Robert Picardo on Star Trek: Picard’s “very clever” holograms - and why they’re not unlike Roombas

Gates McFadden and Robert Picardo on GalaxyCon Live

Robert Picardo, Star Trek: Voyager’s Emergency Medical Hologram, has voiced his opinion on Star Trek: Picard’s take on the technology of emergency holograms, saying it’s “very clever”. On Picard, Captain Cris Rios’s ship, the La Sirena, is crewed mainly by “emergency” holograms, each of whom shares Rios’s face, with a different accent and personality.

According to Comicbook.com, in an interview last week for GalaxyCon Live, Picardo shared the virtual stage with fellow Star Trek doctors Gates McFadden and John Billingsley. First, Picardo reflected on the development of the hologram characters, saying they were a “very clever notion, and a tremendous showcase for [Santiago Cabrera] as an actor.” Then, he related the emergency holograms back to some more familiar technology we use today.

Picardo said of the multiple, lookalike holograms: “If you don’t select a screensaver face for that technology, the default face will be his own, is a very funny notion, and it really makes sense, right? If they’re simply tools, if an engineering hologram is basically a Roomba that vacuums the ship while you’re doing something else, [...] and if you didn’t assign it [a face] the default would be the guy who owned the ship, or piloted the ship. So I just thought that was a very clever kind of a wink at technology.”

You can watch Captain Rios’s emergency holograms in action for yourself, of course, on Star Trek: Picard, now streaming on CBS All Access. Bonus points if you print out a picture of your face to stick on your Roomba while you do it.