Star Trek: Picard’s Season 3 is just a week away, with Cast and Crew now on the press circuit for their final adventure. We may be getting a new ship crew with the U.S.S. Titan – A, but our main characters will be The Next Generation Crew! The Star Trek: Picard Season 3 showrunner comments on all the characters returning for the final season!
Final Adventure for the TNG Crew
Star Trek: Picard Season 3 has been touted as a final adventure for Star Trek: The Next Generation Crew. Their final adventure together was Star Trek: Nemesis, and there were meant to be following movies. However, after Nemesis, this plan was cut short.
“I think the original series had a final send-off with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. This cast never really had that. So that was the goal from the beginning, to send ’em off in one final adventure that was both thrilling and deeply personal.”
Terry Matalas
Star Trek: The Original Series and its crew got their good final sendoff with Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country. So will Star Trek: Picard Season 3 be our new “Undiscovered Country” for The Next Generation crew?
“It was this or bust, so I had to go hard. The good news is I think everybody really wanted to do it. It was something that was in their hearts. The cast certainly wanted to return. They’re all lifelong friends. And another chance for them to be reunited on a starship? Who wouldn’t say yes to that? The pressure is really finding a story that’s worthy of that.”
Terry Matalas
Crusher
Gates McFadden is returning as Beverly Crusher and will be somewhat a focus of this season, with apparently her being one of the first people we see this season. All we know currently of Crusher’s return is that she is essentially a “Doctors-without-borders” on her own ship, the S.S. Eleos. She is going to planets the Federation may have forgotten about or abandoned, and giving medical support.
“I also think that Beverly really never got her due. That was one of the ideas I had from the beginning: The first person you actually saw this season was Beverly Crusher popping in the frame and defending her doctors. She was still a doctor, but she wasn’t traditionally the kind of doctor you expected her to be. A lot of time and a lot of discussion with Gates went into that.”
Showrunner Terry Matalas
We have seen a clip of this, and how this final season starts. From the trailers, we do get to see Crusher reuniting with the TNG crew, but it’ll be interesting why the threat was after her!
La Forge
Geordi La Forge is also returning, with the great LeVar Burton reprising this role. Geordi is now a Commodore, seemingly aboard a Starfleet Ship Museum.
We also know that Geordi will have two daughters at least in this final Season, with the eldest being Sidney La Forge, played by Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut, who is the Helmsman aboard the U.S.S. Titan A. Alandra La Forge walks in her father’s footsteps as an engineer, and is also played by LeVar Burton’s actual daughter, Mica Burton!
“I pitched to him this big moment at the end of the season, and by the time I was done, there were tears in his eyes. It dawned on me that I just made Geordi La Forge cry with this story. And then I started to cry.”
Showrunner Terry Matalas
Worf
Worf, reprised by Michael Dorn, has been clamoring to return to the Trek Universe for some time, and he finally gets that opportunity.
“I see him as a samurai, I actually see him with this Klingon sword on his back. I also see him, although this doesn’t quite line up with Klingon lore, with a white beard.”
Showrunner Terry Matalas
Riker
Riker may have appeared in Season 1 of Star Trek: Picard, reprised by Jonathan Frakes. However, he will be a much bigger part of Season 3!
“I thought it was important not to just get them all together in the first moment, but to earn each one of these character stories, to give each one of these characters their moment before they come together,”
Showrunner Terry Matalas
Vadic
Amanda Plummer will be playing the main villain of Season 3. Known as Vadic. We don’t know her motivations, but Terry Matalas assures us that just like all good villains, she has her motivations!
“We wanted someone who would chew the scenery a bit more, someone who was fun to watch. Having said that, when you get to know her story, you will find sympathy. Vadic has her reasons for all of this, I say cryptically. When you do [find out], it will make a lot of sense.”
Showrunner Terry Matalas
Interestingly enough, this seems to be the final “TNG movie” for our Star Trek: The Next Generation crew. Amanda Plummer‘s dad, Christopher Plummer, was the final villain for the Star Trek: The Original Series crew in Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country!
Captain Liam Shaw
A ship needs a captain, and Todd Stashwick is playing Captain Liam Shaw, a very by-the-books Captain of the U.S.S. Titan A. He is said to be a former Engineer, so what that could mean for the story is interesting! Could he have been involved at Utopia Planitia during the “Attack on Mars” in Star Trek: Picard Season 1? Or maybe rebuilding ships during the Dominion war?
Todd Stashwick has previously appeared in Star Trek: Enterprise as an undercover Romulan spy, so let’s hope Captain Liam Shaw is not also a Romulan in disguise! It also seems like Todd Stashwick was always the person in mind for the role of Captain Liam Shaw according to Showrunner Terry Matalas.
“We just kept saying, ‘Captain Stashwick! Captain Stashwick!’ There was never anyone else in our mind for that role.”
Showrunner Terry Matalas
Commander Seven
After getting a field promotion last season aboard the U.S.S. Stargazer, Starfleet upheld this somewhat and gave Seven (Jeri Ryan) Commander rank and put her aboard the U.S.S. Titan-A. Serving as First Officer to Captain Liam Shaw. We will have to see how Seven will adapt to being a Commander on a Starfleet vessel, which might be the crux of Seven’s arc this season. It is said that Seven was put into an accelerated Starfleet program against her own judgment.
We can actually see a bit of Seven’s story. IDW Publishing released a tie-in comic book, Star Trek: Picard – Stargazer. We’ve reviewed all issues of the comic. Therefore, we’d highly recommend it as some reading to fill that gap between Star Trek: Picard Season 2 and 3.
Troi
Marina Sirtis is returning as Deanna Troi in Star Trek: Picard Season 3. She may have appeared in Season 1, along with William T. Riker, but that was for a single episode. Troi alongside the rest of the TNG crew will be taking a bigger spot in the limelight of Season 3.
We have seen clips in trailers of Troi using her empathic skills as part Betazoid. Sensing a darkness, presumably from the villain of Vadic? who knows!
Raffi
Raffaela Musiker, played by Michelle Hurd, has been a staple in Star Trek: Picard. As a former Starfleet Intelligence operative, she was great at finding conspiracies, something she was pushed out of Starfleet for in Season 1.
She returned to Starfleet in Season 2, helping at Starfleet Academy. However, from trailers, it seems she may return to her conspiracy-hunting ways. Having the Picard ship of the La Sirena, hunting down leads, and coming face to face with the Legend of Worf.
New Character?
Ed Speleers is playing a yet unnamed person in Star Trek: Picard Season 3. We have theorized that he could be a secret son between Crusher and Picard, perhaps this is the reason Beverly left Enterprise D during Season 2 of The Next Generation?
Whoever he might be, all we do know is that he is someone helping Crusher’s medical team on worlds that Starfleet has forgotten in Star Trek: Picard season 3.
The Continuing Mission
Season 3 of Star Trek: Picard promises to be a great final adventure for both the show and The Next Generation cast. But that doesn’t mean it is the end. Both Alex Kurtzman, overseer of Star Trek and Executive Producer of Star Trek: Picard, and showrunner of Season 3 Terry Matalas, say that if reception is good, we could get the continuing missions of this crew!
“That being said, anything is possible. If a show blows the doors off the place, as we’re certainly hoping it will, and we’re very, very proud of season 3, who knows?”
Executive Producer Alex Kurtzman
“There’s certainly a desire by me and many of the actors to continue some of these stories. I think the way this season ends, there’s a tremendous opportunity. So I’d be lying to say that I don’t have a thousand and one ideas ready to go. But you know the nature of television is mercurial. So we’ll see.”
Showrunner Terry Matalas
So depending on how Star Trek: Picard Season 3 is received, could we get a 25th-century Star Trek show? The fans have been wanting it! And if first reviews of Star Trek: Picard‘s final season is anything to go by, it does look likely!
Star Trek: Picard Season 3 will debut on February 16, 2023, on Paramount+ in the United States and on CTV Sci-Fi Channel and Crave in Canada. However, the series will be available on Amazon’s Prime Video service for most international locations in the following days. For coverage of Star Trek: Picard Season 3, make sure to follow Trek Central!
More From Trek Central
📰 – INTERVIEW: Star Trek: Picard Showrunner Talks Season 3!
🔥 – NEW Star Trek: Picard Clip Starts The Season 3 Plot
🔍️ – Explore Star Trek: Picard’s Stargazer
Join the Star Trek conversation via our social media platforms:
- Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/TrekCentral
- Instagram – https://instagram.com/TrekCentral
- Twitter – https://twitter.com/TheTrekCentral
- YouTube – https://youtube.com/TheTrekCentral
- Mastodon – https://mastodon.social/@TrekCentral@universeodon.com
- Discord – https://discord.gg/fF2heMbfW8
