How Star Trek: Picard Brought Back the Original Voice of the Enterprise-D

By Jamie Lovett

Star Trek fans may have recognized a familiar voice from Star Trek: The Next Generation in Star Trek: Picard Season 3, Episode 9, "Vox." Star Trek: Picard's penultimate episode saw the Star Trek: The Next Generation crew boarding the Enterprise-D for the first time in decades, as rebuilt at the Fleet Museum by Commodore Geordi La Forge. When Jean-Luc Picard spoke to the Enterprise-D's computer, a familiar voice came out, that of Majel Barrett, who voiced the computers of nearly all Starfleet vessels from Star Trek: The Original Series through the 2009 Star Trek movie, recording her final performance just two weeks before her death in December 2008 (the filmmakers dedicated the movie to Barrett and her late husband, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry).

Given Barrett's death, it might be surprising to hear her voice in Star Trek: Picard, especially since showrunner Terry Matalas had previously confirmed there would be a new voice for the computer on the USS Titan in Star Trek: Picard Season 3. Speaking to Collider, Matalas revealed how and why they restored Barrett's voice along with the Enterprise-D.

"It had to be her," Matalas said. And then we went back and forth as to whether or not we use AI, but at the time we were doing it, it wasn't quite there. So we used clips from [Star Trek: The New Generation] to make it even more authentic, but it had to be her on that ship or else it wasn't right."

Matals previously obscured the inclusion of Barrett's voice in the season, offering "Time & money" as the reason for the change in a tweet responding to a fan. "Or I can spend that bringing back a legacy character onscreen. Fans may not love to hear this: TV shows actually have a finite amount of time & resources. You can't dial up some subpar deepfake on a website and call it a day. If you're going to do it, do it right."

How to watch Star Trek: Picard

The final episode of Star Trek: Picard premieres on Thursday on Paramount+. All previous Star Trek: Picard episodes are streaming now on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Picard streams exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S. and on Amazon Prime Video in over 200 countries and territories. In Canada, it airs on Bell Media's CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave.

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