Star Trek: The Next Generation Cast Reunite Behind-the-Scenes of Picard

This week’s episode of Star Trek: Picard brought back two key characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation and killed off another fan favorite. Behind-the-scenes, there was an even larger Star Trek: The Next Generation reunion taking place. Star Trek: Picard star Isa Briones acted opposite Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, and Marina Sirtis in the episode “Nepenthe.” Frakes reprised his role as William Riker while Sirtis again played Deanna Troi. Briones shared on Instagram a behind-the-scenes photo of herself sitting with Stewart, Frakes, Sirtis, and their former co-stars LeVar Burton and Michael Dorn. Burton played Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Dorn played Worf.

Fans shouldn’t jump to any conclusions about Burton and Dorn appearing on screen in the first season of Picard. 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.”

We do know something about where Geordi and Worf have been since the events of Star Trek: Nemesis. Geordi aided Picard in building a fleet of ships to rescue the Romulans. Worf took Picard’s place as captain of the Enterprise.

While Worf won’t appear in the flesh in the new season, an image of him from Star Trek: The Next Generation did appear in the show’s first episode, “Remembrance.” Michael Dorn has said it will take a significant role to get him to come back as the Klingon Starfleet officer.

“I’m only interested in if it’s something really interesting; if the character was a major part of the franchise or whatever the show is,” Dorn has said previously. “He’s not just going to show up, beat somebody up, and then go home.”

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.”

And though Worf and Geordi won’t show up in the first season, 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.