Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Showrunner Teases More Returning Next Generation and “Adjacent” Characters

Star Trek fans can expect a few more returning Star Trek: The Next Generation and “adjacent” characters in Star Trek: Picard Season 3. Showrunner Terry Matalas teased the returns during Monday’s Star Trek: Picard Season 3 panel at the TCA 2023 winter press tour. Fans have known for months that the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast will reunite in Star Trek: Picard’s final season (Or is it?). However, the NYCC trailer for the season brought some surprises, including that Brent Spiner isn’t playing Data (who died in Star Trek: Nemesis), but Data’s evil brother, Lore. The trailer also revealed that Dr. Moriarity (played by Daniel Davis) is back, which few if any fans saw coming. But there may be more on the way.

During the panel, Matalas said (via Trek Central) that “a few Next Gen, Next Gen-adjacent characters” like Moriarty will appear in the season. As for why Moriarty is back, he added, “The Moriarty storyline was a big influence on me when I was younger… He’s just as good as he was back then.”

Star Trek: The Next Generation-adjacent returns.

Matalas’ comments about Next Genereation-adjacent character seem to go hand in hand with some previous comments he made. In his comments, he said that Picard‘s final season would have some representation for The Next Generation‘s spinoff shows.

“I think that it’s important to Deep Space Nine fans to feel seen,” Matalas told Den of Geek. “It’s a continuation of Voyager too, of course, with Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) in our show. If you’re going to be in this time period, there’s such a rich opportunity to honor what came before.”

Who could return in Star Trek: Picard Season 3?

Some possible characters that could return from Star Trek: The Next Generation are Michelle Forbes as Ro Laren, Colm Meaney as Miles O’Brien, and Denise Crosby as Sela. Ro was a recurring character in Next Generation‘s later seasons, a Bajoran Starfleet officer whose last appearance saw her defecting to the Maquis. O’Brien was the Enterprise-D transporter chief who left that position to become chief of operations on Deep Space 9. In his last appearance, he took a teaching position at Starfleet Academy. Sela is a Romulan antagonist and the daughter of Tasha Yar, last seen defeated in the two-part “Unification” episode of Next Generation.

Almost any character from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine or Star Trek: Voyager could also appear, though Kate Mulgrew has ruled out the idea of Janeway appearing. From Deep Space Nine, there are Starfleet officers Julian Bashir and Ezri Dax, with whom Worf would have existing relationships from his time on the space station. From Voyager, Tom Paris (who already appeared in Star Trek: Lower Decks), B’Elanna Torres, and Harry Kim (Chakotay’s whereabouts are tied up in ).

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 premieres on Paramount+ on February 16th. The show’s first two seasons are streaming now.