Yesterday’s big news was Michael Dorn teasing a return to Star Trek, although it appears it won’t be for the upcoming Star Trek movie or any of the Paramount+ Trek shows. Now one of Dorn’s Star Trek: The Next Generation co-stars has his own cryptic comment about a return to the final frontier.
Maybe Geordi too
LeVar Burton has been publicly lobbying for the hosting gig on Jeopardy! and he has been doing some media interviews to get the word out. While he has been clear on his game show goal, when speaking to Newsweek he got a bit more cryptic when it came to appearing in Star Trek: Picard…
When asked if there could possibly be a Geordi La Forge appearance in season two, Burton said “maybe.”
“I mean I think the time period of Picard is contemporaneous,” he said.
The actor also told Newsweek “it would be fun to revisit [Geordi] now and again,” but he isn’t interested in going back to playing the character as a series regular.
LeVar Burton as Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: Nemesis
Burton actually has set up an expectation for Geordi’s return in Picard by telling ET last April that he had been talking to producers of the series, and predicting all the TNG characters would show up on the new Trek show starring Sir Patrick Stewart at some point. But he did say he didn’t expect all of them “at the same time.”
In his new interview with Newsweek Burton pointed to how Star Trek: Picard handled bringing back two of his TNG co-stars in season one as a model for success:
“I think they’ve successfully done that. And I know that for the first season, there was a strong desire to not continually have people reference back to Next Gen… I think that they’re well aware of how successful having Jonathan [Frakes] and Marina [Sirtis] in season one was.”
Burton was actually on the Picard set—along with Michael Dorn—with Frakes and Sirtis when they reprised their roles in the episode “Nepenthe.”
Paramount+ has already confirmed that Brent Spiner will be returning in season two (presumably playing Dr. Altan Soong) and John de Lancie will appear as Q. It has also been previously reported that Whoopi Goldberg will reprise her TNG role of Guinan, but that hasn’t been officially confirmed by Paramount+.
LeVar Burton and Michael Dorn visited the Picard set when Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes were guest stars
Find more news and analysis for Star Trek: Picard.
When it comes to showbiz, never take anything to the bank — but it certainly does seem likely!
Truth! For example, if they asked him to come back as a series regular — I bet he’d take it.
That header image when Geordi regains his sight for the first time is probably the best thing in the mediocre Insurrection.
It wasn’t the first time. That was in “Hide and Q.”
“LeVar Burton and Michael Dorn visited the Picard when Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes were guest stars”
Nuria also visited the Picard.
It’s now a reunion show, so of course, he’ll be back. The only question is when.
It was always going to be a reunion show. You can’t show Picard and not expect to see the others at some point. Unless Picard ended up in another century or universe like Kirk and Spock did, it would be odd not to see at least a few of the others.
Maybe we have a different thought on what reunion show meant. I fully expected the occasional cameo from an established character or two, but the only thing missing now is to drag a Galaxy class out of mothballs and name it Enterprise-D.1. Ms. Borg, Mr. Roboto, and the Troi’s are (apparently) hold overs, joined by Q and Guinan. Hopefully Wil Wheton is aging well, it’ll be interesting how he plays a Traveler wannabe with daddy issues.
I think we do have a different thought on it and to be fair even first season no one showed up for more than a few episodes. Picard himself was the only one in it from beginning to end. The Troi’s and Data were only in 2 episodes and Data was probably in ten minutes of screen time total. They were part of the season, but they weren’t exactly deeply involved in the story either.
I think the same thing will happen next season too, not counting Q. I suspect he’s going to be in most of the episodes since it sounds like he will be the catalyst for the season as a whole.
But I think whoever shows up from Guinan to Geordi will probably just be in 1-2 episodes like the others. To me that seems fine and reasonable. We get to see a few old characters, catch up to where they are at and what they are doing, but don’t over take the story either. It’s not like Discovery where Pike and Spock showed up for most of the season on a ship neither were even assigned to. But I don’t mind if they were in every episode lol, just as long as they have a real story reason to be there.
If he’s not in S2 he’ll be in S3.
It’s almost certain.
Didn’t they have all this extra time to perfect the script writing? Shouldn’t they know by now if they can properly fit Geordi into season 2 like they did with Riker, Troi, and Data in season 1?
I’m sure that they do know whether or not he’ll be in the season. They’re just not telling us yet.
Agreed. At this point, he knows one way or another. But NDAs are probably keeping him or anyone else from saying anything
I wish we could expect all of the Voyager characters, and/or all of the DS9 characters to show up on Picard at some point. Personally, those are the ones I’m most interested in seeing, they’ve gotten much less overall screentime over the years then the TNG crew.
I’d like to see a lot of them too, but Picard isn’t necessarily the best show for them to show up on. Picard doesn’t know most of the DS9 and Voyager crews.
It sounds like a lot of fans really want to see more DS9 and VOY characters again. I think we’ll get more VOY characters next season but it will be nice to get at least ONE DS9 character on one of these shows. But I suspect that’s coming now too, if not on Picard then probably Lower Decks. I know it’s not quite the same for some, but it would still be a lot of fun to see them on that show too, even if animated.
And I do give Kurtzman credit, he does listen to the fanbase (when its reasonable) and I think we’ll see more old characters because of it. I think that’s literally why Q is back, because fans have been asking about him literally since Discovery was announced and definitely since Picard. It’s all just a matter of time…no pun intended. ;)
I’d love to see how all our 24th-century characters are doing. Picard didn’t do much for me, but Nepenthe was a definite highlight which warmed my heart. A warm bath to see these beloved characters and actors again. I say: embrace the past wholeheartedly, there’s nothing wrong with some comforting nostalghia.
Nepenthe probably was the most popular episode of the season. I think it brought nostalgia back in a good way and let us see how much these people changed. And it was just fun to see the three of them together. I hope we get a similar episode in season 2.
I love how coy they always play it. They’re often openly miffed about how few acting jobs they get outside of Star Trek and when Star Trek calls always play it like they’re not looking for any acting gigs…
I hope Geordi is alive and with the hints of Q’s comeback i hope its not a flashback !
In the official Countdown Comics which are canon , Geordi was responsible for the construction of the rescue fleet ships on Mars.
They’re not canon. According to the tie-in novels, which are equally canon to the comics, Geordi survived.
They are canon. Its no secret!
Canon ended in 2005, broooo
The Countdown comic tie in to the 2009 movie was once canon as well, now it isn’t. They chose to ignore it on Picard.
I ws pretty suprised he didn’t appear in Season 1. He played a fairly prominent role in the first tie-in novel.
Even more surprising since he was the one closest to both Data and Hugh. You would think his presence would be just as important as Picard’s with these characters. In many ways Geordi should’ve been helping Picard to track down Data’s daughter as well because of how close they were.
As a Brit, please forgive me if I don’t completely get Jeopardy! when trying to crack this funny…
Okay, LeVar, for $20,000, “By doing this, you’ll ruin another good character from Star Trek”… LeVar: “What is the consequence of me appearing on Star Trek Picard?”
Final warning for trolling and gatekeeping
Oh come on, Anthony. It was a little jokey joke!!!
My money is on that he will appear on the show at least once, but hopefully more than once. He needs to do some engineering feat worthy of his talents that we all know he is capable of. I wonder if he can still perform a barrel roll under the blast doors in the engine room???
:)
I do think that, out of all of them, Geordie is probably the perfect character to bring into PIC, especially with the story they’ve been telling. As you say, it seems like they could do quite a bit with his character/skills here, that might complement the story they’re telling, rather than just a quick nostalgic cameo.
Maybe he’ll appear in some capacity towards the end of S2, ahead of a bigger role in S3.
Depends on whether or not he gets the Jeopardy hosting gig, doesn’t it? He’s a serious contender.
Wikipedia says that Jeopardy episodes are taped for two days every two weeks. That should leave Burton with ample of time to do a guest spot on Picard.