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Star Trek: Picard’s TNG Reunion Will Be More Than Just Cameos

James Whitbrook Avatar
James Whitbrook
Star Trek: Picard’s TNG Reunion Will Be More Than Just Cameos

Yesterday’s shock news that Star Trek: Picard’s third and final season will reunite Patrick Stewart with Gates McFadden, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, and returning Picard guest stars Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, and Brent Spiner had the heads of Next Generation fans spinning. But after the initial excitement wore off, questions lingered… and showrunner Terry Matalas was happy to answer at least a few.

Matalas spent much of yesterday afternoon on Twitter teasing out a little of what fans could expect with Picard’s final outing when it came to the TNG crew. First and foremost at the front of everyone’s minds: are these just brief cameos, or will we get to spend tangible amounts of time with the Enterprise crew? Well, good news — Picard’s third season is a “proper send off” not just to Picard, but the TNG crew at large.

Not to be done just there, Matalas also teased “Federation starships galore,” a knowing reference to the complaints from Riker’s arrival in the climax of Picard’s first season, where the former Number 1 commandeered a fleet of identical-looking vessels to help save the day. Season two of the series already touched on this by opening with a premiere that featured a glorious fleet of classic — and familiar to Star Trek Online fans, to boot — Federation ship designs, but it’s kind of telling that even now, the show is still trying to say sorry for that initial bit of drama.

It’s more than just starships and extended appearances though. One character in particular Matalas focused on when answering fan questions was the return of Michael Dorn as Worf. Worf presents something of a fascinating challenge to contemporary Star Trek. The Klingon race underwent some radical aesthetic overhauls when Star Trek: Discovery first began, and even with tweaks in its second season to bridge the gap between the new look there and the more traditional Klingon appearance, we’ve yet to see a “modern” Klingon design in the current crop of Trek shows beyond the animated iterations seen in Lower Decks. So… will Worf look like fans remember him, or will his design be updated to touch upon the changes set in place on Discovery? According to Matalas, across several increasingly joking tweets, it would be the former:

But it wasn’t just the aesthetics of Worf that Matalas touched on. After all, post-TNG Worf went on to be a major player in Deep Space Nine, and went through the traumas of surviving the Dominion War. Even if this is a TNG love-in, being set in the wake of that conflict — even if Picard is a good couple decades beyond it now — it’d be weird to not use Worf’s return to examine how his time on the frontlines of an unprecedented conflict like the Dominion War changed him. According to Matalas, it seems like it’s going to be a big part of the character’s story:

The showrunner went on touch on a few more things — like the possibilities of cameos beyond TNG in the season, or how the series might touch on how the Federation was rebuilt after the Dominion War — so it’s well worth heading on over to his Twitter account to learn more. But rest assured, for now: you’re going to be getting a lot of TNG love when Picard returns for its third and final season.

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