Star Trek: Picard Showrunner Reveals Why Season 3 Cut Most of the Previous Cast

Star Trek: Picard's third season brings back the original cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but shed many of the characters that accompanied Jean-Luc Picard during the new show's first two seasons. Alison Pill's Dr. Agnes Jurati became a benevolent Borg Queen. Evan Evagora's Elnor is presumably still serving as the first Romulan in Starfleet. Isa Briones played multiple characters, with Sojia Asha becoming an ambassador for synths and Kore Soong becoming a Traveller. Santiago Cabrera's Cristobal Rios remained in the 21st century. But why did Star Trek: Picard wrap these characters' story early instead of carrying them over into its final season?

"It's really about real estate, right?" Star Trek: Picard Season 3 showrunner Terry Matalas tells Digital Spy. "You want every character to have its due and it was a very specific story we wanted to tell... in order to do that you have to have the room to do it. And so for those reasons, you needed to, you needed to have the room. So we sort of had to reinvent the show a little bit. And go a different direction."

Orla Brady made a brief appearance as Laris in Picard's Season 3 premiere, but it's unclear if she'll be back before the series ends. Michelle Hurd is also back as Raffi, returning to her roots as a part of Starfleet Intelligence. Jeri Ryan is also back as Seven of Nine, the character she originated on Star Trek: Voyager, as she's struggling to adapt to life in Starfleet. ComicBook.com spoke to Matalas about how he and his team found a way to bring all of these characters together.

"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."

New Star Trek: Picard Season 3 episodes debut Thursdays on Paramount+.