Although the first two seasons of Star Trek: Picard saw Patrick Stewart’s title character largely accompanied by new faces, there were a handful of other faces from The Next Generation who showed up as well. Then Picard Season 3 kicked things up a notch and reunited the majority of TNG’s main cast for the first time since Star Trek: Nemesis, paying the actors enough so they “couldn’t say no.” While I was among the many Star Trek fans who enjoyed watching this reunion with my Paramount+ subscription, I also feel for showrunner Terry Matalas recalling the “sacrifices” that factored into making it happen.
Matalas, who served as co-showrunner with Akiva Goldman in Season 2 and then handled those duties solo in Season 3, stopped by The Sackhoff Show to discuss his past works and current work, the latter of which includes the upcoming Marvel TV show Vision Quest and the animated Magic: The Gathering series. On the subject of Star Trek: Picard, he had this to say about the transition between those second and third seasons:
Season 2 was done during COVID and there was a lot of changes and turmoil into some of the development of that with changeover in the network and whatnot. And then we got to the end of it, and Akira’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.’ 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.
Patrick Stewart’s main cohorts across the first two seasons of Star Trek: Picard included Alison Pill, Isa Briones, Michelle Hurd, Santiago Cabrera, Evan Evagora, Jeri Ryan and Orla Brady. Of that lineup, only Hurd and Ryan stuck around in the main cast for Season 3, and Brady made just one guest appearance in the opening episode. It sounds like Terry Matalas would have welcomed adding more people to Season 3’s cast had the budget allowed, but he had to make the difficult call and prioritize the people who led Star Trek: The Next Generation and the following four movies.
To be fair, by the end of Star Trek: Picard Season 2, Cabrera’s Chris Rios had stayed in the 21st century to live out the rest of his years, and Alison Pill’s Agnes Jurati became the Borg Queen for a separate Borg collective. So seeing them again was unlikely, but I would definitely would have liked to have seen more from Isa Briones, Evan Evagoria and Orla Brady. I particularly missed Brady past the Season 3 premiere considering that Laris and Jean-Luc Picard had become a couple.
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However, as someone who’s been a fan of The Next Generation since I was a teenager, I agree that it was the right call to bring Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, Michael Dorn, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner and LeVar Burton together again, especially once they were all back together on the bridge of the rebuilt USS Enterprise-D. Additionally, Michelle Forbes, Daniel Davis, Alice Krige and Elizabeth Dennehy reprised their TNG roles as guest stars. Even John de Lancie made a surprise appearance at the end of the Picard series finale, despite Q seemingly dying at the end of Season 2.
Maybe if this era of Star Trek is ever revisited, whether that be in the proposed Star Trek: Legacy spinoff or some other kind of upcoming Star Trek TV show, the folks who sat out Picard Season 3 can be revisited. Meanwhile, I’m now looking ahead to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 premiering July 17 on the 2025 TV schedule.
