By Vic Medina
| Published
Star Trek: Picard Season 3 will finally give us the reunion fans have wanted since day one, and it looks like the Enterprise-E (seen in Star Trek VII-X) will also be present on the trip. The Trek Universe panel at San Diego Comic-Con this weekend not only showed how big Gene Roddenberry’s created universe has expanded (thanks to two new shows at Paramount+), confirmed that fans are eager to revisit the franchise’s past. Perhaps the most talked about segment of the panel addressed Picardduring which Patrick Stewart, Gates McFadden (Dr. Beverly Crusher) and executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Rod Roddenberry appeared and provided a glimpse of what’s to come, according to trekmovie.com. The full panel, hosted by Lea Thompson (who directed two episodes of the second season), is included below.
The panel not only released a new teaser trailer, revealed many new facts about the final season of the series. One of the most intriguing aspects is the confirmation that not only will the Enterprise E NCC-1701-E be seen in the new season, but that there will be more than one. “There’s more than one Enterprise and that makes it a little complicated,” Stewart said when asked if he sits in the Enterprise captain’s chair again. “But we go back to the original Enterprise for a while.” While we assume this means the Enterprise-E (last seen in Star Trek: Nemesis) will be seen, it could mean that an older Enterprise will also appear, possibly out of service. Picard Season 2 confirmed that the saucer from the Enterprise-D (which crashed in Star Trek: Generations) was brought back to Earth for a museum display, so that could be seen as well. Stewart mentioned walking on the carpet again on the bridge, a feature of older ships.
It was also confirmed that the series has finished filming and will debut sometime in 2023, although no premiere date has been announced. 2022 marks the 20th anniversary of the last adventure of the Next Generation crew in Star Trek: Nemesis, and the characters have changed remarkably. Worf, in particular, is sporting a very different look than when we last saw him. Kurtzman also indicated that the season will feature a villain who will dominate the entire season and will have a very similar impact to the one Ricardo Montalban’s Khan had in the original series and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
Stewart and McFadden also had something of a mini-panel with Entertainment Weekly, in which they discussed the impact of star trek and Picard and Crusher’s relationship. Stewart also pointed out to Entertainment Weekly that what we’ll see isn’t just a Next Generation reunion for nostalgia’s sake, but season three is an entirely new story that will bring the entire Enterprise team together. In a surprise statement, Stewart seemed to indicate that we may not see all the characters together until later in the season.
Picard it earned the ire of longtime fans who felt the series had strayed from the optimistic vision of the future that Roddenberry created with the original. star trek series and the next generation, and had become too cynical and dark. According to rotten tomatoesAlthough 86% of critics approved of Picard, only 40% of fans voted for it. They were also upset that the only constant in the TNG it was Stewart himself, who was also a more cynical, almost depressing Picard, a far cry from the character they once knew. They missed out on the dynamic of the original cast, and season three seems to try to rectify that. Fortunately, Kurtzman promises that they will not be mere cameos from the TNG cast, as we have seen above, but rather “significant roles” in which they are vital to the story. “We wanted to whet your appetite a bit to see them get back together. So at the beginning of the season, the team is in different places in the galaxy… and little by little we see them coming together,” she said. The panel also revealed that Brent Spiner (not in the trailer) would be returning in a new role, though who he would play was not said. He had played Data, Altan Inigo Soong, Adam Soong for the first two seasons.
As we have seen in previous seasons, Picard Season 3 will explore the psychology and inner workings of star trek best captain (apologies to William Shatner). “We carved out a new territory in PicardStewart said at the panel. “We break boundaries all the time and reflect life as it could be,” she said. Stewart, as you may know, is an executive producer on the series and has a major voice in the narrative direction he’s taken. He also stated that he may reprise Picard after this season, if he puts together a movie with the right story, he would enthusiastically reprise him.