost in an incident with one of those sketchy sliding doors on the USS Enterprise.
ThinkGeek’s $US65 ($86), 15cm-tall bust of face-palming Picard features incredible detailing by IconHeroes, which helps make up for the missing limb a bit. And ThinkGeek is limiting the bust to just 1602 pieces, so it isn’t as though everyone you know will have one perched on their desk.