The third and final season of the American television series Star Trek: Picard features the character Jean-Luc Picard in the year 2401 as he reunites with the former command crew of the USS Enterprise (Geordi La Forge, Worf, William Riker, Beverly Crusher, Deanna Troi, and Data) while facing a mysterious enemy who is hunting Picard's son. The season was produced by CBS Studios in association with Secret Hideout, Weed Road Pictures, and Roddenberry Entertainment, with Terry Matalas serving as showrunner.
Patrick Stewart stars as Picard, reprising his role from the series Star Trek: The Next Generation as well as other Star Trek media. Jeri Ryan, Michelle Hurd, and Ed Speleers also star. The season features guest stars who also reprise their roles from previous Star Trek media, including Stewart's Next Generation co-stars Jonathan Frakes (Riker), Gates McFadden (Crusher), LeVar Burton (La Forge), Michael Dorn (Worf), Marina Sirtis (Troi), and Brent Spiner (Data). A third season of Picard was informally green-lighted by January 2020, allowing it to be filmed back-to-back with the second season. Some third-season scenes were filmed during production on the second, which began in California in February 2021, before filming segued fully to the third in September. Stewart officially announced the season soon after, and filming ended in March 2022. The return of the other Next Generation cast members was confirmed a month later. Matalas hoped to make the season a satisfying ending for Picard's story and the whole Next Generation cast.
The season premiered on the streaming service Paramount+ on February 16, 2023, and ran for 10 episodes until April 20. It was praised by critics and nominated for two Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards as well as several other awards.
Episodes
Cast and characters
Main Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine Michelle Hurd as Raffi Musiker Ed Speleers as Jack Crusher
Recurring
Jonathan Frakes as William Riker Gates McFadden as Beverly Crusher Todd Stashwick as Liam Shaw Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut as Sidney La Forge Michael Dorn as Worf Amanda Plummer as Vadic Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi LeVar Burton as Geordi La Forge Brent Spiner as Data / Lore and Altan Inigo Soong Mica Burton as Alandra La Forge
Notable guests
Orla Brady as Laris Thomas Dekker as Titus Rikka Michelle Forbes as Ro Laren Daniel Davis as Professor Moriarty Tim Russ as Tuvok Alice Krige as the voice of the Borg Queen Elizabeth Dennehy as Elizabeth Shelby Majel Barrett as the voice of the Enterprise-D's computer Walter Koenig as Anton Chekov John de Lancie as Q
Production Development In February 2019, during development of the series Star Trek: Picard, star Patrick Stewart said "we are set up for possibly three years of this show". Showrunner Michael Chabon and the writers were reported in January 2020 to have begun work on a second and third season, with Terry Matalas joining them to fill the void that would be created by Chabon's planned departure later that year. CBS officially announced the second season, but did not confirm an informal green-light for the third season. The second and third seasons were set to be filmed back-to-back, to save costs and simplify scheduling. Matalas became co-showrunner of the second season with executive producer Akiva Goldsman, but half-way through production on the season Matalas switched to being sole showrunner of the third. This happened later than planned because of the COVID-19 pandemic and issues with writing the second season. Matalas brought several creatives from his series 12 Monkeys to work on the third season, including writers Christopher Monfette and Sean Tretta, editor Drew Nichols, composer Stephen Barton, and several actors. Stewart officially announced the third season in September 2021, shortly after filming had begun. In February 2022, Goldsman confirmed that the third season would be the last for the series.
Writing The third season begins just over a year after the second. It tells a new story, despite the two seasons being developed together, and Matalas said the third season was "incredibly different" from the first two. He hoped it would be a satisfying conclusion for Picard's story, and said it would be less intimate and have some "game-changing Star Trek Universe ideas". Matalas added that some elements from Star Trek: The Original Series and the films starring the Original Series cast would be used in the season to "tie some Star Trek together", including the Spacedock and boatswain's whistle from those films. The season also has references to the films' "more nautical, cat and mouse submarine-movie" ideas. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) was a "major touchstone" for the season, which features mind games between Picard and a new villain.
In April 2022, when it was revealed that other Star Trek: The Next Generation cast members would be starring in the season, Matalas recalled watching that series as a child and said it was "most fitting that the story of Jean-Luc Picard ends honoring the beginning, with his dearest and most loyal friends from the USS Enterprise". The producers felt the group's final appearance in the film Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) had not been a proper send off and wanted to use the final season of Picard to "send [them] off the right way", similar to what the film Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) had done for the Original Series cast. This was Matalas's core pitch to Stewart and the other returning actors, and he developed each of their storylines with them to avoid telling a story that they were not happy with. He aimed to create endings that also promise more story for the characters. Kurtzman said the season would take its time showing where each character is before bringing them all together, which Matalas compared to Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) revealing where the original Star Wars characters are after many years. Matalas also compared the season to a serialized version of a theoretical The Next Generation season eight, and said it was "passing the torch from one generation to the next" like when actors from The Original Series guest starred on The Next Generation. He suggested that a more appropriate title for the season would be Star Trek Legacy rather than Star Trek: Picard, but still felt it was "truly a Picard story".
There were discussions about using the new Borg collective that are introduced at the end of the second season, including clarifying who that group is in relation to the original Borg, exploring the anomaly they discover in the second season, and having them help defeat the original Borg Queen in the third-season finale. Matalas said they avoided exposition-heavy scenes that explained who the new Borg collective are because they felt these would be uninteresting to audiences. The anomaly was not included because the third-season scripts were too far along by the time that idea was introduced to the second-season scripts, and he disliked the idea of the new Borg fighting the original Borg. For the latter, he also questioned the use of resources for such a small moment, and felt it would take away from the storytelling being done with Seven of Nine and the Enterprise-D in the finale.
Casting
When originally developing the series, the creative team discussed not bringing back any other characters from The Next Generation to allow Picard to stand alone and not become reliant on nostalgia. Part of this was to allow newcomers who had not seen the previous series to enjoy Picard. However, the writers wanted to be respectful to longtime fans of Star Trek and felt they were missing opportunities by not including certain characters, so they decided to add some returning guests who organically served the new story. In January 2020, Stewart said it was his hope that all of the main cast of The Next Generation would appear on Picard before the end of the series.
In April 2022, members of the Next Generation cast were confirmed to be starring in the third season with Stewart: LeVar Burton as Geordi La Forge, Michael Dorn as Worf, Jonathan Frakes as William Riker, Gates McFadden as Beverly Crusher, Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi, and Brent Spiner. Matalas confirmed that these would not be brief cameo appearances and said all of the cast would appear together in the season. After initially avoiding bringing back the full cast, executive producer Alex Kurtzman said they had a good story reason to reunite them in the third season and the producers felt that they had earned the right to do so after the first two seasons. McFadden said she loved the story that had been written for the cast in the season, while Sirtis said they had been "cherished" by the producers in contrast to their experience on Nemesis. Burton said he would be happy if he did not portray La Forge again after getting to "put a period at the end of this sentence and close the book" on the character with this season. After Spiner decided that he would not portray his Next Generation character Data again after the first season, Matalas said he would play a "new old character that you have seen and never seen before" that connects to the plot of the third season. This was revealed in October 2022 to be a version of the android Lore, Data's evil twin.
Wil Wheaton, who starred as Wesley Crusher in The Next Generation and made a cameo appearance in the second-season finale, was not included in the season. After the second-season finale was released in May 2022, series regulars Santiago Cabrera, Alison Pill, Evan Evagora, and Isa Briones revealed that they did not return for the third season. Jeri Ryan, Michelle Hurd, and Orla Brady did return as Seven of Nine, Raffi Musiker, and Laris, respectively. Matalas said budget and time limitations meant some "hard choices" had to be made about which characters to bring back for the season, especially with the need to sign on all of the returning Next Generation actors.
Matalas stated in late May that the season's villain was portrayed by a well-known actor who had not appeared in Star Trek before, and said they had given "one of the all-time great Star Trek villain performances". That June, Burton revealed that his daughter Mica had been cast as one of La Forge's daughters in the season. In August, Matalas said there would be more "legacy characters" appearing in the season beyond the main Next Generation cast. The writers considered including a grown-up version of the Star Trek: Voyager character Naomi Wildman for a specific sequence that was ultimately deemed too expensive to film. Also that month, Denise Crosby said her Next Generation character Tasha Yar would appear in the season, despite the actress previously stating that she was not involved in the series during filming. Matalas soon confirmed that the character would appear in the season as a reference to her Next Generation role. At New York Comic Con in October, Amanda Plummer was revealed to be portraying the season's villain, Vadic. Her father Christopher Plummer had previously played an unrelated Star Trek villain, General Chang in the film Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). Additionally, Daniel Davis was announced to be reprising his Next Generation role as a sentient hologram of Arthur Conan Doyle's literary character Professor Moriarty, Mica Burton's casting as La Forge's youngest daughter Alandra was confirmed, and Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut was revealed to be portraying La Forge's oldest daughter Sidney.