Star Trek: Picard’s Todd Stashwick on the Fun of Playing the Outsider in Season 3’s TNG Reunion (Exclusive)

Star Trek fans are excited about Star Trek: Picard , but one person isn’t thrilled and that’s USS Titan-A’s Captain Liam Shaw, played by Todd Stashwick. As viewers saw in Picard, Shaw is a by-the-book officer who isn’t interested in getting swept up in one of Jean-Luc Picard and William Riker’s famous — or, as he might describe them, infamous — adventures, and isn’t shy about sharing that opinion with his higher-ranking Starfleet legends even though that’s exactly what happens to him. Speaking to ComicBook.com, Stashwick explained what it’s like playing the odd man out in Picard Season 3’s reunion.

“In many ways, It made it easier to be able to jump in and take his own status,” Stashwick says. “He is not a fanboy of Jean-Luc or Riker, and so as an actor, it was fun to just jump in and be that opposing opinion. And they gave me such delicious things to say in the deep passive aggression that he has towards them, and the disdain. He doesn’t hide it.”

Star Trek: Picard’s Capt. Liam Shaw and First Officer Seven of Nine

While Shaw didn’t consent to have Picard and Riker come aboard his ship to commandeer it for an unsanctioned mission, he did choose Seven of Nine as his first officer, though the two don’t seem to be enjoying their time working together. “A captain chooses his first officer to not be like them,” Stashwick explains, “to be antithetical in many so that they can have dissent and opposing opinions, and Shaw is so smart to choose Seven as his first officer because he knows that she absolutely will challenge him, she absolutely will speak her mind, and she absolutely will tell him when he’s wrong, which is so, so rare.”

He continues, explaining how their relationship bucks the typical trend in relationships between Star Trek’s captains and first officers. “You often see the sort of budding camaraderie between the first officer and the captain, and there is none of that,” he says. “There’s no budding camaraderie.”

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 premieres new episodes on Thursdays on Paramount+. 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.