Star Trek: Patrick Stewart On What Picard Season 3 Offers that Next Generation Never Did

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 will be giving Star Trek fans one of the biggest “event” story arcs in the series: reuniting the principal cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation for a final adventure. The list of returning TNG characters includes Worf (Michale Dorn), Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton), Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes), Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar), and Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), with Brent Spiner also returning as Data’s evil “brother” Lore. With so many big names coming back, one question that has sprung up in the fandom is “What can Picard Season 3 do that Next Generation didn’t?”

While doing the press junket for Star Trek: Picard Season 3, ComicBook.com asked Patrick Stewart what this Final Season of Picard let him do with the legacy and lore of Star Trek: The Next Generation that he didn’t have the opportunity to do before. Stewart had a surprisingly deep answer to that question: 

“Insecurity. Uncertainty. A losing confidence in that he [Jean-Luc Picard] may have the right answers. And loneliness, too. Not being connected to others, and yet the situation is potentially deadly. They were all wonderful, interesting things to play, because they’ve rarely been present in him before.” 

Not only are  Star Trek: Picard Season 3 showrunner Terry Matalas and his writing team adding new elements to The Next Generation characters – they are almost re-imagining them as more three-dimensional and complicated versions of the characters we knew: 

“The reason I jumped onboard was because I loved the character arc and the story,” Gates McFadden added. “I felt it [the story] showed many more aspects all at once, instead of, you know, once or twice an entire season. We saw that yes, she’s a woman in charge; that she can run her own ship; she’s a mother, she’s a scientist, she can find vaccines and research things – and yes, she can be wrong, she can miss things. I think the humanity and fallibility of characters – which certainly happens as we age – we are no longer know-it-alls because we know that we’ve all failed at different points in our lives. And that brings wisdom and humility and I think we see some of that in all of the characters. So that was a joy, actually, and Terry was superb to work with.”

McFadden and Stewart couldn’t speak to their respective futures in Star Trek but didn’t close the door on working and having fun with old friends again… 

The first two seasons of Star Trek: Picard, along with all seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation, are streaming now on Paramount+. Star Trek: Picard Season 3 premieres on February 16th.