Monica becomes emotionally distraught after ending her relationship with Richard due to their differing desires regarding children. Meanwhile, Ross confides in Rachel about his sexual fantasy involving Princess Leia’s gold bikini from Star Wars. However, he becomes upset when Rachel shares this private information with the indiscreet Phoebe. When Rachel suggests that men miss out on true bonding by not sharing intimate details, Ross attempts to confide in Chandler, but the conversation takes an awkward turn. Additionally, Joey struggles with the prospect of Chandler not ending his relationship with Janice as he typically does, leading the two friends to spend a “day of fun” together in support of Chandler.
Did you know ?!
• Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977) creator George Lucas sent the production team a letter, congratulating them on Ross’s Princess Leia fantasy, which opened series 3 and is mentioned in the title.
• This is the only season premiere that doesn’t pick up immediately after the events of the previous episode.
• Monica smokes a cigar towards the end of episode. Courteney Cox was a smoker at that time and quit three years later.
• Jennifer Aniston has red hair during Season 3 of the show, starting with this episode. While it is widely believed that she dyed her hair for the movie Picture Perfect (1997) (in which she filmed while on hiatus from the show in between the second and third seasons), she actually dyed it red due to auditioning for the role of Rose in Titanic (1997). The role, of course, was eventually nabbed by Kate Winslet. The character of Rose and her mother Ruth both have red hair in the film about the ill-fated ship.
• Phoebe thinks Elton John’s song Tiny Dancer is actually about Tony Danza. In 2021 with the help of Courteney Cox and Ed Sheeran, Elton John did do a version of the song with those lyrics dedicated to Lisa Kudrow.
• In this episode Chandler mentions Elle Macpherson when talking about women guys fantasize about. Later in season 6, Elle Macpherson appears in 5 episodes as Janine Lecroix, Joey’s new roommate after Chandler moves out.
• Matthew Perry once dated Tricia Fisher who is the half sister of Carrie Fisher, who played Princess Leia, the subject of Ross’ fantasy.
• In Central Perk while hanging out with Ross, Chandler is reading a book about trout, called “Trout”
• In this episode, the cast members turn up to Central Perk and find their sofa occupied. This only happens two other times: in The One with Unagi (2000) and The One Where Chandler Gets Caught (2004), respectively. The couch is occupied by the writers of season three of the show.
• In the coffee shop Ross and Chandler talk about the cute girl at the Xerox shop – this would be the one Ross would later hook up with when he and Rachel are on their “break”.
• Star Wars purists will note that Rachel’s hair is not accurate when she dons the “Princess Leia Bikini.” The famous “hair buns” were only worn in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977), while Leia only wears the gold bikini in Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983); In Episode VI, Leia’s hair was in a long braid at the time. Though Rachel does ask Ross if she got the hair wrong
• Both Jack and Judy Geller appear in this episode. However, they do not share scenes with each other
• In this episode, Joey comes out of his room to find a bunch of pancakes and he asks Chandler if he made them. Chandler responds “yeah, like there’s any way I could ever do that”. However, in a later episode when Rachel lived with Joey, he tells her how Chandler used to make pancakes all the time for his dates the next morning.
