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PIC Season 3

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Season 3 title card

Teaser art for Season 3

This page contains information specifically pertaining to the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard . In North America, season 3 episodes premiered weekly on Thursdays, starting 16 February 2023 , on Paramount+ (USA and Latin America) and on CraveTV (Canada), with the rest of the world following suit through Prime Video with a one-day delay.

In the UK, Australia, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, season 3 episodes were also released on newly-launched Paramount+ foreign subsidiaries the day after their US premieres by the mother streaming service , alongside the Prime Video streamings, with all three seasons of Picard slated to be added to Paramount+ in South Korea later in 2023. [1] [2]

• 3.1.1 Special guest star(s)
• 4 Background information
• 7 External links

Episodes [ ]

Summary [ ], credits [ ], starring [ ], special guest star(s) [ ], background information [ ].

Season 3 teaser art 2

• On 21 October 2020 , Production Weekly included a third season in its listing of upcoming productions, although no official announcement has been made. [3] [4] It was officially confirmed on 8 September 2021 during the Star Trek Day 2021 celebration.
• Season 3 was filmed back-to-back with season 2 in order to control costs and accommodate production schedules, [5] and principal photography, aka production, began at the start of September 2021, immediately after production on the second season had wrapped on 29 August. [6]
• On 3 January 2022 , production on this season was temporarily halted due to a COVID-19 outbreak on set. [7] [8] Production resumed four days later on 7 January 2022 . [9]
• On 8 March 2022 , production on this season had finished shooting. [10] It was also confirmed that this season will be the final one. [11]
• On "First Contact Day", 5 April 2022 , it was revealed that the original cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation – LeVar Burton , Michael Dorn , Jonathan Frakes , Gates McFadden , Marina Sirtis , and Brent Spiner – had joined the cast for the third season, as a means of finally giving their characters "a proper send-off". [12]
• On 2 May 2022 , Alison Pill confirmed that she would not be returning for Season 3. [13]
• On 5 May 2022 , Evan Evagora and Santiago Cabrera confirmed that they would not be returning for Season 3. [14]
• On 6 May 2022 , Isa Briones confirmed that she would not be returning for Season 3. [15]
• The third season being made available on Paramount+ foreign subsidiaries concurrently with Prime Video, making it no longer the exclusive series streamer outside the Americas, might, in the context of the increasingly vicious streaming wars , be construed as a harbinger that the series will be pulled from Prime Video the moment the season release schedule is completed. [16]

Reception [ ]

See also [ ].

• PIC Season 3 performers
• PIC directors
• PIC writers
• PIC Season 3 Blu-ray
• PIC Season 3 DVD

External links [ ]

• Star Trek: Picard season 3 at Wikipedia
• Star Trek: Picard season 3 at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Star Trek: Picard season 3  at Ex Astris Scientia
• 2 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

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Star Trek: Picard

Star Trek: Picard features Patrick Stewart reprising his iconic role as Jean-Luc Picard, which he played for seven seasons on Star Trek: The Next Generation and follows this iconic character into the next chapter of his life.

In the epic, thrilling conclusion of Star Trek: Picard , a desperate message from a long-lost friend draws Starfleet legend Admiral Jean-Luc Picard into the most daring mission of his life, forcing him to recruit allies spanning generations old and new. This final adventure sets him on a collision course with the legacy of his past and explosive, new revelations that will alter the fate of the Federation forever.

In addition to streaming on Paramount+ , Star Trek: Picard also streams on Prime Video outside of the U.S. and Canada, and in Canada can be seen on Bell Media's CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave. Star Trek: Picard is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.

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Picard Season 3 Brings Back One Of The Next Generation's Silliest Villains

This post contains  spoilers for episode 6, season 3 of "Star Trek: Picard."

On the sixth episode of the third season of "Star Trek: Picard" — called "The Bounty" — Worf (Michael Dorn), Raffi (Michelle Hurd), and Capt. Riker (Jonathan Frakes) break into a space-bound, top-secret Federation storage warehouse called Daystrom station. On board, the characters find a lot of shadowy corridors lined with lockers containing strange "Star Trek"-related artifacts. In one locker, Worf discovers a living tribble, only this one is equipped with fangs and a sucker mouth. In another, Raffi finds the remains of Capt. Kirk, presumably retrieved from under a pile of rocks on Veridian III. The references rest on the border of cute and insufferable, and the episode as a whole leans far too hard into nostalgic temptation. 

Case in point: Daystrom station is equipped with an artificially intelligent security system that recognizes Riker and Worf and immediately initiates a holographic security countermeasure. Ignoring for a moment that a mere storage warehouse is equipped with sophisticated holo-emitters, Riker, Worf, and Raffi find themselves facing off against none other than Moriarty (Daniel Davis), the nemesis of Sherlock Holmes as he appeared in Arthur Conan Doyle's 1893 short story, "The Final Problem." Raffi is baffled that a holographic villain from the 19th century is guarding a Federation black site in the 25th, especially when only armed with an old-fashioned pistol.

Moriarty's presence on "Picard" is a little perplexing, but it was perhaps no more perplexing than his two previous appearances on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" where Moriarty, as a hologram, achieved consciousness and attempted to take over the Enterprise.

Ship in a bottle

Moriarty, as played by Daniel Davis, first appeared in the episode "Elementary, Dear Data" (December 5, 1988). In that episode, Data (Brent Spiner)  had become too good at solving Sherlock Holmes mysteries on the holodeck, making the deduction and investigation parts of the stories — the fun parts — unnecessary. Geordi (LeVar Burton), bored in his role as Dr. Watson, suggested to Data that he needed to be challenged by a mystery, and asked the holodeck to create a character that would actually be capable of besting Data. Note that Geordi said "Data" and not "Sherlock Holmes." The holodeck, using heretofore unknown powers, created a Prof. Moriarty that is self-aware. Moriarty knows he is a citizen of 19th-century England but also finds himself able to access the Enterprise's computers, slowly becoming aware that he is a mere character in a high-tech simulation. He will eventually try to gain control of the ship. 

It will take a great deal of negotiation from Picard to convince him to stop his shenanigans. Moriarty is stored in the ship's memory to be dealt with at a later time. He will be restored accidentally in the episode "Ship in a Bottle" (January 24, 1993) where he will announce he was aware of the passage of time, even when stored in a memory bank. Once again, he will attempt to take over the Enterprise. At the end of the episode, Moriarty is duped into a simulation, and he is placed into a computerized cube that will provide him and his beloved wife with a lifetime of adventures. 

How is Moriarty here?

One can see why "Star Trek" writers are drawn to Moriarty. Like the denizens of the Enterprise, he is an intellectual. And like all life forms on "Star Trek," he demands respect and autonomy; when Picard is confronted with a new life form, he initially balks, unsure how to deal with the fact that his ship spontaneously created an adult human being. Moriarty is a character from classic Western literature, a canon that Trek is fairly obsessed with. Additionally, visiting Doyle's England provides "The Next Generation" with some much-needed visual variety; one can only look at grey-and-lavender hallways for so long before aching for dark earth tones. 

As a villain, though, Moriarty does possess a palpable fatuity. While the dramatic explanation for the character is laid out in detail, his actual presence on "Star Trek" feels a little like, say, Mr. Peabody and Sherman visiting Cleopatra. Author Loren D. Estleman once wrote a novel called "Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula."  "Moriarty vs. Picard" tilts away from "essay on the nature of consciousness" pretty quickly, and falls headlong into the realm of Estleman-like fan fiction.

Moriarty's presence on "Picard" is, quite disappointingly, presented bluntly and without reason, making the character only that much more absurd. As a security device, Moriarty fires bullets at Worf, Raffi, and Riker, while also psychically playing noisy, isolated musical chords through the station's sound system. Riker eventually intuits that the notes being played are from "Pop Goes the Weasel," a tune he once whistled for Data in the "Next Generation" pilot episode. 

Riker also realizes this version of Moriarty is not the same one as before, and is actually a manifestation of Data's consciousness (!). Data is alive and nearby (!!).

It's an unfortunately silly twist that doesn't do anything to allay the character's inherent silliness. 

Everything to Remember Before Star Trek: Picard Returns for Season 3

It's the beginning of the end for star trek: picard , but how much do you need to remember from its actual beginnings.

Star Trek: Picard returns for its third and final season this week, with its titular hero tasked with one last adventure alongside faces old and new. But although the season has made it clear it’s largely operating on a clean break from its predecessors, if you’re hopping on board for The Next Generation nostalgia in season three , here’s what you need to remember coming into it.

Picard’s a Synth Now

At the end of the first season of Picard , Jean-Luc died, his failing body—thanks to the resurgence of the Irumodic Syndrome that we saw plaguing him in TNG ’s finale, “All Good Things”—finally giving the ghost after he rallied to save the synth intelligence Soji and her people from some very angry Romulans. He got better, of course, because we’re talking about the third season of a show named after him, but he did so by getting a brand new body.

That body, an advanced android form designed by Altan Inigo Soong, is completely synthetic, and perfectly healthy, so Picard will never have to worry about Irumodic Syndrome plaguing him again. It still ages and is essentially just a new body, and Picard is still the Picard he was—and remembers dying—but honestly? Almost nobody brings up the fact that he’s a robot now.

Data’s Dead (Again)

Data died in Star Trek: Nemesis of course, but his death hangs over a lot of Picard ’s first season—before he eventually shows up in the finale to have a chat-from-beyond-the-grave with the similarly dead Jean-Luc. H ere, Data re-enforces that it’s Picard who should keep on living, not him, and so he sacrifices the last vestiges of his memory once again so Picard can come back in Soong’s new android body.

We know Brent Spiner is back (again, he’s played multiple Soongs as well as Data in Picard so far) for the third season, and intriguingly he’s been described as playing “a character named Lore,” of course a nod to Data’s evil twin android brother from TNG . Could the original Lore be revived from his original de-activation, or maybe we’re going to finally follow up on Nemesis ’ tease that some of Data’s memories lived on in his other identical android sibling B-4 at last? We’ll have to wait and see.

Welcome to the 25th Century, f or Real This Time

The first season of Picard was set at the tail end of the 23rd century, in the wake of the events of the primary Star Trek series The Next Generation , Deep Space Nine , and Voyager . Although its second was the first Trek TV show to explore the near future of the earliest years of the 25th century, season two is actually barely set there, instead opting for a whole lot of time- travel nonsense.

Picard season three is the first time we’re actually going to be spending an extended period of time in the early 2400s, a period explored by the non-canonical (well, mostly) Star Trek Online , but one fans have been dying to actually see more of for decades at this point.

Q’s Dead (?)

Speaking of time travel nonsense in Picard season two , its bonkers finale saw Q—who sent Picard and his friends to an alternate fascist timeline that then le d to them jumping back to the early 21st century to avoid said fascist timeline happening—reveal that his latest shenanigans were both a test and a parting gift for his long-time frenemy. Q was dying, and wanted to show Jean-Luc how to love himself— pissing him off, nearly eradicating his known existence, and nearly killing him multiple times—by confronting the tragedies of his family’s pasts, and having done so, used the last of his omnipotence to whiz Picard and his friends back to their own time to save the day.

However, Q’s Q, which means there could be any number of contrivances that bring him back at some point. But for now, he’s gone.

The Borg Were Besties With the Federation. Don’t Worry About It.

Q in part did all this to help tweak a temporal paradox that le d to one of Picard’s allies, Dr. Agnes Jurati, joining a reformed Borg Queen in the past to create a less-aggressive collective. This culminated in Borg-Jurati coming to the aid of the Federation when a massive Transwarp Conduit (just like the subspace corridor system the Borg used to advance their cybernetic civilization) opened up in the Sol system, threatening to destroy billions of people for... reasons. After that got dealt with in like, five minutes, Borg-Jurati revealed that despite Transwarp being the Borg’s whole thing , they don’t actually know who tried to open this conduit, so she proposes that the Borg Collective join the Federation in a temporary membership capacity, so Starfleet and the Collective can research and investigate it together.

This is insane. It is insane . That whole season finale was i n s a n e . But don’t worry about it because from what we know, season three of Picard is set about a year after the events of season two and no one ever mentions That Time The Borg Joined The Federation. Everything seems to be fine. No one is screaming about one of the most insane things to ever happen in in Star Trek constantly. Don’t worry about it.

Oh, and Before That, Romulus Blew Up. Worry About That, But Only a Little Bit.

Picard as an entirety is actually set after the events of the opening of the 2009 Star Trek movie. That film, before it established the alternate Kelvin timeline, opens having been set in the primary Trek continuity, where the homeworld of the Romulans, Romulus, was destroyed in a cataclysmic event where the system’s star went supernova. Picard was involved in attempts to evacuate Romulans from the system before the supernova, but things went badly, and the remnants of the Star Empire cast a large shadow over Picard ’s first season.

It’s probably less important now for season three , but, y’know. Good worldbuilding stuff to remember.

Almost Everyone Actually From Picard Is Gone Now...

Picard ’s first two seasons, outside of a few cameos, largely focused on an original cast of characters. That is by and large not the case for season three , which is almost entirely a clean break. Picard primary cast members Isa Briones, Alison Pill, Evan Evagora, and Santiago Cabrera all confirmed after the conclusion of season two that they were done with the show —even if it seems like their characters still had stories to tell. Of the primary cast of those first two seasons, aside from Patrick Stewart only Jeri Ryan’s Seven of Nine and Michelle Ann Hurd’s Raffi Musiker will appear in season three .

... Because His Next Generation Besties Are Back

Why the slate-wiping? Because Picard decided to go all out for its final season with a full on TNG reunion. LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, and Brent Spiner will all return to play their previous Star Trek roles this season. They’re not cameos or one-off appearances ; the return of these iconic stars is a fundamental part of Picard season three ’s story.

It’s not just old faces though, there are some new characters in season three —like Todd Stashwick, playing a Starfleet Captain named Liam Shaw, and Ed Speleers, playing a mysterious new character.

Including Riker, Who’s Been Through Some Shit

Frakes and Sirtis’ Will Riker and Deanna Troi already previously appeared in Picard , giving us some important insight into their lives after TNG . It established that Riker himself is still a commanding officer in Starfleet, having returned to duty after a period of retirement, while Deanna herself was fully retired from service, raising a family with Will on the planet Nepenthe.

Riker and Troi had two children, Thaddeus and Kestra, but tragedy struck the family when Thad was diagnosed with a rare disease—usually curable, but rendered terminal after a ban on android and synthetic research in the Federation. Thaddeus died as a teenager, a tragedy that’s still haunting both of his parents.

Actually, Everyone’s Been Through Some Shit

As far as we know coming into season three , it’s not just Riker and Troi who’ve had a rough go of it since we last saw them. Beverly Crusher begins the season being chased by a mysterious threat, and has seemingly long left Starfleet life behind. Likewise, Worf is now a meditating, monastic wandering ronin from what we’ve seen of him. Perhaps most “normal” is Geordi LaForge, now a Commodore in Starfleet. He continues to serve, and now does so alongside his daughters Sidney and Alandra—but even that’s not perfect, as we know heading into the season that at least Sidney does not see eye-to-eye with her father, having parted from his legacy as an e ngineer to train as a pilot.

Except Wesley Crusher, Who’s Still Going Through His Old Shit

One major TNG name we know is not back for season three is Wil Wheaton’s Wesley Crusher. This is because Wheaton already showed up for a cameo in the aforementioned bonkers season two finale of Picard . There it was established that Wesley was, as he departed the Enterprise to do so in TNG , still working with the Travelers, and whisked away the genetically modified Soong descendant Karre to join him.

Could he show up in season three ? Maybe. After all, season two was filmed back to back with season three , so it’s not like Wheaton w as unavailable. We have no idea if he will return though.

Seven of Nine Is Starfleet Now

Although Jeri Ryan has been a part of Picard from its first season, she’s been playing a version of Seven of Nine that did not join the Starfleet fold after Voyager returned to the Alpha Quadrant. In fact, we learned that her application to join was rejected, causing her to break ties with her former friends and colleagues and eventually forge her own path as a member of the Fenris Rangers, a band of frontier lawmen that attempted to protect and police the border of the Romulan Neutral Zone.

That’s changed as of season three ; having been awarded a field commission in Picard ’s season two finale, Seven is now officially a Starfleet officer, with the rank of Commander.

And She’s Got a New Ship

Seven serves as the First Officer aboard a ship we’ll be seeing a lot of in Picard season three : the Titan -A, captained by the aforementioned Liam Shaw. The Titan was previously captained by Riker before his initial retirement, a Luna-class starship seen in Star Trek: Lower Decks , but the ship we meet in Picard is in fact its refit, redesigned entirely as a spiritual successor to the classic Constitution-class pioneered by the original Enterprise .

The Enterprise Is Back, But Not the One You’d Expect

Although the Titan -A is visually a throwback to the classic Enterprise , it’s not the only nod to the iconic vessel line in season three : the current Enterprise refit, the F, will also play some role in the season.

The Enterprise -F, an Odyssey-class ship, has never appeared on-screen before, but it’s not an entirely new ship to Star Trek : it’s been canonized from the MMORPG Star Trek Online , its design and title replicated based on the original ship’s model in the game.

Picard Might Be Over, But There Might Be More f or These Characters

Picard season three has long since been confirmed as the final season of the show, and yet in the run up to its broadcast its creative team has not shied away from the fact that the season will potentially leave paths open for many of these characters to return, Picard included. Whether it’s the returning TNG crew or specific Picard characters like Seven and Raffi, it’s hard to say right now just what this season will bring to provide both a definitive end to Picard while potentially leaving the door open for more stories to tell. Hell, we don’t even know if it’s true that it does yet—cast and crew alike could just be saying this now to avoid revealing more final ends for any of the cast this season.

We’ll begin to learn more when Picard season three begins streaming on Paramount+ February 16.

Den of Geek

The Best Star Trek Easter Eggs in the Picard Season 3 Premiere

From The Wrath of Khan shout-outs to unseen moments in The Next Generation, to even the oldest Trek planet ever, the season premiere of Star TreK: Picard Season 3 cuts deep. Here's everything we found...

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This article contains Star Trek: Picard spoilers.

Not all Star Trek Easter eggs are created equal. Some are as obvious as a phaser set on vaporize, and others are as squirmy and pervasive as a Ceti eel and can wrap themselves around your cerebral cortex before you’ve had a chance to even identify them. Luckily, even when Easter eggs are coming at warp speed, there is a way to spot them. First, travel back in time and convince yourself to become an obsessive Star Trek fan, next, watch every episode and film of every Star Trek iteration multiple times and then commit it all to memory. Once you’ve done that, travel back to the present, and see if you can spot all the Easter eggs in Star Trek: Picard season 3 , episode 1, “The Next Generation.” 

We think we’ve caught everything in this jam-packed episode. But, be warned, Picard season 3 might have more Trek Easter eggs than all the previous seasons of the various new Trek shows combined. Let’s try to make it so. Engage Easter egg sensors! 

Music Easter Eggs and The Wrath of Khan

Star Trek: Picard begins with blue text on the screen with the words “In the 25th Century…” which directly parallels the opening of The Wrath of Khan , which began with the text “In the 23rd Century…” in the exact same font. We briefly hear notes from Jerry Goldsmith’s First Contact score here, as the action transitions to a shot of the SS Eleos . The song that plays is the standard “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire” by The Inkspots. All three seasons of Picard have begun with an old standard: Season 1 with Bing Crosby’s “Blue Skies,” and season 2 with Irma Thomas’s “Time Is On My Side.” 

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Beverly Crusher’s mementos 

The interior of the SS Eleos gives us a slew of deep-cut references, all about Beverly Crusher. In less than a few seconds, we see:

• Beverly’s pearls from “The Big Goodbye.”
• Her flowers from “Cause and Effect.”
• Drama and comedy masks:  A reminder to us of Beverly’s  love of the theater, which references, “The Nth Degree,” “Frame of Mind,” “Disaster,” and “A Fistful of Datas.”
• There’s also a very deep cut here with an award that says: “Cor Caroli V, Medical Away Team, Honorary Citizens.” This references a classified mission, which we never saw, that Jean-Luc spoke of in the episode “Allegiance.” Funnily enough, that episode featured a botched date between Beverly and an alien doppelganger posing as Picard.
• A closed container that seems to have belonged to Beverly’s late husband, Jack Crusher. 

Picard’s log from “The Best of Both Worlds” and some Romulan Ale?

Just as Beverly wakes up to an impending attack, we hear Picard’s Captain’s Log from “The Best of Both Worlds,” specifically the references to hiding the Enterprise in a “dust cloud.” This foreshadows the fact that by the end of this episode, Riker and Picard will head into a nebula. 

We also catch a  glimpse of some blue liquid on a table, which can only be a glass of Romulan Ale. Bones first introduced us all to Romulan Ale in The Wrath of Khan , proving that Enterprise doctors have great taste in space booze, in any generation. 

“The Next Generation” 

The title of this episode of “The Next Generation,” is self-explanatory. But, this is the first time that a live-action Star Trek series, since Enterprise ended in 2005, has actually displayed its episode title on screen in quotes. The music, here again, borrows from Jerry Goldsmith’s First Contact score, with a bit of Jeff Russo’s title arrangement for the first two seasons of Picard .

Picard’s stuff

Laris and Jean-Luc are doing some spring cleaning of Chateau Picard at the top of the episode. As has been the case in previous seasons, we see several Easter eggs, including:

• Picard’s painting of the Enterprise-D from his ready room. (Who retrieved this from the wrecked saucer section in Generations ?)
• The Ressikan flute from “The Inner Light,”
• A Promellian battle cruiser in a bottle from “Booby Trap,”
• A golden Enterprise-D model 
• A huge Bajorian symbol
• The Kurlan naiskos from “The Chase.” (Again, who went back and got this from the crashed D ?)

It’s Been a Long Time…

Riker and Picard talk about the celebration of “Frontier Day,” which commemorates 250 years of “boldly going.” This is not the birthday of the Federation, which is actually a tiny bit younger than Starfleet. The Federation was founded in 2161, which we saw in the final moments of the Enterprise episode “These Are the Voyages…” But, Starfleet predates the Federation by several decades. Picard Season 3 takes place in roughly 2402 (in the 25th Century…) which means Starfleet is celebrating something that happened during the first year of the NX-01 Enteprirse , in either 2151 or 2152. 

Rigel Seven?

Picard and Riker quibble about whether or not they got their comms compromised on “Rigel VI” or “Rigel VII.” This doesn’t reference any TNG adventure we’ve seen. However, Rigel VII, is the planet that the Enterprise had just left in “The Cage,” and where Captain Pike (Jeffrey Hunter) had fought an alien giant in a ridiculous castle. It’s basically the first strange, new world in all of Trek canon.

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M’Talas Prime and the Dockmaster 

When we find Raffi undercover on a crime planet, it’s called “M’Talas Prime,” named for showrunner Terry Matalas. Later in the episode, the voice of the dockmaster, who welcomes Picard and Riker to the USS Titan , is the voice of Terry Matalas.

Daystrom Institute

Raffi is obsessed with figuring out what was stolen from an “offsite” Daystrom station. This question will end up being one of the biggest MacGuffins in Picard season 3, and even when you think you know what it is, you might be wrong. Anyway. The word “Daystrom,” comes from Dr. Richard Daystrom (William Marshall) from the TOS episode “The Ultimate Computer.” In that episode, we learned that Daystrom designed most of the computers that Starfleet ships rely on. In Picard Season 1, the Daystrom Institute on Earth was central to that season-long story, and introduced the character of Dr. Jurati. At that time, B-4’s body (Data’s twin brother from Nemesis ) was stored at the Daystrom Institute. 

Raffi’s retro communicator 

When Raffi gets in touch with Starfleet Intelligence, she busts out a classic flip-up communicator. The style feels closer to the Enterprise era than TOS , but it’s a great moment. Why would Raffi use an outdated communicator? Well, maybe this is the 25th-century equivalent of using a burner phone.

Spacedock and Starship Easter egg overload 

When Riker and Picard head to the Titan , the episode goes into warp 9.99999 with Easter Eggs. Here’s everything:

• Picard and Riker’s journey over to the Titan references Kirk and Scotty taking a travel pod in The Motion Picture .
• The design of the spacedock itself references the famous Starfleet spacedock designed by Industrial Light and Magic, and first seen in The Search For Spock . Even the interior of the spacedock is similar, and the doors are identical.
• Picard and Riker are pretending to perform an inspection of the USS Titan , which references The Wrath of Khan when Kirk was doing a real inspection of the Enterprise .
• The music in this scene evokes James Horner’s score from The Wrath .
• “Neo Constitution-Class” references the Constitution-Class, the class of ship which included the original NCC-1701 Enterprise .
• The Boatswain whistle used to announce Riker and Picard’s arrival is the same exact design used in The Undiscovered Country .
• The Titan is a reference to Will Riker’s command of the ship of that name, first mentioned in Nemesis , and then seen in Lower Decks . This Titan is not the same ship as the Luna-Class ship from Lower Decks , but Starfleet did use many of its parts to build this new one. (The word “Titan” references many things, but it also, by coincidence references “Titan City,” a time-traveling city from the SyFy version of Terry Matalas’s 12 Monkeys .)
• Seven of Nine taking the Titan out of spacedock is reminiscent of Saavik “piloting” the Enterprise out of spacedock in The Wrath , but also of Valeris blasting the Enterprise out of the gate in The Undiscovered Country.
• Before leaving spacedock, Seven mentions that the “metaphasic shield” is ready. This references the TNG episode “Suspicions” in which Beverly Crusher cleared the name of Dr. Reyga, a Ferengi scientist who invented this type of shield.

Sidney La Forge 

Played by Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut, Sidney is one of two daughters of Geordi La Forge. Her name comes from the TNG finale “All Good Things…” in which Geordi mentions he has three kids:  Alandra, Bret, and Sidney. In “All Good Things…” Picard could not remember Sidney’s name. He can’t in this episode either!

Sidney’s presence could also reference the moment in Generations when Kirk learns that Sulu’s daughter, Demora, is the helmsman of the Enterprise-B .

Captain Shaw hates jazz…and Riker and Picard

Todd Stashwick plays Captain Liam Shaw, which is a bit of an Easter egg to 12 Monkeys since Stashwick played Deacon in that show. Don’t you forget about him! Anyway, Shaw mentions that he doesn’t like jazz, a dig at Riker who has loved playing jazz trombone since the TNG episode “11001001.”

Shaw also has an outward dislike for Picard and Riker, and references their “wildly exciting and equally irresponsible adventures,” which could reference any number of things. Though, his quip about “crashlanding,” probably is a direct reference to the Enterprise-D crashing on Veridian III in Generations .

Raffi’s research reveals…a new Enterprise and Voyager !

As Raffi frantically tries to figure out the meaning of “The Red Lady,” she calls up a screen of all upcoming holidays and events. This includes the “Gratitude Festival,” which references a Bajroian Gratitude Festival first introduced in the DS9 episode “Fasincation.” 

But, if you pause the next screen Raffi looks at, you’ll see:

• A ship called the Voyager-B
• The Enterprise-F , with text that says “Slated for Early Decommissioning.”

Rachel Garrett

The “Red Lady”  turns out to be a statue of Captain Rachel Garrett. This references the TNG episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” in which we learn that Rachel Garrett (Trica O’Neil) was the captain of the Enterprise-C .

Beverly’s Son?

The final moments of the episode reveal that Beverly Crusher has another son. The moment this is revealed references a similar fight in The Wrath , in which Kirk is fighting with Carol Marcus’ son, David Marcus, and doesn’t know it. 

The credits- watch out! 

There are several Easter eggs in the credits of every episode of Picard season 3. However, breaking down all of them might lead to spoiler territory for the rest of the season. Let’s just say, it’s possible that many of the things you see on the screen here are more than Easter eggs, and perhaps are hints as to what is to come. That said, there are a few notable big Easter eggs that are simply fun, and probably not spoilers at all.

The Fleet Museum on Athan Prime

The planet “Athan Prime” is a reference to the character Athan Cole, from 12 Monkeys . In that series, Athan was played by Battlestar Galactica fan-favorite James Callis, who also appeared in Picard season 2 as Jean-Luc’s father.

Picard 47 Alpha Tango

Toward the end of the credits, we see the words “Picard 47 Alpha Tango.” This was Jean-Luc’s special command code for setting the auto-destruct to the Enterprise-E in First Contact .

Picard season 3 lists the cast names in the end credits, rather than in the beginning credits. This includes the name “Jonathan Frakes,” of course, whose name appears, appropriately next to the “Red Alert” graphic. Is “Red Alert!” Riker’s catchphrase? Does anybody say it is better than Riker?

The closing credits font

After the main closing credits, the text on the screen for the very end of the episode uses the same font from The Next Generation ’s closing credits. This is the first time a live-action Trek series has used this font style since 1994. 

Latest TV reviews

Shardlake review: sinister and satisfying tudor-set murder mystery, star trek: discovery season 5 episode 5 review – mirrors, the red king review: uneven folk horror crime mash-up.

And if you think the ‘90s nostalgia is over for now. Just wait until you see the rest of Picard season 3…

Picard airs new episodes on Thursdays, for the next 10 weeks,  on Paramount+.

Ryan Britt is a longtime contributor to Den of Geek! He is also the author of three non-fiction books: the Star Trek pop history book PHASERS…

'Star Trek: Picard' Season 3 Introduces Amanda Plummer as the Ultimate Villain

Plummer is set to play the new big bad for the show's final season, alongside returning adversaries Lore and Moriarty.

In the new trailer for Star Trek: Picard Season 3 we got our first official look at the show's new villain. Earlier this year, executive producer Alex Kurtzman teased that she would be "amazing," and now from the new footage shared at New York Comic Con, we can safely say that this new character is certainly a worthy adversary for the returning Next Generation crew.

Introduced in the trailer as well as a new image is Vadic, played by Tony Award winner Amanda Plummer whom audiences may recognize from her roles in Pulp Fiction , The Hunger Games: Catching Fire , and more. The trailer introduces Vadic as an alien captain and a formidable opponent hellbent on the complete and utter destruction of Starfleet, and quite possibly humanity. We get a good look at her ship, the Shrike, in the new footage, and it's definitely reminiscent of Nero's ( Eric Bana ) ship in the 2009 Kelvin-verse Star Trek movie. However, Vadic is certainly not Romulan.

In the trailer, Vadic promises to scorch the earth beneath Picard's feet in her quest for vengeance — against whom it is unclear, but it's likely that she's at the heart of the conflict that leads to Beverly Crusher's distress signal. Former ship's counselor, Deanna Troi senses an "all-consuming darkness" in their new enemy with her empathic abilities, as the trailer showcases an all-out showdown against the bloodthirsty Vadic.

RELATED: New ‘Star Trek: Picard’ Season 3 Trailer Reveals the Return of Moriaty and Lore

Also introduced in the new trailer, alongside the returning crew members and their newest enemy, are returning Next Generation adversaries Lore and Moriarty. Brent Spiner has played a number of characters throughout the history of Star Trek , reprising the beloved android Data in Season 1 of Picard , and Soong-dynasty ancestor Adam Soong in Season 2. Fans have been wondering who Spiner will play this season as Data was given a permanent death in Season 1, and the trailer reveals his long-awaited return as Lore. Moriarty is even more of a surprise to viewers as a completely unexpected return from Daniel Davis . Davis originally played the classic Sherlock Holmes character Moriarty in a holodeck program frequented by Data and Geordi. On Next Generation , the hologram eventually gained sentience and was allowed to leave the Enterprise.

In addition to Plummer, Spiner, and Davis, Season 3 of Star Trek: Picard will feature Patrick Stewart, Gates McFadden, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Marina Sirtis, Jeri Ryan, Michelle Hurd, and newcomers Mica Burton and Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut. The third and final season arrives on Paramount+ on February 16, 2023. In the meantime, you can watch the new trailer down below.

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engaging —

In the end, picard became the fan-service tng reunion it always should have been, final season finally gives the tng crew a better send-off than 2002's nemesis ..

Andrew Cunningham - Apr 22, 2023 12:02 pm UTC

Among the many sins of the 2002 film Star Trek Nemesis is the fact that its box-office bombing killed the still-nascent plans for a fifth and final The Next Generation outing, one that would have been designed as a finale in the same way that  Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was for the original cast.

I have no reason to believe that this film is some great lost gem of Star Trek canon; it was being written by the same people who wrote the awful  Nemesis , and it was set up to be a kind of Search for Spock retread about reviving Data and restoring the status quo. But its absence meant a lack of closure for the  TNG  crew—a story that wasn't allowed to end on its own terms.

Further Reading

So when Patrick Stewart got on a stage in 2018 to announce that "Jean-Luc Picard is back," it was exciting! Closure at last. And, hopefully, a show that felt more confident and tonally consistent than Discovery had so far.

The first two seasons of  Star Trek: Picard failed to make good on that promise. They were wildly uneven, and while their best moments almost always involved other  TNG  characters, the show actively resisted becoming a TNG  reboot. But its third season, also preemptively announced as its final season, would finally reunite every member of the TNG crew for one last ride (and also  Raffi would be there).

I still had misgivings for the first half of the season, and criticism I stand by . Paramount sent out screeners of the first six episodes, and while those six episodes were doing some things I liked,  Picard  was still struggling with some of the things it had always struggled with: not-quite-right characterization, an obsession with plot twists and bombast, and a focus on Picard to the exclusion of most other characters.

But in the season's last four episodes, something unexpected happened: the show finally delivered on its original promise.

It was Data and Geordi that tipped me over the edge, looking back. In both Nemesis and  Picard 's first season, we experience Data's loss almost exclusively from Picard's perspective. Picard was Data's friend, and Picard was a mentor to Data as he explored his humanity. But the season's eighth episode  finally thought to ask how Data's  best friend would have experienced his loss, rather than focusing on how Data's boss would have felt. LeVar Burton sells the hell out of the Geordi performance he finally gets to give.

(It's also nice to have Brent Spiner back in his Data mode; Spiner was in both of Picard 's first two seasons as different unpleasant Soong family members, and the slimy register that Spiner uses to play those characters is just not very fun to watch.)

It's emblematic of something those last few  Picard episodes do well that the movies never really figured out—every character has something to do. Gates McFadden is particularly underutilized in every single  TNG film, but there are moments in all of them where the non-Picard, non-Data characters are present simply to provide an extra body in a scene or rattle off some Treknobabble. Picard is still first among equals—the show has his name on it, after all—but once all the old  TNG characters are finally back on the board, Stewart and Picard both feel more like players in an ensemble again.

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John de Lancie doesn't think it was expected that season three of Star Trek: Picard would be so well-received

P roducing a television (or streaming) series is a gamble. There's no way to know if the show will be liked enough or watched enough to continue. The chance of cancellation always looms over practically every series (unless it's NCIS or Law and Order: SVU). Star Trek: Picard was always meant to be a three-season series so the producers knew the show was wrapping no matter how well received the final chapter would be. But, according to John de Lancie , in an interview he gave Trekmovie, [ via Comicbook ] he didn't think anyone expected season three to be as good as it was. So, obviously, the fan clamor for a spin-off must have come as a surprise as well.

The way de Lancie describes it, the powers-that-be had already decided on what the next series would be—Starfleet Academy. So there was no opening for Star Trek: Legacy.

"I don’t think that they expected that Season 3 was going to be as good and as well-received. They had already decided on another show. They were already moving in another direction. But it was certainly a really valiant and well-appreciated finale to The Next Generation.”John de Lancie

I find it hard to believe that the producers and the studio wouldn't have known how successful the final season of Picard would be since they were bringing back practically everyone from Star Trek: The Next Generation. That series has maintained its fanbase over the years, and seeing them all together again onscreen was a big draw. It was akin to announcing another movie with the cast. Had season three of Picard unfolded on the big screen, I have no doubt there would have been major numbers at the box office.

If no one was prepared for the success of the final season of Picard, then the door to a possibility of a spin-off shouldn't have even been opened. Though showrunner Terry Matalas has said the series finale wasn't intended to be a set-up for a spin-off, there's really no other way to interpret it the final scene. Q, who supposedly died in season two of Picard, appeared before Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers), who just happens to be Admiral Picard's (Patrick Stewart) son with, essentially, a promise of troubles to come. That's quite a big carrot to dangle if there was never any intention of feeding the horse.

As of now, we don't have any news on Legacy, and with Star Trek moving forward with Starfleet Academy, it doesn't seem like it's on the studio's radar at present.

This article was originally published on redshirtsalwaysdie.com as John de Lancie doesn't think it was expected that season three of Star Trek: Picard would be so well-received .

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• April 28, 2024 | Interview: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Writer Carlos Cisco On Unmasking The Breen And Revisiting The ISS Enterprise
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Interview: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Writer Carlos Cisco On Unmasking The Breen And Revisiting The ISS Enterprise

| April 28, 2024 | By: Anthony Pascale 38 comments so far

The fifth episode (“ Mirrors “) of season 5 of Star Trek: Discovery was co-written by Carlos Cisco, working with Johanna Lee. Cisco joined Discovery in season 3 as a writers’ assistant, moved up to staff writer during season 4, and is now a writer and story editor in season 5.

In our SPOILERS interview, TrekMovie had a chance to talk to Cisco about getting a chance to expand on some big pieces of Trek lore in “Mirrors” and more.

Can you give a bit of background on your fandom and how you came to work on Discovery ?

I am a huge fan now, but I wasn’t always that way because I didn’t have TV growing up in the ’90s. I had seen some of the original movies, a handful of Next Gen episodes and the J.J. Abrams movies before coming onto Discovery . It was intimidating because didn’t know the franchise really well but I love sci-fi and genre. Once I started on season 3, I began to watch Next Gen episodes and when it became clear we were dealing with Andorians and Orions, our then-staff writer Brandon Schultz suggested I watch Enterprise because that is when they were the most featured and I really came to appreciate it. I had been a huge fan of Jeffrey Combs before any knowledge of Trek, and to find how deep he was in Trek was a delightful surprise. So I watched Enterprise all the way through, I watched all of Next Gen , DS9, TOS, I got up to season 4 of Voyager …

So you did an almost complete binge of the franchise during your first year as a writers’ assistant?

Yeah, I was watching like two to four episodes a day. It was a lot. I am an extremely online person and understand how fandoms work and understand that Trek is the fandom that created the sort of framework for all modern fandom. I also love researching things. I love fake histories of and diving into the lore of something. So yeah, I went through all of it and eventually finished up Voyager during the pandemic and kept on, I am current with all the Trek shows.

Was this just extra obsessiveness because it was your job, or because you were you getting into it?

I really enjoyed Next Generation . Deep Space Nine is among my favorite TV series of all time and the one I go back and rewatch the most because it’s just that good, I love it. I will go back to other ones like if we are referencing it in the room.

Carlos Cisco beamed to the set of Star Trek: Discovery

So having watched it all so recently, did you find yourself as one of the quasi-experts in the room?

Yeah. I would have upper level writers texting me asking like, “What’s something I can inject in here?” Yeah, I became one of the experts in the room. I feel like the most passionate people about a religion are the recent converts, and that became one of my positions in the room. So I was always trying to push how could we recontextualize Trek canon for the 32nd century? How can we better worldbuild each season? That was something that was important to me.

For an episode like “Mirrors,” it must occur to you that you are about to double the page on Memory Alpha for the Breen and also the Kelleruns and even the Mirror Universe. Do you find that exciting or terrifying?

Both. Trek fans, they know their shit. It’s a really terrifying and great responsibility to get to be that additive to canon. The Breen were one of my strongest pushes for the season. Early on a couple of us who were really into the lore were asked for ideas on the season big bads and [staff writer] Eric [Robbins] was pushing for the Vidiians and I was like we should do the Breen.” Because, A: They’re not going to have horrible makeup, and B: We can just put a bunch of big guys in suits and they don’t need to talk. Being mindful of the COVID protocols, the suits and masks would be really great. And then there were all the possibilities for the Breen because in every season Discovery is trying to do something we have never seen before. And getting to unmask the Breen was a really big privilege.

“Mirrors” showed how there was more to just unmasking them with the two faces. Can you talk about the look and inspiration behind that?

I don’t remember where in the process we landed on “gelatinous” but when we hit the art team with that they came back to us with deep sea fish like the Barreleye Fish with a see-through head. We got really excited about that. So we started talking about what is this species? Why do they wear the suits? So, the thing we landed on is they have this soft gelatinous form and also a hardened form. Our thinking was that the Breen came up on a very harsh planet with a harsh environment. So they developed a way to protect themselves which was hardening their outer shell into basically a skin, but that takes an immense amount of concentration and energy, making them slower, more sluggish, less intelligent, basically. Over time, they compensated for that by creating the refrigeration suits. Then culturally, it became anathema for them to display that solid face, especially to outsiders, because it was essentially a sign of weakness.

L’ak in his gelatinous state

This idea of a taboo reminded me of episodes like “The Outcast.” So L’ak is part of a segment of Breen society that chose to go against this norm?

Yeah, I think that the Breen that would do that would be outcasts in their society. We still wanted to leave a lot of mystery with the Breen. One of the most appealing parts of being a writer in Trek, is you can see something that was mentioned once in Trek and go, “I’m going to build a whole episode about this, or a whole character arc that explores this.” The Breen started as a single line in TNG and then got one of the most important arcs in DS9. Getting to build and expand off that of that was really cool.

One quick question: Is this the same Breen ship we saw next to the destroyed Federation HQ in the future in the time travel episode?

Yep, that big honking thing next to Federation HQ is the Breen ship. It’s not a space station, it’s a ship. That was one of the things I was super proud of pitching. I had been looking at Breen ship designs, including the Star Trek Online ones, which were these colossal, city ships that could house entire armies and fleets inside of them. And again, talking about what haven’t we seen and what could we have as our adversary. Like, Osyraa’s ship was big in comparison to Discovery, but we wanted to do something – this thing was just a behemoth. Like a Discovery-sized ship could fly into its shuttle bay.

Using the ISS Enterprise was a way to sort of visit the Mirror Universe again. What came first: a creative way of using the available Strange New Worlds set in Toronto, or the decision to revisit the Mirror Universe?

We were given access the sets so we could pitch ideas that could take place on those sets, whether it is the Enterprise or not. There were a few pitches, like one with an old science vessel from the 23 rd century stuck inside a planet of liquid mercury. And one pitch was it was a Mirror Universe ship sort of trapped like a ship in a bottle, which became the pocket of dimensional space. We even considered fluidic space, trying to bring in one more little reference [laughs]. So once it was settled to do the Mirror ship, the opportunity to define what happened to the ISS Enterprise after the events of “Mirror, Mirror” was really cool.

Was there any talk about also bringing in some Mirror characters?

We had considered Ethan [Peck] as Mirror Spock early on but there might have been availability issues, I don’t know.

Burnham and Book on the ISS Enterprise bridge

So you say you are the lore guy, so how about a nitpick speed round? Starting with: The Breen aren’t supposed to bleed, right?

They don’t have a circulatory system, it’s just the jelly spilling out. I know they don’t bleed! Come on. [laughs]

The solution to open the wormhole was to replace the photon torpedoes with antimatter, but aren’t photon torpedoes anti-matter torpedoes?

I think they were adding more, okay? [laughs]

Final sort of nitpick: Owo and Detmer were tasked with taking the ship back to HQ, but the warp drive was disabled.  We don’t see it go to warp, so are they not going to show up at HQ for years?

In my headcanon, they are being met by a Federation tug, the 32 nd century version of the California-class like the Cerritos. They are heading off to meet them and it will tug them to spacedock. [laughs]

ISS Enterprise leaves for Starfleet HQ

We have talked a lot about lore, but season 3 was a way for the show to kind of jump past all of Star Trek canon. Now in season 5, it feels like the show is reembracing the lore, is that by design?

Yeah, I think the studio and Secret Hideout, [co-showrunners] Alex [Kurtzman] and Michelle [Paradise] all wanted this season to sort of connect Discovery back to the greater body of Trek a little more. That didn’t mean we had to really dig into canon, but there was a greater desire to see what we are familiar with from the past and what it looks like in 32 nd century and how it’s different or how it’s not different, and why. Obviously, this is a season that has focused on an episode from the 24 th century [TNG “The Chase”] and so naturally because of that, every episode focused on the clues is going to be focused on the whims of a 24th-century scientist. So that is naturally going to have more connections back to what people would consider classic Trek.

Discovery is ending and the writers room wrapped up a while ago. Are you hoping to return to the franchise? If there is a second season of Academy , are you hoping to get back to the 32 nd century?

I’d love to, if they’d have me. But if this is the last episode I get to write of Star Trek, I’m very proud that this is my final contribution. I’m hoping to pitch some games to the franchise and stuff like that as well down the line. I’m a game designer on the other side of my career. But yeah, I would love to come back and write for Trek, anytime. We’ll see if that happens.

Finally, last year you played a big part in organizing for the WGA strike, which included rallying Trek writers. Can you talk about that?

Yeah, one of the proudest things I’ve contributed to the franchise didn’t even take place while I was employed on Star Trek. Or [employed] at all. I was a lot coordinator and strike captain. Followers of the strike might remember we did theme days to boost morale and turnout. I, along with fellow captain and Strange New Worlds writer Bill Wolkoff was one of the architects of the Star Trek strike day in May. It was one of the first theme days, and we didn’t advertise. But the turnout from franchise was immense. We had actors, writers, and designers from every single Trek TV show attend. It was, as a fan and a writer, an immensely emotional day and an incredible few hours where folks who worked on the show could fan out on other folks whose shoulders we stand on. There were reunions that hadn’t happened in years and it was a really joyful celebration of the shows we all put our blood, sweat, and tears into.

Carlos Cisco (highlighted) at Star Trek-themed picket day in May 2023 (Photo: JW Hendricks)

The fifth and final season of Discovery debuted with two episodes on Thursday, April 4 exclusively on Paramount+  in the U.S., the UK, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, and Austria.  Discovery also premiered on April 4 on Paramount+ in Canada and will be broadcast on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada. The rest of the 10-episode final season is available to stream weekly on Thursdays. Season 5 debuted on SkyShowtime in select European countries on April 5.

Note: The interview has  been edited for brevity and clarity.  

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I’m not sure I like the reveal. To me, this is one of those things like the Klingon headridges where I think the mystery was more interesting than the answer they came up with. I so wish Enterprise had not explained the headridges and Worf’s “we don’t discuss it with outsiders” joke in DS9’s “Trials and Tribbleations” was the end-all be-all for it.

Also, the behind-the-scenes thinking and explanation for the Breen doesn’t fit with DS9.

Their idea that the Breen come from a harsh planet and harsh environment is directly conflicted in dialogue by Weyoun, who states the environment of the Breen homeworld is actually normal. In DS9, it gave the Breen a mysterious quality that I think made them stand out.

Good point. Pretty much everything about this episode was badly done.

Frankly, given what a disappointment Discovery seasons 3-5 have been, I truly hope Carlos Cisco and Johanna Lee are not invited back. They just aren’t good writers.

as all Disco writers are…

You dislike all the writers on all current trek shows. Not actually sure what you consider a “good” writer.

Just to be sure, it would be nice if we can put all Disco writers in one big box and ship them to Antartica.

DS9 built up a real mystique about the Breen. To find out that they are really green jello people was a bit anti-climatic.

In fairness, though, what would have been exciting enough as an answer to the mystery? Some things are better left unanswered. It brings to mind Steven Moffat teasing a reveal of The Doctor’s (as in Doctor Who) name, abut then admitting he never would. To parapgrase, he said, “What could it possibly turn out to be? Keith?”

In fairness, though, what would have been exciting enough as an answer to the mystery? 

I think you answered the question well in suggesting that maybe the Breen should have remained a mystery.

but on the other hand, who trusts anything Weyoun says?

The Typhon Pact books dug into the Breen in an interesting way, and this doesn’t stray too far from that (in some respects) which is refreshing to see.

Two unnecessary reveals in one episode.

Anyone who says DS9 is their favorite show is already alright in my book!

However I did have a lot of problems with this episode. The whole MU connection and it also being the Enterprise just felt beyond a stretch and very unnecessary. And he confirmed what I think a lot of us assumed and that they were able to use the Enterprise sets and just came up with a story around it instead of the opposite and came up with a story first that warranted it. I really wish it was just another Constitution class ship from the prime universe instead of the ham fisted stuff they came up with that added really nothing to the story.

As for the Breen I do like they are using them again since this is a species many fans wanted to see again. I’m torn with the head reveal but OK with it. But would’ve been fine if they didn’t show them.

I also like the idea of using the Vidians too although IIRC weren’t they already cured by the end of Voyager? But this is why it’s fun to go so forward in the future because now you can use species from any part of the galaxy.

And I suspect we will see a lot more of them in the Academy show.

Agreed on all fronts.

agree on everything ;)

Yep Jason Alexander cured the Phage.

Yeah, I don’t think every mystery or open question needs to be answered by our franchises. I don’t understand the compulsion to answer every open question from past series or movies.

Things like the Breen and Bobba Fett were cooler with less said.

yes. for sure. let the secrets be secrets, don’t explain them, create new ones!

The shame of it all, though, is that this just wasn’t a good episode. It was badly written, L’ak and Moll were really boring, and the Breen’s other face was cheesy-looking. This may have been the worst episode of DISCO since the ship left the 23rd century. What a disappointment this season has turned out to be; after two really fun opening episodes, it’s gone downhill fast and has turned into the same padded schlock that was seasons three and four.

You literally complained about the first two episodes when they aired and now you are saying that were great? And you’re making sweeping judgements about a season being disappointing even though you haven’t seen it all? There’s a word for this: trolling.

That’s nonsense, and you know it. I don’t know why you have a bug up your butt about me, but if you don’t like my posts, stop replying to them. I’m clearly not a troll. I’ve been an active member of this group for years.

Also, I just looked up my comments about the early episodes on this board.

Episode 1: “Now THAT was good.”

Episode 2: I made no comment at all.

Episode 3: “Oh, boy. After two stellar episodes, this was one of the worst in the show’s history. If this is setting the tone for the rest of the season, I’m frankly worried.”

So, M1701, when exactly did I “literally complain about the first two episodes when they aired?” It’s pretty clear which one of us is the troll. So get off my back. You don’t out-rank me and you don’t have pointed ears.

I don’t know. I thought it was a very good episode. The pacing was great. I like the added backstory to Moll and L’ak. I found it added depth and meaning to their characters. And I did love that the MU ship was the Enterprise. As a long-time fan of Trek and loving “Mirror, Mirror” – I often wondered what happened to the ISS-E. This was quite satisfying to me to know where she ended up. Being a writer myself (I wrote several episodes or ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK and other series from time to time), I quite enjoyed the story telling here and in this season. I work more in the technical field now but I still write from time to time. Funny enough, I did write a fan fiction years and years ago that find the ISS-E in the future with Mirror Spock at the helm.

Oh neat I used to watch AYOTD when I was a kid good show.

This awful story is what you get when you assign a novice to write this episode. No offense to Carlos Cisco, but the ‘Mirrors’ episode is a huge mess.

The ‘no offense’ made a huge difference indeed… LOL

What they should’ve done with the extra pages they got in the end (to wrap up the series) is go back and ‘fix’ certain things they would’ve done, had they known it was their last episode. Like bringing in Ethan for at least a cameo or recorded log scene and Lorca in the previous one. Would’ve fixed the ‘talk in stead of show’ issues.

Guess we can add the Breen to the list of things the First Splinter did better (a list that already includes the MU).

I still hate the 32rd century, the entire thing completely destroys world building in the Star Trek Universe to me.

If it was the late 25th century or early 26th century, just a difference in Number really, the jump in tech capabilities would be entirely reasonable and no more than from the late 23rd to the late 24th century. All of the things that happened in the meantime, the burn, the reunification of vulcan etc would have all been much more plausible in a shorter period of time and honestly opening the possibility for many more interesting stories to tell. Even the federation continuing on as a shadow of its former self, the way it is presented in the show, would make much more sense if the burn had been just, say, 30 years ago – and not over 100!

Look at how our real world changed just within the last 80 years since WW2, how a society such as Korea could evolve into two completely different cultures, how entire populations were displaced in Europe, yet that reality became totally normal now. In star trek, on the other hand, somehow progress and change completely ground to a crawl, apparently, following the 2400s.

Again, that baffling decision completely destroys world building and plausibility of the events in Disco for me. Such a minor thing as the number of the date has have such profound ramnifications towards the plausibility of the story (which was probably only chose because it was beyond ANY mentioned events in Canon) and it is just so disappointing that this decision has been apparently been made on a whim.

And now they are doubling down with SF Academy. Just leave it in peace and call it an “alternate Timeline/split timeline” or whatever.

This. I just can’t even bring myself to watch Disco anymore (stopped after season 2). Have seen every episode of every other series excluding Prodigy (am getting to that one), but Disco just doesn’t feel like the same universe, and I’m simply not interested.

This episode was damn fantastic and I find Trekmovie’s comments section for this article a bit more wearying than most.

Ah, thank you. The comments here are becoming grumpy central. I liked the episode and this interview was honest and fun.

I love the Trekmovie podcast and the news coverage, but nowadays I do kind of see the Trekmovie comments as obnoxious haters looking for shallow excuses to flex what they think is their creative writing muscle vs. the comments at Trekcore that are a little more down-to-earth and rational. The comments over there are also much more discussion-based as opposed to the reaction-based dramaticism of the jerks over here. I want to be clear, I’m just talking about the comments. Anthony and Laurie’s podcast and this site’s news coverage is one of the shining lights of the fandom in general. It’s just that the comments section make my eyes roll so hard they occasionally fall out.

A. It’s just people giving their opinions. I don’t think people are trying to be ‘haters’ just honest. Yes people are passionate.

B. It’s literally been like this here since 2009. It’s actually better today than a decade ago after STID came out. That was brutal lol.

I liked that TNG mostly didn’t revisit TOS aliens (but when it did, it overused them – see: Klingons — or made them lame – see: Vulcans and Romulans).

I wish Discovery had tried to do its own thing.

Honestly I think it is Enterprise that made the Vulcans lame. Outside of Spock and Sarek we didn’t really even get many Vulcans in TNG

I agree to an extent. That being said I’d rather use an established adversary than invent something new out of whole cloth.

I for one am happy to see the Breen back as they were one of my favorite parts of DS9. I wouldn’t have shown their faces but I like what we got. Im also glad we’re using and expanding on something established as opposed to inventing something brand new. I hope we see the Tholians too as they were name dropped earlier in the season.

Cisco is clearly a fan but it feels like the writers this season really want to be doing an early 24th/25th century show. The story and ideas do not feel they inspired by and coming organically from the shows characters and setting. The show is increasingly contrived as a grab bag of 24th/25th century ideas are brute-forced into Discovey at the expense of its own already weak characters.

They’ve fallen into a catch-22 where the show is entirely dependent of references/callbacks to keep you invested because of its own weak setting and characters…but they’re weak because their development has been sacrified in favor of more refences. The show started started off with training wheels and instead of letting it eventually ride on its own they just keep adding more training wheels.

It’s a shame because in a vaccum I actually think a lot of the Breen development is pretty neat. I hope Cisco, Lee, and others are new and better opportunities with the franchise in the future. But I’m increasingly worried that with Kurtzman in charge it’ll just be more of the same. Coming Soon: 32nd Starfleet Academy! Featuring such instructors as The Doctor, Guinan, Wesley Crusher, and a Soong Android!