With the second season behind us, the much anticipated third season of Star Trek: Picard sees Jean-Luc reunite with his former Enterprise crewmates. Yes, the entire main Star Trek: The Next Generation cast will join Picard’s Jean-Luc for one last adventure in the upcoming season of the show. Joining Sir Patrick Stewart on stage was Gates McFadden (Dr. Beverly Crusher), right alongside executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Rod Roddenberry.
Most importantly, we got our first real teaser trailer for Picard’s final season, showing us Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton), Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), and Worf (Michael Dorn). This is the first time Dorn has worn the Klingon ridges since 2002. Several new none The Next Generation character posters for Picard season three were released as well.
You can watch the full TNG and Picard reunion trailer above, which, interestingly, does not show Brent Spiner. Even though we know, he’s in the final season. Is he playing a Soong? Another android? We think they’re hiding him for a reason, and we can’t wait to find out why. At San Diego Comic-Con it was revealed he would be playing a new, but old, character. Very interesting.
Showrunner Terry Matalas loved the idea of doing the final Next Gen movie. It was really exciting to approach this from a place of “who would these characters be so many years later?” One of the things we love most about Wrath of Khan is the mind games between Khan and Kirk and that has been a real north star for us this season with the villain we created. We do have a singular villain… she is amazing.”
Kurtzman said of The Next Generation and Picard overlap, “We earned the return of these characters in a way that will hopefully make you feel like you’re home again.” He also said “in some ways season three is like a feature film.” This was in response to an audience Q&A about another TNG movie, to which Stewart said “I think that would be great,” but also didn’t want this remark to start reports about a new TNG movie. (He gets the internet) Most importantly, Stewart says in season three they do return to the original Enterprise for a little while. Does that mean the Enterprise-D? We can only hope.
Although much of the previous cast from seasons one and two are not returning to Star Trek: Picard in favor of a TNG reunion, both Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) and Raffi (Michelle Hurd) are back. It looks like Seven dons a Starfleet uniform, so perhaps she can finally enlist. Could she be Captaining the U.S.S. Stargazer, now that Captain Rios is remaining in the 21 st century? It sure looks that way. The teaser also gave us what looks like yet another iteration of the Starfleet uniforms. They sure change tailors at Starfleet a whole lot, don’t they?
The third and final season of Star Trek: Picard debuts in 2023. We can’t wait to see Picard reunite with all of his The Next Generation crewmates. And this first glimpse of what that might look like has us more excited than ever.
