Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) is about to embark on his remaining mission within the third season of Pararmount+’s Star Trek: Picard. In fact, by no means say by no means in the case of Stewart reprising his function or, certainly, the remainder of his Star Trek: The Subsequent Technology castmates discovering a spot a in Star Trek‘s future. You want solely take a look at bonus options on the Blu-ray releases of The Subsequent Technology to see the group wrestling with notions of each retirement and persevering with.
(Photograph by Paramount+)
Those self same issues could turn into textual content in Picard‘s remaining 10-episode run. As introduced when this system was nonetheless streaming episodes of the second season, the vast majority of Stewart’s TNG shipmates – Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Marina Sirtis, Michael Dorn, and Gates McFadden – return as their basic characters (principally). The intent of the season: to offer the group the right send-off they by no means fairly obtained within the Subsequent Technology’s characteristic movie sequence.
Nonetheless, Picard’s remaining season acknowledges the hole of years between their final movie, Star Trek: Nemesis, and now; in truth, that distance has been a relentless within the present’s numerous storylines. And when you haven’t been maintaining, however need to see the final mission of the Subsequent Technology crew, right here are some things we have been capable of be taught from the solid and showrunner Terry Matalas about Picard‘s third season.
1. It’s Set within the twenty fifth Century
(Photograph by Trae Patton/Paramount+)
Though Picard all the time occurred within the final years of the twenty fourth century – the period first explored in TNG and continued in Star Trek: Deep Area 9, Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Decrease Decks – the third season proudly declares itself as getting into a brand new century. To TNG trustworthy, the century shift ought to supply a way of momentum and reaffirm Star Trek‘s dedication to setting out additional in its personal fictional historical past and future whereas Star Trek: Discovery tells tales in its far eliminated future and Star Trek: Unusual New Worlds seeks out new life within the unique Star Trek‘s twenty third century.
On the Tv Critics Affiliation winter press tour in January, Trek universe govt producer Alex Kurtzman instructed using the assorted time durations permits Trek to develop whereas additionally holding onto its core beliefs.
“It’s nonetheless all the time about [Star Trek creator Gene] Roddenberry’s imaginative and prescient of optimism,” he mentioned. “[But] you meet totally different crews who face totally different conditions.”
2. The Ship Featured Is U.S.S. Titan and Its Captain Is Unmissable
(Photograph by James Dimmock/Paramount+)
One new crew viewers will meet in Picard‘s third season is the complement of the usS. Titan. The ship was first referenced in Nemesis as Captain Riker’s (Frakes) first command following a ten–12 yr stint as Picard’s first officer. He has additionally been seen taking the ship out for missions on Decrease Decks and the primary season of Picard.
However the ship will likely be totally different this time round. Photographed with cooler colour temperatures and that includes not one of the well-known carpeting adorning TNG‘s Enterprise, the steeler imaginative and prescient of the ship additionally displays the sterner disposition of Captain Shaw (Todd Stashwick), its less-than-approving commanding officer. When talking with Rotten Tomatoes, Stashwick joked that Shaw is “barely noticeable.”
“Followers need to see new issues with characters that they love,” he continued. “He definitely is new. The best way he treats them, we actually haven’t seen that earlier than; that form of irreverence. That form of passive aggression. I feel they’re going to find it irresistible.”
As an ongoing character for the season, Stashwick mentioned Shaw will get to “poke at their complete legacy” and that, ultimately, followers will benefit from the character, who will get to be a critic of the Subsequent Technology. In fact, it stays to be seen if that enjoyment will likely be direct or in a “love-to-hate” method.
(Photograph by James Dimmock/Paramount+)
Regardless of Shaw presenting the ship as an icier setting for the TNG gang, there will likely be one acquainted face aboard the Titan: Seven of 9 (Jeri Ryan). Though the subject of her title – a side of the character going proper again to her earliest Voyager days – continues to be a supply of battle for her.
“It’s very deep-rooted private factor for Seven, and it took a very long time for her to just accept being [Seven versus ‘Seven of Nine’],” Ryan mentioned. As followers who’ve seen the season 3 trailers know, Seven is lastly in a Starfleet uniform, however regardless of its utopian beliefs, she’s going to “be butting heads with someone else who doesn’t need that to be her title and desires this [her human name] to be her title.”
Ryan added it is going to be “irritating for her” to as soon as once more deal with the problem of her title when “she has lastly embraced it and accepted herself.”
3. Echoes of “All Good Issues…” Are Inevitable, However Not Essentially Intentional
(Photograph by ©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Assortment)
Reuniting the TNG solid 20-or-so years after Nemesis will undoubtedly put the group’s TV finale, “All Good Issues…,” into the minds of followers. The Subsequent Technology two-hour nearer sees Picard experiencing a attainable future some 20 years forward. His crew has scattered, some are estranged, and Picard himself has retired to the household vineyard in France. Naturally sufficient, Picard, as a complete, options some similarities to “All Good Issues …,” however Matalas maintained direct thematic connections are usually not meant, though they could nonetheless happen.
“We did take a look at it,” he mentioned. “It’s the best tv finale of all time, and it’s a correct send-off to Star Trek: The Subsequent Technology. This [season] is a send-off to them now, publish characteristic movies and them a long time later.”
(Photograph by James Dimmock/Paramount+)
For McFadden, whose final future could characteristic a number of extra ties to the one seen in “All Good Issues…,” added, “I cherished the best way it was handled this time as a result of all of our characters have such an enormous historical past, each as folks, the actors, and because the characters.”
That historical past issues in both imaginative and prescient of the long run, however the place “All Good Issues…” reverted to TNG’s establishment – one thing largely unchanged within the Subsequent Technology characteristic movies as effectively –McFadden felt Matalas and Picard’s general tendency for character examination opened a “new world of exploration, of battle in our characters, and the loneliness and the vulnerabilities and the humanity of our characters.”
On the TCA press convention, Stewart echoed her remark, wishing “extra of these parts with Beverly may’ve been touched on earlier.”
(Photograph by Trae Patton/Paramount+)
Burton famous the lifetime of his character, Geordi LaForge, diverts “considerably” from the one Picard glimpsed within the TNG finale. However one commonality does exist: “I’m actually, actually happy that Geordi has children and that we see him as a father. That was massively engaging to me, and I believed actually a satisfying arc for him,” he defined.
The one undoubtedly intentional call-back to TNG’s remaining mission log, the names of Geordi’s daughters, Alandra and Sidney, have been pulled straight from a scene in “All Good Issues …,” Matalas added.
“I thank Terry Matalas for that,” Burton continued. “He agreed with me that it was necessary to proper what I thought of an excellent injustice executed to Geordi by way of his incapability to type wholesome and lasting relationships with human beings [during The Next Generation]. And so he addressed that instantly, proper off the bat, and I’m actually grateful.”
4. Picard and Riker Get To Have an Casual Journey
(Photograph by Trae Patton/Paramount+)
One of many extra enjoyable parts of the season is an opportunity to see Picard and Riker pal round on an journey whereas now not being tied to the inflexible Starfleet command construction.
“That offered us with a brand new place to begin clearly, but in addition the chance for a brand new sort of conduct because the hierarchy of the [Horatio] Hornblower army setup that Roddenberry set was not there,” Frakes mentioned of the storyline. “We have been there collectively as friends, if you’ll, or brothers.”
He additionally thanked Matalas for pitching a “Butch-and-Sundance sort of factor” to him and Stewart as a gap journey for the season. And, as viewers will rapidly see, the informality between the 2 characters pays dividends.
5. Raffi Will get Again To One
(Photograph by Trae Patton/Paramount+)
Though the second season of Picard wrapped up the tales of practically all its supporting characters, Michelle Hurd’s Raffi carries on as a serious a part of the story. Launched as Picard’s attaché on the time of the Romulan aid effort and as a succesful intelligence officer, Raffi’s extra obsessive traits noticed her booted from Starfleet by the point Picard’s first season started. Throughout the 2 earlier seasons, although, she returned to the fold and now returns to gathering intelligence. In Hurd’s estimation, it’s the character’s finest future.
“That is what she did earlier than she was in Starfleet. She’s a grasp spy,” the actor mentioned.
When viewers first met Raffi, she was fairly essential of some Starfleet actions and its politics, however based on Hurd, “Starfleet was all the time this drive that stored her grounded, stored her sober, as a result of it was a spot for her to be and she or he had a job.”
Because the season begins, Raffi is on the helm of the starship La Sirena, previously owned by departed Picard character Cristobal Rios (Santiago Cabrera), and “given free rein [aboard that ship].” As soon as once more working as an intelligence agent, she’s “capable of actually use the abilities that she’s all the time had.”
“She’s capable of navigate and she or he doesn’t should cope with anyone else speaking in her head,” Hurd continued. “I feel it’s only a pure development.”
(Photograph by James Dimmock/Paramount+)
Raffi’s continued presence on the sequence additionally maintains a stage of crossover for Picard with the character holding the banner for the group assembled in its first yr, Seven bringing her continued story from Voyager, and Dorn feeling he represents each his time on TNG and his work on Deep Area 9.
“[The DS9 writers] actually delved deeply into [Worf] and into the Klingon Empire, and the tales they got here up with have been spectacular and it gave him lots to do,” he mentioned of his time on the third live-action Star Trek spinoff, the primary to make use of serialized storytelling and set itself away from a starship.
As seen within the season 3 trailer, Worf claims to stick to pacifism at this level in his life, however as Dorn clarified on the TCA press tour in January, “Worf has all the time been on a journey for who he’s” and the teasing remark within the preview is the most recent step in that trek.
6. Some Issues By no means Change
(Photograph by James Dimmock/Paramount+)
Though fashionable Trek follows extra of the serialized storytelling of DS9 and appears extra like a characteristic movie every week than its Nineteen Eighties and 90s TV antecedents, the solid mentioned really taking pictures the present feels very a lot the identical from the times on the Paramount lot within the twentieth century.
“It definitely felt acquainted being collectively,” Burton defined. “We now have acted with each other greater than anybody else in our respective careers. We’ve spent hours on soundstages in one another’s firm, and plus the character of {our relationships} offscreen obtained deeper over time. And so we have been all capable of convey that depth [to the characters].”
(Photograph by James Dimmock/Paramount+)
Additionally supporting the continued TNG ambiance are a number of different cameos from established characters and actors. The 2 revealed to this point: Spiner returning as Knowledge’s corrupt brother, Lore, and Daniel Davis because the holographic however sentient assemble of Professor James Moriarty. Moreover, Matalas teased in January “there are a number of Subsequent Gen–adjoining characters who will return this season, however we’re holding them again till [the episodes] air.”
7. It Could Not Be the Finish
(Photograph by James Dimmock/Paramount+)
Though this third season Picard is billed as its final, it might not be the top for the characters. Again in January, Stewart informed reporters in the course of the present’s TCA press panel that he would contemplate subsequent appearances after Picard‘s remaining episode streams.
“If we will preserve the work we did on seasons one, two, and three, than sure. There may be nonetheless monumental potential within the narrative. And there are doorways left open,” he mentioned.
Kurtzman added on the time that whereas the present was all the time envisioned as a three-year mission, “something is feasible.”
When McFadden spoke to us, she expressed her hope that at the same time as Star Trek continues to increase into the twenty fifth century, it nonetheless has a spot for the TNG solid. “I learn all these 10 scripts and I didn’t see it as a send-off as a lot as we’re engaged within the current of the world,” she mentioned. “It’s a brand new world, issues have modified, and there may be a lot but to be executed.”
“You are able to do something you need to do [with Trek],” added Dorn. “You by no means know what’s in studios’ minds, however it looks as if it’s the correct factor [to continue with the characters.]”
(Photograph by James Dimmock/Paramount+)
Matalas, for his half, instructed extra tales set within the new century could occur. For one, Ed Speleers (pictured above), who has appeared in Outlander and Downton Abbey, performs a brand new character in season 3 of Picard.
“What [this season of Picard] does really feel like is a completion of the Star Trek Subsequent Technology arc. It does really feel like a passing of the torch to form of a ‘subsequent technology.’ I feel that these legacy characters needs to be part of that [and] I’d love nothing greater than to see [it happen].”
He continued. “I don’t need to say what occurs to Beverly Crusher [as an example], however let’s simply say that she has a job in, presumably, the way forward for the Federation that’s necessary. And so it is vitally a lot an ending and a starting on the identical time.”
And, simply because it appeared on these now 10-year-old Blu-ray bonus options, the way forward for Star Trek and the Subsequent Technology characters is one thing the solid welcomes if and when the decision comes to hitch Starfleet as soon as extra.
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Star Trek: Picard: Season 3
(2023)
premieres on Thursday, February 16 on Paramount+.
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