Star Trek: Legacy Gets a Devastating Update From TNG Star

Star Trek is once again at a fork in the road, as the franchise moves out of its streaming heyday on Paramount+ and systematically ends the wave of new shows that came with it. That included Star Trek: Picard, the legacy sequel series to Star Trek: The Next Generation, which ran for three seasons from 2020 to 2023. However, Picard Season 3 earned some amount of redemption for the divisive series, with a storyline that reunited Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) with his main TNG cast, while also introducing the next generation of Next Generation characters, like Picard and Dr. Beverly Crusher’s (Gates McFadden) son, Jack (Ed Speelers), or Geordi La Forge’s (LeVar Burton) two daughters, Alandra (Mica Burton) and Sidney (Asheli Sharpe Chestnut).

SPOILERS: The finale of Star Trek: Picard Season 3 set up an entire new era of Star Trek, with USS Enterprise-G getting its inagural launch under the command of Picard’s trusted ally, Voyager’s Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), with his old friend Raffi Musiker (Michelle Hurd) serving as first officer, Jack as a “special counselor” to the captain, and the La Forge girls as officers. It was heavily implied that Star Trek: Legacy would be the next series coming. But now, three years later, there’s been no greenlight on production or even an official announcement that the series is happening.

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“First of all, Legacy is never gonna happen,” TNG star Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi) told a crowd during a panel on Star Trek: The Cruise, which is gearing up for its big 2027 opening to the public.

Various stars of the Star Trek franchise will be part of the cruise line experience, including William Riker actor Jonathan Frakes, who was also onstage at the panel. When Sirtis hit fans with a death knell for Star Trek: Legacy, Frakes tried to power up some emotional shields, yelling, “Come on, Marina!” However, his co-star (and onscreen wife) had more to say on the subject.

Why Star Trek: Legacy Probably Won’t Get Made (At Least This Version)

Marina Sirtis explained why she has little to no confidence in Star Trek: Legacy happening, because the studios wouldn’t be willing to invest in the actual legacy characters, at this point.

“You know, you hate hearing the truth. There is not a single studio in America that is gonna make a series where most of the leading actors are over 70 years old. I’m sorry, but that’s just the truth. It’s just Hollywood.”

Sirtis is also gracefully side-stepping the massive elephant in the room: Paramount tried to invest in Patrick Stewart’s return as Jean-Luc Picard, with three seasons of a spinoff series that looked like it had more budget behind it than just about any other Star Trek show. The end result was one of Star Trek’s most divisive shows, and no one has since asked for any other legacy character to get their own spinoff. In fact, Star Trek: Legacy was so appealing in part because it was the only real way most fans could see actors like Sirtis, Frakes, Stewart, and others continuing: sporadic cameos in certain episodes, with the older stars generally rotating in and out while the younger cast gradually took on more screen time, as their characters evolved and grew.

That door wasn’t just open to old TNG heroes: Picard ended with John de Lancie’s “Q” approaching Picard’s son Jack, thrilling fans with the idea that Legacy could begin with the same kind of premiere episode as TNG (the crew having to tangle with Q’s god-like power, clashing with his childlike curiosity about humanity’s existence).

Picard star Jeri Ryan has said that fans should “never say never” when it comes to one day getting Star Trek: Legacy. The franchise does have a habbit of eventually getting back around to ideas it left on the back burner. Maybe Legacy will be whatever it needs to be, if and when it does get the greenlight.

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