Star Trek: Picard showrunner Terry Matalas teases the return of more legacy characters than just the Next Generation primary cast
Terry Matalas is the showrunner for STAR TREK: PICARD
JUNE 20, 2022 - Terry Matalas has been involved in Star Trek production since the days of Voyager and Enterprise, and he is now the showrunner on Star Trek: Picard. Matalas sat down with the Inglorious Treksperts podcast to talk about his career and what’s coming up in season three of Picard, and TrekCore is reporting on some of the highlights of that interview.
Matalas emphasized the importance of transitions and send offs when it comes to legacy characters, such as the primary cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which will be returning for the final season of Picard. He also promised the return of other, unnamed, characters, saying, “There are some people from Star Trek who come back in this season who aren’t the Next Gen [primary] cast. I mean there’s one character who is in Next Gen who I was like… I really want THIS character to come back. And when they did [agree to return], that was weirdly more thrilling than everything else in totality.”
This approach has meant some “hard choices” had to be made regarding other characters, whom we are used to seeing in the first two seasons. Evan Evagora (Elnor), Isa Briones (Soji), Alison Pill (Jurati), and Santiago Cabrera (Rios) have all departed as series regulars after season two.
Some new characters, however, will also be introduced, and season three will be a “passing of the torch” from one generation to the next and will represent the “beginning of a new era for Trek storytelling.”
Terry Matalas had much more to say, so check out TrekCore for more and to listen to the Inglorious Treksperts interview.
And you can catch up with or rewatch the first two seasons of Star Trek: Picard, streaming now on Paramount+.
David is a contributing writer for Daily Star Trek News on the Roddenberry Podcast Network. He is a librarian, baseball fan, and book and movie buff. He has also written for American Libraries and Skeptical Inquirer. David also enjoys diverse music, but leans toward classical and jazz. He plays a mean radio.
