This week’s upcoming episode of Star Trek: Picard is the one fans of the The Next Generation have been waiting for since the series was announced. It features the long-awaited reunion between Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard and his former first officer and ship’s counselor, William Riker and Deanna Troi. Both characters will once again be played by their original actors, Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis.
This will be the first time either actor has played those characters in 18 years, since 2002’s feature film Star Trek: Nemesis. That film ended up being the TNG crew’s last outing together. But if Marina Sirtis’ hair looks like something straight out of that movie…well, that’s because it is. According to a tweet from TrekCore, Marina Sirtis still had that old Nemesis wig in her possession…and that’s because she stole it off set back in the day!
In #StarTrekPicard, Marina Sirtis wears the same Troi wig that she sported in “Star Trek: Nemesis” back on 2002…. because she stole it from the film set, and had it on hand when called back to the franchise in 2019. pic.twitter.com/VLebY27qUh
— TrekCore.com ? (@TrekCore) March 4, 2020
Judging from the photos, Marina can clearly still rock that wig like it’s 1999. You might be asking yourself why she ever had to wear a wig in the first place. Truth be told, Star Trek: The Next Generation had a thing for putting their female officers in obvious wigs for some reason. Although both Marina Sirtis and Gates McFadden (Doctor Beverly Crusher) used their real hair for much of the show’s first season, in later seasons the producers had them wearing all kinds of different wigs and hair extensions. Somehow, actress Denise Crosby, who played Security Chief Tasha Yar, escaped this fate. But we bet if she’d stuck around past one season, they would have put her in some ridiculous wig too. There’s never been a real explanation for this odd decision.
CBS
Wig or no wig, and judging from the promos, it looks like Deanna Troi and Will Riker are still happily married. The on-again/off-again relationship of the two Starfleet officers was a running storyline throughout the entire run of The Next Generation. The pilot episode, “Encounter at Farpoint,” showed that the young Starfleet hotshot and the empathic Betazed had been in a romantic relationship a few years before being assigned to the same ship. But due to their working relationship on the Enterprise, they put their feelings on hold. Despite having had romantic flings with others throughout the show’s run, they clearly were still in love with one another. After fifteen long years, the pair finally got married in the beginning of Star Trek: Nemesis. The end of that film had Riker going off to Captain his own ship, the Titan.
Paramount Pictures
It’s unknown just how many episodes Sirtis and Frakes will appear on this season. But between them and Brent Spiner as Data, that’s three guest appearances from Patrick Stewart’s former TNG castmates. That leaves Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, and Levar Burton left from the main seven. Whoopi Goldberg has already agreed to appear in an episode in season two as Guinan already, so we imagine the others aren’t too far behind. Hopefully, we see Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher as well, and maybe even John de Lancie as Q! Now…what are the odds they make him wear a wig?
The seventh episode of Star Trek: Picard, “Nepenthe,” hits CBS All Access on Thursday, March 5, 2020.
Featured Image: CBS All Access
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