LeVar Burton Posts Star Trek Reunion Photo With Patrick Stewart

After reuniting with other Star Trek: The Next Generation cast members on the set of Star Trek: Picard, LeVar Burton and Patrick Stewart reunited again. Burton played Geordi La Forge alongside Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation. The two reunited and Burton shared a photo to Twitter. He tweeted, “These are the moments that I live for… #bydhttmwfi.” with that hashtag being an abbreviation of his signature catchphrase “but you don’t have to take my word for it.” He used the phrase during his time hosting Reading Rainbow and continues to make use of it on his podcast LeVar Burton Reads.

Stewart returned to his role as Jean-Luc Picard in the new series Star Trek: Picard on CBS All Access. Fans shouldn’t expect to see Burton and most of his Star Trek: The Next Generation co-stars appearing in the show’s first season. The show’s producers ruled out appearances by Geordi or Worf in a previous interview.

“We made a point not to bring back any legacy characters that didn’t organically tell this story,” executive producer Heather Kadin said. “Which is why, unfortunately, you don’t have Michael Dorn as Worf, and you don’t have [LeVar Burton as] Geordi. Otherwise, we keep joking it’d be The Next Next Generation.

Stewart, who is an executive producer on Picard, said that he was hesitant to bring any of his old co-stars back. In the end, he said, “I think we all realized that we were missing opportunities, particularly in the case of Data, who, although you don’t see him very much, plays a role in the entire season. A very important one, too.”

Geordi won’t show up in the first season, but the series is already renewed for its second season. “I hope we will meet all of the principal characters from Next Generation eventually,” Stewart says.

New episodes of Star Trek: Picard become available to stream Thursdays on CBS All Access.