It Was Terrible': Star Trek: Picard Showrunner Reflects on Replacing Original Cast With TNG Stars in Season 3
The third season of Star Trek: Picard memorably brought back the majority of the cast of The Next Generation, a move that was celebrated by fans. Season 3 drew a near-perfect score of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, which was firmly the highest of all three seasons.
There was a downside to bringing back the stars of The Next Generation, even if it resulted in very high acclaim. Per ScreenRant, Terry Matalas was doing an interview for The Sackhoff Show when addressed becoming sole showrunner for Season 3 after serving as co-showrunner alongside Akiva Goldsman for Season 2. He remembered having a vision to make Season 3 feel more like The Next Generation, and from there, all it took was getting Patrick Stewart on board. Unfortunately, the budget would not allow for Stewart's co-stars from the first two seasons to return, meaning that "sacrifices" had to be made.
"We got to the end of [Picard Season 2], and Akiva’s like, ‘It’s your turn. What do you want to do?’ And I was like, ‘I want to bring back the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation,'" he said. "And they said, ‘Look, if you can convince Patrick, then we’ll consider this.’ And it was tough because there was a whole cast in Season 1 and 2 that were wonderful, but there was not the budget to carry them all. So there were sacrifices. It was terrible. It was a terrible place to be in."
It was a terrible place to be in.
Once the decision was made, Picard had to say goodbye to several cast members, including Alison Pill, Isa Briones, Santiago Cabrera, and Evan Evagora. Their dismissal, however, allowed for the return of actors like Jonathan Frakes (Riker), Marina Sirtis (Troi), Michael Dorn (Worf), LeVar Burton (Geordi), and Gates McFadden (Crusher), John de Lancie (Q), and Daniel Davis (Professor Moriarty).
Will Patrick Stewart Return as Jean-Luc Picard?
There have been considerations to do more with the cast of Picard, though nothing is guaranteed at this point. Many fans have been calling for Star Trek: Legacy to be made, which would be a new show that further utilizes the legacy characters. Though there was a popular petition with various Star Trek alums offering support to the idea, Legacy still has yet to come to fruition. There had also been talk about doing a feature film follow-up to the third season of Star Trek: Picard, though this may have hinged on the success of Star Trek: Section 31, which underperformed when it was released on Paramount+.
Stewart himself commented on his conditions for a Picard return in October 2023. "I had very much enjoyed being Jean-Luc and kept him close in my heart. But. I was done with him," Stewart said. "I had said everything I wanted to say about him. His journey, as far as I was concerned, was complete, and for the remainder of my life, I was eager to find work as far away from Star Trek as possible, to keep moving forward as an actor. The series would not be based on a reunion of The Next Generation characters. I wanted it to have little or nothing to do with them. This was not at all a mark of disrespect for my beloved fellow actors. Rather, I simply felt it was essential to place Picard in entirely new settings with entirely new characters. Perhaps Picard might encounter Riker or Dr. Crusher in the second season, but such encounters were not to be the series’ raison d’être."
"Picard would no longer be serving in Starfleet, and he was not to wear any kind of uniform or badges," he added. "The series would run for no more than three seasons. It was clear to me that the writing team was not entirely thrilled with these conditions, but basically, they were all agreed to. The no-uniform rule was the toughest one for them to stomach, for some reason, and more than once, I was asked to reconsider my hard line. I stuck to my guns."
Incidentally, Stewart seemed more keen to reprise Picard for a Star Trek movie. "Let’s explore further the inside of this man’s head. His fears, his anger, his frustration, his questioning all of those things," Stewart explained. "One is when Picard doesn’t know what to do. He’s stumped. And we never saw that in The Next Generation. There is also a moment when he is truly fearful. And those two pointers alone, I think, make him an interesting study for one more movie. That’s where I am right now with Jean-Luc, and it actually makes me intrigued. So conversations like this, rather than encouraging me to move away from my history, actually are gradually sucking me in. So I get closer and closer to the possibility. One more shot!"
