The first season of “Picard” seemed to want to run away from everything that was “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” and the series scored plenty of criticism for it – especially those last few episodes.
The second season began with what seemed like a course correction and greatest hits package of the series – the Borg, time travel, Q, Guinan, etc., but again it lost its way halfway through and stumbled badly in its last few episodes.
With the upcoming third and final season though, which has already completed production, the show seems to very much be wanting to remind people it’s a follow-up to TNG.
To that effect we know much of the main cast is all returning, including three key players who sat out the first two seasons – Worf (Michael Dorn), Geordi LaForge (Levar Burton) and Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) alongside returnees Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes), Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) and no doubt Brent Spiner again. Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) isn’t back but already had a cameo in the second season.
Terry Matalas, who served as showrunner on the second and third seasons, recently appeared on the Inglorious Treksperts podcast (via Collider) and says a core part of his pitch for the third season was to give Stewart and the rest of the cast proper closure in a way their last film “Star Trek: Nemesis” failed to do.
To that effect, he says the actors were crucial to deciding where these characters are now and what their storylines would be:
“I didn’t want to make anything that they didn’t want to make… They all have big things to do. We all meet them and find out where they are now. And some of those answers as to what they’re doing now are unexpected. So I wanted them to be happy and have input… They’ve lived with these characters. They go to the conventions. They know the stories that matter to these people.”
Also important to him was to give proper time to characters who were often short-changed by the movies, such as Beverly:
“For Gates [McFadden], I wanted to make sure that Crusher really had a very strong story. That was a fascinating – it’s a fascinating character who let her son go off into the universe, who had once had a romantic relationship with Captain Picard. And where are they now?
And sitting with LeVar and saying: ‘Here’s what I think’s going to happen to Geordi.’ And LeVar [Burton] made me cry. There was a moment when I pitched it and he was so emotional and I got emotional. I was like, ‘This is one of those cool moments.’ They had to be happy or else I wouldn’t have felt good… And all of them brought really great ideas to it.”
The second season of “Picard” ended with something of a reset as four, possibly five regulars from the first two seasons are exiting the show with Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard, Jeri Ryan’s Seven-of-Nine and Michelle Hurd’s Raffi the only confirmed returnees.
“Star Trek: Picard” Season 3 does not yet have a release date.
