‘Star Trek: Picard’ – The Possibility of Worf In Future Seasons, A New Perspective On The Borg, And More

With a week to go to the premiere episode of Star Trek: Picard, we’ve rounded up some bits of interest from interviews the producers and cast have given at the red carpet premiere events in the US and the UK.

The possibility of Worf on Picard

With Patrick Stewart saying he hopes to include more of the TNG cast in the show, one specific character that fans have wondered about comes to mind: Worf. TVLine asked Alex Kurtzman about it, who said:

It’s totally possible, I think Worf is such an amazing character… We didn’t want to just throw people in because they were in Next Gen… We actually weren’t even thinking about bringing Marina [Sirtis] and Jonathan [Frakes] back until halfway through the season when, as we were breaking story, something came up that made it very clear they need to be in the story. So a deliberate reason is the bar, and if there’s a great reason to bring Worf in, anything is possible.

The big question is what would Worf’s Klingon makeup look like? Kurtzman responded:

…he’s got to look the same, we’re not changing that. It’s funny, because you’ll see by the time you get to [Picard‘s] third episode, there are different kinds of Romulans that look different, depending on their territories. You’ll see some Romulans that are just about the ears, you’ll see some with the ears and deeper ridges in their foreheads… so I have to believe that there are different iterations of Klingons, depending on where they are from.

The Discovery-style Klingon makeup has already undergone a number of tweaks, making it quite a bit closer to the TNG-era makeup style than it was at the beginning of the series. So tweaking things further to give Worf a look that’s similar to the way he was last seen (in Nemesis) wouldn’t be a far stretch.

Worf in Star Trek Nemesis

 

NOTE: It should be obvious, but if you’re trying to stay totally clean and spoiler free, don’t read the interview excerpts below.

Where we find Seven of Nine in Picard

Jeri Ryan and Alex Kurtzman spoke with IGN about the inclusion of Seven of Nine.

Jeri Ryan says Seven’s not a fan of Starfleet when we meet up with her again:

Seven I think holds Starfleet and the Federation in large part responsible for much of it. The universe is a mess and I think she initially sees Picard as a representation of that. She’s been working … with sort of a group of freedom fighters called the Fenris Rangers who are trying to keep some semblance of order in the mess that is the galaxy.

NOTE: A likely clue: Fenris is a monstrous wolf in Norse mythology, and Romulus and Remus were twins raised by wolves in Roman mythology.

Ryan went on to explain that the moment we’ve seen in the trailers with Seven coming to Picard at his vineyard is the first time the two characters actually meet:

This is the first time that Seven and Picard actually meet, they know each other by reputation. And as I’ve said before, Seven’s not on the ‘Oh, he’s a god’ bandwagon I think initially when she meets him because she holds him partially responsible for what Starfleet has done in her view.

Executive producer Alex Kurtzman spoke about Seven’s inclusion:

Seven and Picard have never been onscreen together before. So that was a really interesting opportunity, and what they share, even though they’ve never spoken, is they were both assimilated by the Borg. So they would obviously both be haunted by that element of their lives. We certainly know that both of them have been individually, and now what does it mean for them to see that in each other. Is it too painful? Is it a little like staring into the sun? Is it comforting? Those are really interesting questions to ask.

Seven of Nine comes to find Jean-Luc Picard at his vineyard.

Picard’s new perspective on The Borg

Alex Kurtzman spoke with CNET about The Borg in Star Trek: Picard:

There’s a humanity, for the lack of a better word, that was taken away from them. There’s a new perspective on the Borg. Patrick, in his infinite wisdom, did not want to repeat the things he had played already, he was really resistant to doing the Borg for a long time, and it ended up leading us to a new version of the Borg you haven’t seen.

A Borg corpse in a Romulan lab

CNET then confirmed that Hugh still looks after the Borg that disconnected from the collective, as seen in the TNG two-parter “Descent,” who have become more human over time. The broader Borg collective is still out there somewhere, and remains a threat.

Jonathan Del Arco confirmed to CNET that Hugh has spent the last 20 years serving as a protector to the disconnected Borg, and has had to make compromises to keep his people safe. “But he’s held on to that moral center that I think has always made the character really important to Star Trek,” he added.

Hugh has been tending to his disconnected colony of Borg since TNG: “Descent, Part II”

Cast members tease their characters

https://www.instagram.com/p/B7WVDQHFK45/


Star Trek: Picard will premiere on January 23, 2020. It will be available on CBS All Access in the USA and on the CTV Sci-Fi Channel and CraveTV in Canada. It will premiere on Amazon Prime Video for the rest of the world on January 24. Episodes will be released weekly.

Keep up with all the Star Trek: Picard news at TrekMovie.

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I wonder about why such a heavy Borg and Romulan influence for this show. Here is my conspiracy theory: the producers wanted to do the Borg and Romulans for Discovery but were kept being told “no” since it violates continuity. When they hear Patrick Stewart was willing to come back to do a show, they got to scratch that Borg and Romulan itch with a post-TNG era show.

Let’s be thankful Patrick Stewart was willing to come back, otherwise we’d see the Borg and Romulans on Discovery or a Pike show. And then continuity is gone!

I tend to agree with you there, VZX, in all respects.

Except that I’m thinking they offered Stewart a truckload of money to come back to begin with. Then when they were pitching the story his response was “I’ve done the Borg already.” Then they drove up another truckload of money and his response was, “But we can do a new take on them.”

Teehee, ML31! But let’s not forget: ” we also offer to turn 24th century Utopia into a crude metaphor of your pet peeves with British politics”. Too sweet a deal to refuse ;)

Think the Narada from ST:2009 is the answer to that question. It’s a Borg augmented Romulan mining ship. So the relationship was established before the show was conceived. The writers I suppose wanted to pick up that thread and place Picard in the middle.

I must have missed the part where it was suggested Narada had Borg tech in it….

It was in the Countdown comic running up to the 2009 movie. Nero and crew were miners and Neros wife and kid died on Romulus because Spock was to late.

I still have that comic somewhere. Must have forgotten. I forgot much of it because much has been wiped out of cannon. But while I did think a mining ship, even a Romulan mining ship seemed to have an unusually high assortment of weapons, I just figured they took out all those ships because their weapons were far superior. Being from the future and all. It’s like using a machine gun against a pistol. Also, they pretty much had an amazingly easy time against the Kelvin. It stood to reason they wouldn’t have much more difficulty against 6 or 7 star ships.

It was in the original Countdown comic. It was never made canon in the movie but it would explain how a MINING ship was so damn powerful it could take out half of Starfleet lol.

The ship was from the Future. No Borg tech needed.

NH4, go away. I don’t like you, you were already banned once and you are a waste a space here. I’m sorry your life is so boring you want to interact with people online who clearly don’t want to talk to you, but that’s not my problem.

Just leave me alone. Thanks.

I think you posted to the wrong guy.

Leave me alone. Seriously. Go away. You’re pathetic.

I just stopped feeding the trolls, Tiger. I don’t even read their posts. I see the name and move on.

YOu know I never respond to this loser. But yeah sometimes even I crack lol. And I never read his posts either, but 90% it’s just usually one line to bait people. At least most ignore those as well. You have to feel sorry for people like this. I could see if you’re a teenager doing it, but a middle age man doing it is just weird to me. Even sadder when he was kicked off here and still came back just to keep trolling. At least learn your lesson and try to act like an adult. You’re telling the world your life is just that dull when this is all you do here.

Anyway, moving on…

Yeah, After Romulus went boom, Nero and his miners too shelter in the Tal Shiar base “The Vault” (where they have been experimenting with Borg technology) and Nero got them to pimp out his mining ship with all the flashy Romulan/Borg tech. That was in the comic (and is also a major thread in Star Trek Online)

Thanks for the info! :)

Totally agree VZX!

I been saying that BEFORE we knew there would even be a Picard show that it was obvious they wanted to do the Borg but knew DIS was off limits to them. And obviously they couldn’t do a Romulan story either.

That’s why it’s so bizarre some people keep saying just because something is a prequel it doesn’t restrict you from doing certain stories. Uh yeah it does lol. These are two prime examples. Sure they could’ve found some workaround with it just like they did with the mirror universe since that obviously wasn’t suppose to be known until later, but I think it would’ve felt too much of a cop out if they constantly ‘classify’ everything like they been doing the first two seasons. And it would’ve pissed off some fans regardless. So I’m glad that won’t happen now and we get a full on story line about them.

It’s why I hate prequels, because when an idea has to be a non-starter from the beginning it limits the imagination, hence why we now have Picard and Discovery a thousand years into the future, they were sick of it too. Now ANYTHING is possible again.

OK. Sure. There are some things that aren’t touchable in prequels. In STD the Borg were one of them. Boo hoo. If you really had your heart set on a Borg arc then they should have set the show in a time where that was possible. But there are still a plethora of stories they could do in prequels. And in my mind it forces writers to be more creative. Story themes themselves are repeatable. It’s been done for centuries. Just because you can’t use the Romulans doesn’t mean a good story cannot be crafted. Take your Romulan story and adjust to work in the given time frame. Retain the themes you wanted to explore. It can be done. But if the writer’s heart was set on Romulans then Discovery just wasn’t the show for that writer.

I don’t disagree with any of that, but what if you just WANT to do a story about Romulans? For some, that’s going to be an issue. And again, we have to remember everyone working on the show now DIDN’T come up with the idea and setting for Discovery, Bryan Fuller did. Yes maybe for HIM he didn’t want to do stories about the Borg anymore or Romulans. But once he was gone, he left a show that the new people obviously didn’t really know what to do with and hence why second season we got Section 31, AI killer robots and a crazy time travel story. We did get Pike though!

At the end of the day that’s what we have to remember, no one was really gung ho to do a prequel EXCEPT Fuller. And even he didn’t see the show ONLY set in a prequel setting since we know he wanted to do multiple eras including post-Nemesis stories.

I also don’t think Kurtzman ever thought he was going to be this involved with Star Trek and start steering the franchise as he is now. The funny thing is when DIS was under Fuller we never heard a peep from Kurtzman. Fuller was really the face of Star Trek at that time at least. Kurtzman was more in the background. My guess is he originally was just going to produce the show but let them do whatever ideas came to Fuller. But once all the chaos happened he got more involved directly and clearly decided he wanted DIS to be a very different thing and made it so. And not a shock since he was always more a TNG fan than a TOS one and for the firs time can really in charge to do any idea he wanted.

Yes, in the case of Discovery, staff was stuck with Fuller’s first season idea. So if they really wanted to use Romulans they couldn’t. That was the situation they were in. To me, however, instead of whining about how they wish they could update the Borg, how about crafting a good story in the time frame you were stuck with? If your staff can’t work with the parameters that are set then you need a new staff. That is essentially how I feel about Discovery at the moment. I don’t see much turnover behind the scenes for season 3 so even set 900 years in the future I don’t see a lot of hope there. I want to be wrong but I just don’t see it.

Well they tried though…and we saw how well how well that worked out. ;)

And to be fair I don’t think it being a prequel had anything to do with bad story telling, simply not enough great ideas (if you truly believe DIS is bad. Sadly I always have to make a disclaimer I’m not speaking for every Star Trek fan out there simply the ones who didn’t like it).

And obviously it doesn’t mean going into the future will get us better stories either. BUT I have to believe they set the story far into the future because they became very inspired by the idea and came up with a lot of great reasons to do it unlike the first two seasons they were simply handed a premise no one was very fond of and had to make the best of it. We’ll see!

The Borg can be in season 3 of Discovery. They didn’t have to create Star Trek Picard to show off the Borg.

I vert much doubt you are correct about this. Not at all.

When I think of TNG I think of those two as the ever-present threats. It kinda fits to be dealing with them now. Picard has such strong ties to Romulans, on one hand being an adversary and on another really wanting to see peace and explore the intricacies of the Romulan people. Just my opinions though.

Occam’s Razor suggests a more obvious explanation: Picard has a long and personal history with both the Borg (from BEST OF BOTH WORLDS and FIRST CONTACT) and the Romulans (between REUNIFICATION, NEMESIS, and the backstory to ST2009). They’re the two most obvious threads to weave together for this story.

Let’s face the music here…

Borg and Romulans are back, partially due to the movies (First Contact, Nemesis), and partially due to Star Trek Online (the game).

Original ideas are fleeting with Kurtzman. Then again, given intellectual properties owned by CBS, there may not have been much choice, except to ‘re-launch’ with those factions — and take Starfleet/Federation in a new direction.

Then again, Star Trek: Picard feels somewhat like Renegades…

I think they did the Borg and Romulans the same reason they did the Klingons with Discovery, because they are all iconic species in Star Trek and what most fans want to see.

And let’s be honest, I don’t know why but whenever Star Trek tries to do a new villain out of the gate in either the movies or shows, they always fail. The Kazon, Suliban, Son’a, etc, just all forgettable villains. There are plenty of good villains in Trek but when you make them from the start they never seem to work out oddly. I rolled my eyes when I realized that Discovery was going to do the Klingons first season but then I thought about it, yeah, outside of the Romulans and Klingons, the 23rd century just has no other formidable villains. And they basically confirmed that in second season because the villain was Section 31 when you really think about it. They probably would’ve loved to have brought in the Romulans but as said canon stops them.

Maybe they will surprise us for third season since they can start completely fresh and come up with something new but I’m not holding my breath. I have a feeling its going to be the Cardassians lol.

I like the Son’a and empathize with them, lol! The Ba’ku are such a selfish bunch of 600 squatters!

Not to mention the Ferengi. That name drop in the pilot was so ominous. And then…

The Ferengi were altered a LOT from the original intention. But I agree that the only two aliens that were consistent in intent AND threat were probably the Borg and Romulans. The Dominion might be a good threat as well, but I am not sure that story line can continue.

It might be why writers always want to do Borg and Romulan stories: they are Trek’s best baddies! (And Khan’s people too, I guess)

But that alteration only came AFTER they were shown in the first season.

I find that writers who want to keep running back to the Borg or the Romulans to be lazy. Part of me is thinking it’s more the producing and front office side of things that want to do that. “Do a show with the Borg! Surveys show fans have loved them!”

Obviously but we have to remember its still a business end of the day. These were the same people who said over and over again we would NEVER see Spock on Discovery (which made no sense to me since they gave the guy a sister lol) and then what do you know? Why the change? We know why, people were probably asking over and over again where was Spock since his newly created sister was on the show and was in Starfleet the same time; so it probably confused tons of people giving the show a chance who didn’t get the memo reading boards like this hours a day he was never showing up. And they probably got ton of feedback saying the show needed more TOS characters, especially Spock, and CBS told them to come up with something.

I say over and over again I want NEW stuff and I really mean that. It’s why I was a big TNG fan out of the gate. It was refreshing to see new characters in a different setting even back then. But of course I’m a fan, I want to see the old stuff too IF they are going to do it. It’s not my first preference but of course it piques my curiosity once they decide to go that direction. And as someone who DIDN’T want Spock originally (at least not full time) I obviously can’t blame them. End of the day its about getting subscriptions to AA. People like us are going to watch NO MATTER WHAT! It’s the more casual fans they have to get on board with this stuff, especially when you’re paying for it and name recognition goes a long way for people like this.

Hence Star Trek: Picard debuting a week from now. ;)

I still think the reason for Spock showing up wasn’t because audiences were wondering where he was at this time. Burnham being Spock’s adoptive sister was obviously an insurance policy. A safety net. Something they added to the character they hoped they would not have to tap. Hence, “We will never see Spock on Discovery”. What that comment meant was, “unless we are not getting the subscriber total was were hoping for.” I think it obvious season 1 under performed subscriber wise. Hence, Spock and Pike show up.

I like new stuff, too. Back in the mid 80’s when a new Trek show was being written about, my hope was it would be in the same time the TOS movies were in… Just a new crew of characters on a new Star Ship. I liked the idea of new blood. I was just not on board with setting the show 70+ years down the line. I understand the reason why they did it. I disagreed with it, however. Of course I accepted that is where it went. And it seems to have worked out OK if not well. But I still feel cheated a bit GR opted to go forward like he did.

Yes, I agree but I think that’s what happened too. I think they weren’t getting the subscribers they hoped and wanted to find a way to entice people and who better than freaking Spock.

And I’m not suggesting people didn’t watch or they stopped watching because Spock wasn’t there, I’m only saying EVENTUALLY people were going to start wondering how come we never see this guy if his name is brought up every three episodes and he never shows up? First few seasons, they could’ve gotten away with it but sooner or later people were going to start wondering when we would see him if the REST of his family was shown every season. That’s what is so utterly weird about saying we were NEVER going to see the guy. You mean we could go for 7 seasons and not see him even in a cameo? I understand they didn’t want to make it all about Spock and if they said in the first season we will eventually run into him that’s all people would’ve been talking about but creating a sister automatically set up expectations regardless.

If they simply did what they ironically did in second season, acknowledge him and simply moved on afterwards most fans would be satisfied.

As far as the going forward thing, obviously I felt the complete opposite that you did with TNG. But same time, it doesn’t mean they couldn’t make another show ultimately back in TOS era, even after TNG. I think the issue at that time was what DIS was facing now, if you make it in that era people will still ultimately want to see Kirk and those other guys and GR didn’t want any distractions with new characters, so it was best to start completely anew and where you wouldn’t have that expectation. But if the new characters became popular enough like TNG ultimately did I guess that may not have been the case but that was hard to judge back then where TOS was really what defined Star Trek at the time.

You hit the nail on the head for why GR moved the show forward 80 years. He didn’t want TOS hanging over he new show’s shoulders all the time. This put some distance between them. I get it and understand it. Ironically they found ways to bring in McCoy and Scotty, however. Something the 80 year difference was supposed to halt. I just wanted to stay in the main time frame and back then did not see the value of leaping forward 80 years when you had a perfectly good thing going in the time frame the universe was in. But that is all water under the bridge. It happened this way and that’s that.

“but were kept being told “no” since it violates continuity”
Are you serious after the way the completely screwed it already.. turning core aspects on it’s head?

I’ve never been one to really care much about the Klingon-look difference over the years, but I’m glad if we see Worf again he’ll have similar features he had in TNG. Frankly, I thought the DSC Klingons looked (and sounded) ridiculous.

Looking forward to the Seven and Picard dynamic, lots of potential there.

I was OK with the JJ-Klingons from Into Darkness. Maybe Worf will look closer to those versions

Yeah I thought that the Into Darkness Klingon looked pretty good. I have mixed feelings on the Disco Klingons.

Yeah those looked amazing. Still a bit different from the prime universe but you can see a lot of the influences there.

Agreed!

They sounded funny probably from the prosthetic teeth they had to wear. Cotton mouth

Yeah, its not that they CHANGED them that bothered people, its HOW they changed them that was the issue. They just looked too bizarre even for Klingons. We’ve all said it, but even if they just added HAIR, people probably would’ve accepted them more and got over the rest in time. That was just idiotic but Fuller was trying to put his own stamp on everything.

Stuff changes over time, but they just made poor choices with the new klingons. People were in full face masks!!!! and you could tell! The makeup now just seemed cumbersome and uncomfortable. And some of the eggplant head shapes. Ridiculous. I thought it was a big technological regression in fact. The two redundant nostrils. That was kind of an odd choice. I mean, nice try and thanks for playing — but it just didn’t work out. I always thought it would be cool to see some animatronics in the forehead molds so that the “skin” could be expressive. I think that would have been a cool direction to go, what we ended up with was just change for the sake of change.

The new Klingons look better. The old ones just look like humans in a Halloween mask.

By the season 2 finale of Discovery I was even more adjusted to them. I didn’t hate the redesign, but when it softened a little and mixed the new with the old look, to me at least, they looked more like what a Klingon Warrior in my head would look like. The weapons officer on L’rell’s ship looked terrifying and awesome. You could see that he was a Klingon but it wasn’t so different either. That’s more of the look I hope for. Also glad we’ll see both kinds of Romulans. We’re talking about a species, not a single ethnicity. Why wouldn’t they look as different as humans? You can tell we’re all human, but we have differences in the shape of our craniums, the color of our skin, eyes, facial features, noses, etc. When you study anthropology, you really do see our current differences. I want to see that more in sci-fi when other species are displayed.

No one is arguing they can’t have species look more alien or less human, BUT that’s how Klingons now look as a species. I mean think about how human they looked in TOS? I never took those seriously because they just look like pirates in black face to me. So there was already a big shift with them starting in TOS. And no one was bothered by it because it came out well and was accepted for over 40 years now even if they made tweaks to it on other shows.

Obviously its nothing wrong to have species look more alien but imagine if they changed the Vulcans which are nothing more than humans with pointy ears, bad haircuts and refuses to smile to something like a Cardassian. Still acts Vulcan but just more different and alien. Fans would riot lol. You still have to resemble what fans always known them as or they will be rejected. But if you’re going to radically change them then it still has to look GOOD and I didn’t think the DIS Klingons did at all.

But I certainly agree about the Klingons in season 2 and if they went that way in first season it would’ve been fine. What they did with them in season 2 was good IMO. As everyone said they just looked too ridiculous in season one. Now I think they are fine even if still a bit different from the others.

I may have read somewhere that originally they wanted Klingons to be more alien looking but were limited budget and tech wise. They also wanted them to be gold skinned but that flew out the window as well for some reason.

At least Klingons have two you know what’s now.

Thought they sounded great.

I liked the alien look that DSC gave the Klingons (they were actually aliens and not Space Vikings with bad teeth), but wasn’t too keen on how ret-conny it ended up being.

“I’m glad if we see Worf again he’ll have similar features he had in TNG.” as are the overwhelming majority of us.. But they seem dead set on f*cking with all of that.
Unfortunately they are going to carry those stupid looking Klingons into ST:P, and Worf is an exception.

God I hope Seven will call him Locutus!
Obvs not to remind of that pain but to point out they shared a connection.

Nice!

Okay, will be curiously tuning in to this.

Mainly being a fan of the TOS show’s characters and specific style of self-contained individual episode storylines, I’ve got very little investment or expectations on how this latest spin-off will turn out, so I can go into it with an open mind about where things may head.

I’ve not read the above article, as I still want to be spoiler-free going into this, but I’m aware that several characters from the NEXT GEN era will make an appearance. I’m hoping the actual storyline across the PICARD show’s episodes is something worth the wait for any fans that were somewhat underwhelmed with the ‘send-off’ the NEMESIS movie ended up giving them.

Me, I’m certainly more interested in this than the likes of DISCOVERY and the mooted SECTION 31 show, and look forward to this tiding me over until any standalone PIKE show comes along, which will hopefully have a ‘deep space exploration’ vibe to it.

Looking forward to hearing how PICARD’s opening title theme sounds like, and fingers crossed it’s a good ‘un.

My takes…

I do not mind at all they they decide there are different looks to the Romulans and the Klingons. I just wish they embraced that from day one of Discovery. Major lost opportunity to show ALL the kinds of Klingons across all the media. The TOS versions, the later versions and then maybe even a slightly new version. But they didn’t and even doubled down when they came up with the “We shave our head when…” BS.

Next, I’m not so sure I am now liking what I am hearing so far. I’m going into this with less hope than I had before now that more info is coming out. I mean, they are saying this is a “new take on the Borg.” Where have we heard that before?

Same here. I thought they learned thier mistakes from season 1 of disco and I was proven wrong. Then I thought there’s no way they would f*ck with a TNG era show and now we hear they are screwing with the Klingons there too.
Naa. They have finally killed ‘Trek

Good ! No facelift for the Captain of the Enterprise ;)

The World needs more hope today than ever- it is sad in that perspective that they are destroying the hopefull vision of Star Trek. The world where humans has evolved (as Picard testified in Q’s court at farpoint mission)

I would argue the world needed a ton more hope in 1939-45 or even 1914-1918. You know… When millions of people were being killed on a regular basis?

Agreed.

“I would argue the world needed a ton more hope in 1939-45 or even 1914-1918. You know… When millions of people were being killed on a regular basis”

Nowadays when the Tweeter-in-Chief posts a mean word at 3am after red-pilling his Ambien, for the ‘flakes that’s AT LEAST as bad as the Holocaust and the Spanish flu combined!

First world problems ;)

What I’m hoping we get in the first season finale of Picard:

Picard and the gang just finished saving civilization as they know it and heading off to parts unknown. They are in warp when they get a transmission; a priority one distress call.

We see a brief shot of the call letters from the ship. NCC-170

“It’s a hail from Captain Worf sir!”

Picard: “It’s the USS Enterprise!”

The E-E appears in all it’s glory and fades to black. Cue the TNG theme song playing over the credits!

I came up with this all by myself. Can I cook or can I?

Worf will never get a command of his own. Not after what he did on DS9.

People an be redeemed in war A34 and a couple of decades.

The Relaunch novels managed to get Worf to the point he was in the queue for a captaincy : I’d have no issues if that were the case in the new series.

@ Tiger2 – I like that, but seeing as so many familiar NEXT GEN faces seem to be making an appearance along the way in this, I’d also be content to have the season finale end on the disembodied voice of the entertaining John de Lancie saying something like “Oh Jean-luc…yoohoo….guess who?…I’m coming to visit…!”

I’m almost certain we will see Q once before the show is over.

Make it so!

I wouldn’t put it past Kurtzman and Co. They do come across as so creatively bankrupt they are incapable of coming up with original concepts.

You saw the first two seasons of Discovery, this is not really a surprise lol. They managed to put Pike on another ship for an entire season when he was suppose to be commanding the Enterprise, it’s not a shock they won’t squeeze in whoever they have to.

But Q is Q. They can show up at any time or place, literally lol. They don’t have to bend over backwards of including them if they want to make a story about them. The only time they were off limits was pre-TNG in terms of canon and even then they could’ve showed up, just come up with some excuse later why we didn’t know just like they did with others.

Just reading that Cerveantes made me throw up a little in my mouth.

Ha ha, I was only kidding about that…although I would like to see a Q appearance for old time’s sake at SOME point in the future of the new show, if they are hauling in various others of the old guard characters.

Here is the thing about the Q. He served two functions in the TNG era. First, he was essentially God. Serving up lessons for our heroes. But when he wasn’t doing that he was comedy relief. In my opinion that was his best function. He shows up for an episode, jokes around a bit and we move on to the next event next week. In a short season serialized arc, it feels difficult to shoehorn him in. First, it wastes an entire episode when the season is so very short that every single episode needs to progress the story. And next, if the season arc isn’t Q related then it would feel amazingly out of place.

That said, I would not be surprised in the least to see Q show up in either STD or STP. In fact, I almost expect it at this point. And trust me, that is not a good thing.

The fans always come up with the best stuff! This is great!

I still believe Worf will appear just in the first season of Picard…

I mentioned before that I expect at least one more Trek actor from that era to appear. Maybe even two. I cannot believe they blew their wad of guests in the trailers. They’ve got to be saving something for the show’s debut.

Me too. Remember when they pretended we would get no TNG characters other than Picard and four showed up instead? I have a feeling they are going to squeeze in one more in that caravan. ;)

In hindsight, Tiger2, I think they played this very well.

They needed for fans to get the clear message that this won’t be TNG or Picard on an iteration of the Enterprise.

They needed fans to let go of the idea that this series would centre on the TNG ensemble of characters.

If they had suggested that Picard would be intersecting with the future lives of many TNG characters from the start, they would be at much greater risk of unrealistic expectations from TNG fans (not to mention cast).

Yes, I agree. I think they played it well too. Because it lowered our expectations and we didn’t fanboy it up for a year because everyone went in thinking this could be a Picard thing only and literally no one else. So when that first shot of Seven came in the first trailer the excitement over it boiled and changed the game. And then when we saw Data came at the end everyone was floored lol.

But if they said then what they are saying now and that anyone could show up, yeah most of us would’ve included every Trek character that wasn’t already dead yet being in the show. Seven for example would’ve been brought up constantly because of how popular she is but wasn’t because we assumed it would probably just be TNG based only if any got included later.

But I ALWAYS thought we were going to get someone from TNG at least in the first season. I said it over and over again because no one said straight out they wouldn’t be included told me they probably were going to surprise us. And even then I was thinking like 1 or 2 people in the first season, not five lol.

But now it’s a very different thing. I saw an interview with Kirsten Beyer at the London premiere who said that anyone can show up from any show going forward. She literally said what I been saying and that this is not a TNG sequel it’s a continuation of the entire TNG era even if Picard is the center of it. So I’m excited to see where this is all going!

He was already spotted on the show.

IF Worf were to appear in Picard, I’d expect nothing less than a warrior’s entrance.

End the first season on a cliffhanger, with Picard and his new crew besieged on all sides by Borg, Romulans, and what not. And I don’t mean ship against ship, I mean full-on boarding party with fist fights, phasers, the works. THEN open the second season with Worf and his Klingon crew beaming into Picard’s ship for the rescue. Show Worf slaughter the Borg, Romulans, or whatnot with his bat’leth. Show that even at his age he’s still very much a warrior. Don’t turn him into an old drunk who recounts past victories like Kor was on DS9.

They also have to have that bad ass Klingon music like when he first showed up in the Defiant like in First Contact. I still remember how big of an applause that got in the theater when he showed up lol.

Agreed

Yep, that was one hellava entrance.

That was Jerry Goldsmith revisiting his fantastic Klingon cue from TMP.

I know, I still own the original CD lol. FC just had beautiful music in general. Goldsmith was a genius.

No argument from me on that one.

Worf is too old for that.

Having been born in 2340, by 2399 Worf would be 59 years old.

Kor, Kang, and Koloth appeared on DS9 in 2370. That is well over a century after their original appearances in TOS, and they still kicked ass when they fought the Albino and his army.

Worf is easily half their age right now, meaning he is more than capable.

It was fun seeing those three on DS9 but it did ignore something that was either in a book or fan theory or some non canonical media I recall reading somewhere that Klingons natural lifespan was shorter than humans. I liked that concept but it’s gone now.

The “Klingons have a ~30-year lifespan” idea was introduced by John M. Ford in his TOS novel, _The Final Reflection_ (1984). It and _Pawns and Symbols_ (Larson 1985) had a lot of neat Klingon worldbuilding, but like most things invented by the Pocket novelists, it was disregarded when Trek returned to TV.

That might have been where I picked it up. I was reading more Trek novels back then…

A Klingon is never too old for battle.

Unlikely to happen, the show is much slower paced and they like to disappoint anyway.

THANK KAHLESS Worf will look exactly like Worf again. Of course we all knew this, it’s no way Worf was going to look like the DIS Klingons after all the crap they got for it lol. And I still suspect they were partly changed in season 2 because they were doing the Picard show and didn’t want to have the crazy disconnect between the DIS Klingons and the Movie/TNG era klingons looking so different from each other. So very happy it’s official now. I guess he won’t have any of the DIS influences like the four nostril nose thing. Good!

And I also like the fact that they will show both the ridge Romulans and the smooth head ones from TOS. That’s a smart idea just say that BOTH exists which ironically many of us wanted and thought how they would do the Klingons in the first season. I wouldn’t personally care what Romulans showed up since they both exist in canon anyway and the TNG versions never made any sense to me, but yes those have been around over 30 years now too; so this was probably a way to satisfy everyone. This really does prove Kurtzman is listening to the fans by doing stuff like this from the start.

I really wish they did stuff like this from Discovery in season one and maybe people wouldn’t be so bothered by the show now.

He will still look like the updated Klingons. That old 90s make up won’t work on 4K.

Kurtzman literally said “he’s got to look the same, we’re not changing that.” I don’t know how more unambiguous he can be that they’re keeping Worf’s old look if he comes back,

Worf rarely looked the same one season to another, so some leeway is probably permissible. Just look at Worf from “Encounter at Farpoint” and then at Worf in “What We Leave Behind”.

Exactly.

He’s just trying to bait me, don’t worry about it. This is why he was banned the first time. This place needs an ignore button.

I really don’t know what your problem is, but whatever. Hope you had a great Christmas and New year.

Go away NH4! My problem is you. If you really want me to have a great New Year then ignore my posts as I ignore yours. OK?

They can update the makeup and still make him look the same. The old makeup just won’t work in 4K.

If they show both the TOS and TNG Romulans, that’s solving a long-standing canon problem for once (instead of creating one): how could Spock go undercover on Romulus and not be recognized as Vulcan, in “Unification”.

Yes, I think this is amazing idea. It’s all what we were expecting with Discovery and the Klingon issue. This is the right approach and a way to stop the whining from both sides.

Btw, it’s good to see the Romulans getting such a pivotal role in the new season (if not series) for once, after they got the short stick in comparison to the Klingons throughout pretty much all of Trek production history (including TOS). DS9 had the chance to bring them on in a big way after “In the Pale Moonlight” but it didn’t happen either. I always thought the Romulans, as scheming chess players, are so much more interesting than a brutal warrior race mostly resorting to physical violence (and eating their opponents). Well, you could say on DS9 the Cardassians took on the former role, so Romulans became kind of redundant; maybe that’s why we didn’t see much more of them from then on.

So agree VS, which is WHY I wanted the Romulus explosion acknowledged in the first place. I, like many, think the Romulans are the most underused villains in Star Trek although they seem the most interesting at the same time. But I guess you can argue because they are used more less is what keeps them interesting. That’s what people hated about Voyager and the Borg, they just didn’t like how much they revealed about them, but I never had that issue personally.

So I’m super happy about it. This is going to be our first Romulan arc story line, ever! With the exception of Unification we never had a story go longer than one episode about them, which is crazy. Meanwhile the Klingons has had MULTIPLE story arcs and movies across nearly every show (minus Voyager) and a third of the films, TUC being the biggest obviously. The ONE time I thought we were getting a real Romulan story in the movie was of course Nemesis and that proved to be false and another reason I didn’t like the movie much. To be fair we did get the Romulans in the first Kelvin movie, but since they were more rogue it still wasn’t quite the same but still great to have at least.

Of course Enterprise was going to do a full on Romulan arc in the fifth season and start the war with Starfleet, but yeah…

I felt Romulans were underused myself. But they were mentioned in a handful of 3rd season episodes of TOS. I forget that because there were so many forgettable episodes from that season.

Also I want to add that I never had an issue with Voyager using the Borg. They were in the area where the Borg were from! It stood to reason they would be used. However, after that use was why I now feel like the Borg have been done to death. I kinda felt like it was time to leave them behind. They really didn’t seem to have the story possibilities the Klingons and Romulans had. Remember, the Borg were essentially created as a reason to FORCE the Enterprise to fire phasers. A big complaint about TNG back in the day was they had weapons they never used. So they were one note villains.

Yeah it completely made sense for the Voyager to use the Borg as they did because they were in Borg territory, so what obviously they were going to run into them from time to time. I’m surprised they waited 3 seasons before we even saw them. I had assumed we were going to meet them in the first episode of the show when it was announced lol. So I was never bothered by it and really loved to learn anything new about them. And apparently we are going to learn even more about them in Picard too which I’m just as excited for as I am the Romulans.

And you always say the Borg was used so they had a reason to shoot at someone but dude that’s EVERY villain lol. I mean end of the day that’s what they are all designed for, someone who can challenge our heroes philosophically, intellectually and yes physically. But the first two is what set Star Trek villains apart from say a Marvel villain. But when it comes right down to it, they are all there ultimately for space battles or fist fights. We were literally introduced to both the Romulans and Klingons in TOS through ship and phaser battles. And both of those were emphasized by how much they actually like to fight lol. But like the Borg, not every episode required that either.

And I don’t believe any of them were one note villains and certainly not the Borg as they have given them a real culture and we have seen changes with individual Borg themselves even if the Borg main goal will always be assimilation. But you could’ve argued the Klingons were also one note villains until TNG and they weren’t just about trying to conquer the galaxy anymore. The Borg are simply more alien than the others. Trying to get them to change their nature is like trying to get bees , lions or bears to change theirs and WHY they are so fascinating for a lot of fans. They are TRULY alien and that’s something you rarely see in Star Trek. To this day we have no idea what the original Borg species even look like, we’ve only seen drones of other species. In so many ways they are still very mysterious.

But yes if you create a villain, any villain, the idea is for them to shoot at each other from time to time.

Sure, the Klingons were essentially one dimensional baddies in TOS who were obvious stand ins for the USSR. That’s about as deep as things got with them. (One of the things I appreciate from TNG is the Klingon world building they did.) That said, every encounter did not result in guns a blazin’. And in TNG, even more so. They literally felt that resorting to firing phasers was a failure of grand proportions. Fans liked that they talked their way out of situations but also felt there ought to be situations where the weapons would be used. But the TNG mantra was to talk their way out of things. To use diplomacy as your main weapon. So, as a result, it was super rare for the Enterprise to fire photons AT someone with intent to do damage. Hence, the Borg. TNG’s terminators. They cannot be bargained with. They cannot be reasoned with. And they absolutely will not stop. This was a situation they HAD to use weapons for. Their main weapon, diplomacy, would not work here like it could against literally every other baddie they encountered. That’s what I mean when I say they were created to force the ship to fire phasers.

This solution has been used in the TNG Relaunch novels for at least a decade.

In fact, there was a half-Vulcan officer from the Enterprise-E who goes undercover on Romulus in one of the novels, and tries to blend in with the Vulcan foreheaded ethic group.

I’m not sure who in Simon & Schuster’s novel writers room came up with this, but I’ve always thought it was a very deft way to resolve the canon issues.

Kirsten Beyer was very much part of that S&S writers room regardless of being a bit off on her own with the Voyager sequence of novels.

I’m glad that she’s bringing some of these points into the mix for television. ViacomCBS has all the rights to any of the IP in Trek-lit produced by S&S writers-for-hire. So, where it provides a better idea, they definitely should mine it.

Last thought, the Relaunch novels have the planet of the Erfrosians (think Federation President in the Undiscovered Country), as a former Klingon subject planet/state.

The Efrosians do look a bit like some iterations of Klingons or Klingon hybrids. So, with a little effort that backstory could be pulled out.

In fact, if we do get a Pike Series, it would be great if it were established in alpha-canon that the Efrosians got out of the Klingon Empire and into the Federation as an outcome of the Klingon war in Discovery.

About having both Romulan versions in the show… That is echoing what I said above when I wrote my takes on the article. And I thought that was what they were going to do from day on on Discovery for the Klingons. Severe lost opportunity.

“THANK KAHLESS Worf will look exactly like Worf again.”
Just a shame they are f*cking with every other TNG era Klingon out there though.

Please, PLEASE don’t make it as dark as discovery was!

You’ve not been keeping up to date about what it’s all about?

“Jonathan Del Arco confirmed to CNET that Hugh has spent the last 20 years serving as a protector to the disconnected Borg, and has had to make compromises to keep his people safe. “But he’s held on to that moral center that I think has always made the character really important to Star Trek,” he added.”

Not to take anything away from Jonathan Del Arco, but where was Hugh “really important” to Star Trek? Yes, he and the others got disconnected from the collective, but that’s about it, right? Never been a fan of Hugh, to be honest, but still…

I thought the same thing when I read that, Olaf.

Romulans with ridges have been a slap in the face to fans since they appeared in TNG. Absolutely ludicrous from an evolutionary perspective (vis a vis Vulcans) and clearly created so that the fans would “understand” and “not be confused” between Romulans and Vulcans. Condescending and ridiculous.

About as ridiculous as the augment virus explanation for Klingons.

About as ridiculous as giving Kor, Kang and Koloth ridges in DS9.

RIDICULOUS!

Chekov: Romulans and Vulcans read as nearly identical. There is only a slight difference which…. Got him!

Your opinion is vastly outnumbered. It’s Klingons looking like orcs that are stupid

I strongly suspect that in Star Trek: Picard either Worf or Geordi might be the Captain of the Enterprise, while the other is their first officer (their Number One).

I’m inclined to believe Worf might be the captain because it feels like the most obvious escalation of his character arc; the first Klingon in Starfleet becomes the captain of their flagship vessel.

YEs, everyone assumed if an Enterprise showed up it would be Riker as its captain. But now that that blew up in our faces lol the next logical choice seems to be Worf. Or they could shock us all and it would just be some new guy but I don’t see that happening. There is just too much fan interest to go that direction and they know we all want to see someone from TNG leading it.

If the Enterprise isn’t going to be the star of the show, then I think that’s a reasonable compromise.

Maybe they’ll surprise us all and it will be Captain Wesley Crusher.

Eek. The horror, the horror, lol. JK. Captain Worf and first officer Crusher sounds better to me.

I would watch that only because of the strong likelihood Worf would eventually kill Wesley.

Indeed.

One thing I hope Star Trek: Picard explores is the issue of Hugh’s real identity and background. Hugh is the name he gave himself from misunderstanding something Geordi said, but it’s not his actual name. Just like Seven of Nine was born Anikka Hansen, so Hugh was born with his own name and background — UNLESS Hugh was created within the Collective, like the baby Borg Riker and the Away Team discovered when they first boarded a Borg Cube, in which case he would have no true name and background story.

“You’ll see some Romulans that are just about the ears, you’ll see some with the ears and deeper ridges in their foreheads… so I have to believe that there are different iterations of Klingons, depending on where they are from.”

So they are f*cking with TNG era races too.. /sigh

No, they aren’t. They are doing the OPPOSITE of that and showing you all the various looks of Romulans. They won’t be erased, they are added in to the TOS versions which frankly was more realistic given they are direct ancestors of Vulcans. And it sounds like we are going to learn about Romulan culture and beliefs we only gotten fractions of when compared to other species like the Cardassians and the bloody Klingons.

So my guess UNLIKE Discovery Klingons, they are going to explain and highlight the differences as he just did.

Do you remember the Debrune, that “ancient Romulan offshoot”? It was always hinted at that the Romulan genetic makeup is more complex than one type or, say, races on Earth which differentiate most obviously through skin color. My personal head canon was always that some groups of the faction that left Vulcan 2000 years ago and later became Romulans intermingled with a native alien species in the Romulan system, which had ridges. Maybe they disappeared that way, Neanderthal style, or we will even still see them (there was a chance to make the Remans that species, alas, they became Nosferatu) . It is certainly the only way Vulcans could have developed ridges in such a short time except another episode in accidental genetic manipulation, and certainly much more believable than either that or “rapid evolution”.

Actually I don’t. Have to look them up. But I like that idea they just breed with another race over centuries.

And crazy enough I was on another board a few days and I found out even for the Romulans in the Kelvin movie they actually came up with an explanation why they had the smooth foreheads in that movie as opposed to the ones with ridges. Someone wrote the movie was going to explain the ones with ridges physically altered themselves by some Romulan ritual, so it wasn’t genetic, but cultural or religious which Nero’s clan wasn’t part of. I can’t remember the full details of what they said but it was obviously cut out for time or probably deemed too nerdy lol. Don’t know where they got the info but probably commentary from the movie or a discussion of a deleted scene somewhere. But they had even planned to explain the differences in that movie, or at least allude to it. I can find that post again and copy it here if anyone is interested.

I don’t think every little thing needs to be explained away but I admit this has always bothered me as well.

That sounds like as good an explanation as any. But I’m with you. Not everything needs an in universe explanation. I was totally fine with the altered Klingons from TNG to TMP with no reason apart from, “this is a movie so we are spending money to make them alien like they wanted to in the first place.” The only thing about the Romulans was I was never on board with them having a forehead in the TNG era to begin with. But I blew the change off. It wasn’t that big a deal to me.

VS, we’re totally thinking along the same lines.

And Kirsten Beyer had some similar thoughts for the Klingons in her novels, with a more pronounced ridged, and more aggressive species having conquered in the past, and resurfacing in the genetic pool.

Here’s the thing I would like to know. Have Vulcans had 2000 years of interstellar travel behind them? Is there a set of planets the Vulcans explored and perhaps colonized the same way the Romulans did? Did that really happen 2,000 years ago? How does that all work now? What made the Romulans develop an empire but seemingly not the Vulcans?

The planetary real estate of the Vulcans and Romulans must be rather large if we are to expect that Kirk can find strange new worlds all the time but Romulans and Klingons are lurking about and can’t be avoided.

Maybe the POV of the Federation views Vulcan from the wrong perspective. Maybe Vulcan is Taiwan to what Romulus is to China. Or was. Not expecting this to make real sense… yes, I am!

Given that the Vulcans eschewed conquest of less developed species and had a version of the Prime Directive in force even before First Contact with humanity, it makes sense that the Romulans would have more territory and genetic mixing with subjugated peoples.

So, actually, the idea tha Vulcan was a advanced society in terms of engineering or geographic reach, is likely unreasonable.

Perhaps we picked up a bit of Vulcan prejudice ourselves.

Do we know that Romulans also didn’t have a prime directive?

Romulan’s lack of Prime Directive is implied, but I can’t recall that it’s actually shown.

There are alpha-canon suggestions that the Klingons got tech from the Romulans, including cloaking technology. Also, at one point Picard notes that there have been bad outcomes when pre-warp societies are intervened in, with the Klingons implied.

Maybe they have a reverse Prime Directive, like the Borg but more about creating hybrids of themselves.

It seemed odd to me that Romulans were related to Vulcans. That would mean either Vulcans had space travel 2000 years ago or someone else picked up a bunch of disgruntled Vulcans and transplanted them. The only thing I was able to glean was that I guess Vulcans move forward technologically at a glacial pace maybe?

Just as Humans have different skin colours, and features (mainly eyes, noses, facial structure and skin color) which are the results of regional/environmental and genetic diversity throughout earth, it is plausable to use that as an explanation for parts of other species which have already undergone multiple visual changes

Romulans, Andorians, and Klingons are probably the best example of changes

1) TOS Klingons had no ridges
2) TMP Klingons had pronounced Ridges
3) The Undiscovered Country Klingons had very subtle Ridges
4) TNG Klingons had pronounced ridges
5) TOS Romulans looked identical to Vulcans
6) Final Frontier had a Romulan who looked partially human Asian (This of course is a result of the actress, but used in-universe it can be an additional variation on Romulans too)
7) The Undiscovered Country had a Bald Romulan with a smooth head
6) TNG Romulans had subtle forehead bumps
7) Nemesis Romulans more pronounced.
8) TNG Andorians looked more Green than Blue
9) Trill on TNG and DS9 were completely different looking but again, used in combination
10) Some Cardassians in TNG had facial hair

But

11) Discovery S1 Klingons looked like shit.
12) Discovery S2 Klingons looked like shit.

Hopefully most S3 Klingons and Picard Klingons look closer to some range between TMP and TNG

I admit I was rooting for cbs to fail because Disco was so poorly written and I felt like Trek was in the wrong hands, but this looks really good. I am optimistic! If this is good, I think disco will be more fondly remembered as a series that helped pave the way for Picard despite it’s various problems. If this is more melodramatic frenetic nonsensical storytelling, this era and of trek may unfortunately be the last.

That is similar to how I View TNG. It was not very good but paved the way to better shows that came after. Essentially, the makers of those shows learned from the mistakes of TNG. I can only hope history repeats itself here.

As much as I have issue with DIS we do have to remember nearly all shows took time to improve as TNG and the others did. We’ve only seen 28 episodes of DIS, think of where TNG, DS9 and ENT were by episode 28 in their runs and they produced a lot more episodes in general.

Hopefully third season will be where things really turn around for the show like others and considering its in a brand new setting (the first Star Trek show to get such a dramatic change) will hopefully make for a better show. It will certainly at least be a lot more interesting for a lot of us.

Relative to the 1990s, today’s NorAm audience has less patience, so if a series takes 28 episodes to find its footing, people will complain. (Apart from those who complain for the sake of it, or as clickbait.)

The puzzling part is that a “prestige” show is *allowed* by executives to flounder for 28 episodes — you’d think Hollywood knows by now how to hire a competent production team and how to write an arc-based show. But maybe it’s an irreducible challenge, and any show which *is* effective out of the gate, is a lucky accident.

Never had an issue with the Klingons look in Discovery. Actually loved it. But of course….you gotta have the cry baby trekkers.
My thing is…why can’t they be different looking kinds of klingons ?
Look at the human race. So many different looks and cultures.