When “Star Trek: Picard” was first announced, it was made clear in interviews with both the showrunners and leading man Patrick Stewart that the series was not a revival of “Star Trek: The Next Generation”.
Instead, it would be a sequel/spin-off series focusing on the Jean-Luc Picard character. As a result, only a few familiar faces returned in guest spots, such as Riker, Troi and Data in the first season, along with Q and Guinan in the second. Both seasons were met with mixed reviews.
By the time of the third season, under the helm of showrunner Terry Matalas, the producers decided to abandon any pretence and just straight up do that “Star Trek: The Next Generation” reunion/revival they were initially railing against.
Appearing on The 7th Rule podcast recently, Matalas revealed that he wanted to bring back more of the original cast members from The Next Generation when he joined the series in the second season.
Turns out it wasn’t just the writers and producers, but also Stewart himself, who were apparently against the idea of reintroducing so many legacy characters… at least at first:
“They said, ‘No, we’re never going to do that.’ But along the way, I think Patrick warmed up to the idea. The more his friends came back to the show, Jonathan [and] Marina came back, de Lancie came back, and Whoopi came back … Those days on set were so warm and so happy for him, that he started to say by the end, ‘We’ve got to have everybody.'”
The result spoke for itself, with the recent season resulting in an overwhelmingly positive reaction. That season was nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards as well as several other awards. It also sits with a 98% approval score and an average rating of 8.6/10 on Rotten Tomatoes and an 83/100 on Metacritic.
