Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Introduces SPOILER's Child
The Star Trek: Picard Season 3 premiere episode title "The Next Generation," seemingly a reference to Star Trek: The Next Generation, takes on another meaning as the episode concludes by introducing the child of one of The Next Generation's main characters. SPOILERS follow for the Star Trek: Picard Season 3 premiere episode "The Next Generation." The episode opens with Beverly Crusher in distress. She sends a coded message to Jean-Luc Picard asking for help. Picard seeks assistance from his old Number One, William Riker. Together, the two plot to redirect the USS Titan-A to where they need to go to find Crusher. Capt. Liam Shaw didn't go for it, but his first officer, Cmdr. Seven of Nine was more willing to bring her old friend Picard where he needed to go.
Picard and Riker board Crusher's ship, but she isn't alone. While Picard finds Crusher in some kind of status pod, another figure pulls a phaser on Riker. Things get tense until RIker turns the tables on the mysterious figure. This unknown person claims to be Beverly Crusher's son.
With Beverly incapacitated, there's no confirmation that this person, played by Ed Speleers, is who he claims to be. However, if it is true, that makes him Wesley Crusher's half-brother. The revelation of Jack's existence of course begs the question of who his father is.
The episode doesn't reveal the other half of this person's parentage. However, given this series is named after Jean-Luc Picard, and much has been made of Beverly suddenly and unexpectedly leaving Starfleet and cutting herself off from her old crewmates, Picard does seem to be the number one suspect. One assumes the remaining episodes of Star Trek: Picard's final season will provide more answers to these questions.
Introducing Beverly Crusher's son certainly plays into the theme of the season, as explained to ComicBook.com by showrunner Terry Matalas. "We knew right from the beginning it was going to be a story about the last generation passing the torch to the next, and that permeates the story in many different ways, emotionally," Matalas said. "There are some bombshell revelations for Picard, and it's a story about legacy. There's something really satisfying about bringing these characters back decades later to see how much they've changed, how much they've stayed the same, and to be able to tell one final Next Generation story that ties all of those arcs together, including some arcs that began 30 years ago. To tie them up by the end, it just felt like it could be not only a really satisfying conclusion but also a satisfying beginning to a whole other young crew, if you will."
When do new episodes of Star Trek: Picard release?
New episodes of Star Trek: Picard Season 3 debut weekly on Paramount+ on Thursdays. Star Trek: Picard's first two seasons are already streaming on Paramount+.
Star Trek: Picard streams exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S. and on Amazon Prime Video in more than 200 countries and territories. In Canada, it airs on Bell Media's CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave.