Terry Matalas Introduces Titan Crew And Drops More Clues From ‘Star Trek: Picard’ Season 3

We are less than two weeks away from the season 3 premiere of Star Trek: Picard. This season was a dream job for executive producer and showrunner Terry Matalas, and he continues to share his enthusiasm on social media. We have gathered all the latest from Terry to keep you up to speed on season 3.

Meet the Titan crew

Terry Matalas posted a “Meet THE BRIDGE CREW of the USS TITAN!” Twitter thread introducing the personnel for the hero ship for season 3 of Picard. Here is what he had to say about each [NOTE: Terry didn’t identify actors, but we have added names when available]…

Ensign Sidney La Forge (Human) – Helm [Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut]

“Unlike her sister, Alandra, she didn’t want to build ships, she wanted to fly them.”

Matthew Arliss Mura (Bajoran) – Tactical

“Has served on the new Titan for the last 3 years and is exactly who you want at that station when you hear ‘give ’em everything we got!'”

Lt. T’Veen (Vulcan) – Science Officer

“Several Captains fought to have her on their bridge. The Titan won.”

Ensign Kova Rin Esmar (Haliian) – Communications

“They graduated at the top of their class and speak over 72 alien languages.”

Captain Liam Shaw (human) – Commanding Officer [Todd Stashwick]

“All under the command of Captain Liam Shaw. A former engineer with a long history within Starfleet. More on him later…”

Seven (human, ex-Borg) – First Officer [Jeri Ryan]

“Meet the Titan’s first officer who was placed into an accelerated Starfleet program against her own judgment. Well, more on her on February 16th!”

More clues from Terry

Over the past few days, the showrunner has dropped a number of other clues on Twitter…

Season opener trouble

Matalas tweeted a behind-the-scenes image from the season 3 opener with the hint “Trouble in the Ryton System.” A close look at the image indicates the ship is in trouble with a number of systems offline or critical.

No Janeway, but…

Terry confirmed that season 3 of Picard will not feature Kate Mulgrew as Admiral Janeway, pointing out she is exclusively on Star Trek: Prodigy. But he also teased there are “other voyagers out there in the Alpha Quadrant.” Previously Matalas has said there are yet-to-be-revealed cameos coming in season 3, and “other voyagers” could be a clue that one or more characters from Star Trek: Voyager could show up.

Some TOS love

Of course, season 3 is a continuation of the TNG era, but Terry also said there are things for TOS fans to look forward to, noting that while some might consider these connections fan service, he sees them as “organic.”

Addressing the android in the room

Matalas confirmed that even though Picard is technically an android ever since he was brought back to life in the season 1 finale, he is written “as the same man,” but season 3 will address him being an android “in an interesting way.”

Still wants to do more

Terry reiterated that he is hoping to continue working on Star Trek after season 3. Season 3 is being promoted as “the final season” for Picard, but there have been indications that some kind of continuation has been discussed. Terry himself has said he would love to do a 25th century show, possibly called “Star Trek: Legacy,” which would carry on after the season 3 finale with some of the characters.

The third and final season of Picard premieres on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023, exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., with new episodes of the 10-episode-long season available to stream weekly on Thursdays. It will debut on Friday, Feb. 17 internationally on Amazon Prime Video in more than 200 countries and territories. In Canada, it airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave.


Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.

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That’s a Vulcan? I had assumed she was a Deltan. She doesn’t look like she has Vulcan ears.

Semi-Vulcan ears.

She could be a mix with another alien species who identifies as Vulcan.

I also initially assumed she was Deltan before reading the description. I don’t think the photo provided gives a great look at her ears.

Lol same man! Totally thought she was a Deltan.

I only saw “i am Vegar” from TOS.. You know who i mean

Her oath of celibacy is on record!

That’s not what she told me.

No she probably told you “My restraining order is on record”.

Lol

It’s also possible they wanted to differentiate her from previous Vulcans we’ve seen. Humans have a variety of ear shapes, some individuals or regions might have curled back ears. Baldness could be a personal choice or a sect/culture of Vulcan we haven’t heard much about.

If I remember, the Vulcan priests in ST III on mount Seleya were bald.

Right, and I believe at least one of the Vulcans in TMP was bald. Might have been two. You know, the guys standing behind the woman giving Spock the necklace.

I think you’re right.

Behind the scenes, at least, I think the Nero and his crew’s tattoos in ST 2009 were explained as being rooted in mourning for the Romulan dead; maybe the logic is, ditto the shaved heads, and some Vulcans joined in out of sympathy?

Maybe she just liked the look. Not every fashion choice has to have cultural significance.

Hello, Lorna. This isn’t the first time we have seen bald Vulcans in Star Trek. We have seen a few in the original animated series, The Motion Picture and Discovery.

The actress was also bald on Doom Patrol.

Garrett Wang 👀

To head any comments off at the pass: Voyager was the first Trek series I fell in love with and it was mostly because of Garrett Wang and how there was finally someone like me on a Trek show. No offense at all meant to George Takei and Hikaru Sulu because I love them too, I’m just not Japanese.

Back on topic. Ooh Garrett Wang maybe? Or Robert Duncan McNeil.

They actually tried to get McNeil to play Paris in a scene for both seasons 1 and 2 but he was too busy with other projects. Maybe third time is the charm! ;D

But when he was asked to be on LDS, he was able to record it from his own home IIRC. That’s why it’s so much easier to get these actors on the animated shows.

Also would love to see Kim on the show as well! Maybe you will get your wish.

That one was one of my favorite episodes of LDS ever! So hopefully the third time was the charm. I also wouldn’t say no to Roxann Dawson. Seeing B’Elanna Torres again would be great. Then who knows which ones we’ll see if any because who even knows which ones we’ll see on Prodigy.

Yep, loved seeing Paris on LDS too. I was disappointed we didn’t get more of him but still fun!

Honestly I suspect we’ll see a lot more of the Voyager crew on Prodigy next season too. But I definitely am excited to see who shows up on Picard. And VOY is my third favorite show, so definitely excited to see whoever shows up. But I’m pushing for the Doctor and Tuvok to show up on either show.

And I been saying this for literally years now, expect everyone to show up at some point. These are the same people who brought back GOF, Wesley as a Traveler and freaking Sybok. Once Sybok is back, nothing is ever off limits anymore lol.

Yeah! I’ve been talking about how I want to see Jeffrey Combs back in live action. Do I actually expect that? Not really. There’s not really any reason for any of his already existing characters to show up so unless they give him a new one, I don’t expect him at all.

Oh yeah for sure! I see people calling for it weekly on other boards. I still want them to find a way to bring back Shran on SNW lol. But up for a totally new character although I doubt he’ll be on Picard. Who knows though, right?

With Picard it feels like the most we’ll get is a mention of Weyoun, and since he’s my absolute favorite of his characters, I’m definitely up for that. But even then I’m not getting my hopes up for that.

As for Shran, I’ve been joking about having him accidentally time travel. But seeing him on SNW would be nice too.

It’s possible. We know it ties into the Dominion war but they are so vague on that. If it means we will actually see the Dominion themselves show up then yeah I think we will definitely get a Weyoun reference. If it just means dealing with planets that were affected by it or something then probably not.

Worf could also mention him, tbh. But I think you’re right.

Do we know how long Andorians live? Maybe Shran could live long (and prosper) enough to still be alive in Pike’s era, especially if he has a portrait of Andorian Gray in his attic.

No we don’t. I’ve been assuming their lifespans are closer to human.

GOF?

Probably means Guardian of Forever. 👍

Yes, as said Guardian of Forever…or his more common name in the 32nd century, Carl! :)

[[ That one was one of my favorite episodes of LDS ever! ]]

“Back in the ’60s he was part of the free-speech movement at Berkeley. I think he did a little too much LDS.”

That’s where the name came from. McMahan said it was an in-joke to TVH.

Oh, I see. I wondered why it wasn’t “LD.” But I didn’t wonder very much because I don’t watch that show.

I do normally abbreviate it as LD. I was just copying everyone else.

It’s LDS — CBS made this the official acronym several years back, and that’s covered on Memory Alpha.

Dawson and McNeil seem to have pretty healthy producer/director careers. They’ve really had the most success outside the franchise in their post star trek years compared to a lot of other folks.

They’re busy so they’re probably hard to get.

I listen to the Delta Flyers podcast with Wang and McNeil and they usually catch up with they are doing at the beginning of every episode and McNeil is always talking about a show he is producing or directing. He sounds really busy these days.

I’m kind of aware that McNeill is busy as a producer and director. What is Wang up to these days?

It doesn’t sound like much lol. I think he is trying to get into acting again and mentioned a show he was on on Amazon but my guess just a guest star role. It’s the double edge sword when you work on Star Trek but same time he seems to live a very comfortable life, has several homes including one in the Hollywood Hills, travels a lot and does everything he wants with no worries, so hey I would switch lives with him in a heartbeat lol.

Also I’m excited to see what the Bajoran crew member is like.

I noticed there are not that many matts in starfleet. Matt Jeffries, Matt Decker and Matt Arliss Mura or is It Mura Arliss Matthew?

Plus, the whale crew member named Matt in Cetacean Ops on Lower Decks.

And, while not Star Trek, this reminds me of Uncle Traveling Matt(e) from Fraggle Rock!

I think it would be Tom Parris, because he already appeared in Lower Decks. The Holo Doc is also an good Candidate. But you know, he is cursed to his Holoemitter on his Arm and i do not know how many “himself” he can be if he just walk around other Ships. How many “Databank” has he inside this Holoemitter to be fully himself? See, his blessing is also his curse. Holo Janeway evolved Ego become to Big to be writing on a Chip. I fear the same fate for him

The Writer Room need to create some plausible solution for the Doctor to be truly independent from the Voyager’s Ships Datacore

Yes I’m not denying the possibility of the Doctor. He’s probably more likely than Harry Kim. My mind first jumps to Kim and Garrett Wang because I’m attached to him. And after him Tom Paris and B’Elanna Torres.

Also not necessarily the same fate. With Holo Janeway there wasn’t enough time to move her into something bigger than what she had to work with. With the Doctor, there is that time and definitely better circumstances than oh no if we don’t act now Starfleet will be destroyed.

Robert Picardo was on “Quantum Leap” just last week.

But we already saw the Doctor completely independent on Endgame. He was even married. Was he still wearing his holoemitter? That was in an alternate future but that was 2404. This season is 2403 so if he’s back he could be completely free by then.

Perhaps in this Endgame we saw, he was nearby the “Museum Ship Voyager” or they took their sweet time to seperate him from the Ship and Build an other Core inside his House

I can not get rid of his “Holo Doc” roots, even if he has this Holoemitter. His Subroutines are still bounded with Voyager

But how would that work since Voyager is not even functioning anymore? It’s sitting as a museum somewhere in California.

And they would probably build a separate unit if he still couldn’t be completely autonomous.

Barclay Wonders? Well, he surly can do something about it

Sry, to reply like this. But the Edit function run out on the other.

Or they had some sort of Dr. Moreaty (i hope i wrote his name right) solution. He is living his Life inside an Chip illusion

I don’t think so because that would go against his entire arc and being seen as an individual like his colleagues.

I’m thinking he did have the holo-emitter, unless Janeway had holo-projectors in her apartment. Which I guess she could have.

You could be right. It’s been awhile since I last seen it

..

I loved Garrett Wang/Harry Kim. Would have been nice if they’d either made the character Chinese or cast a Korean, i know, actors can play anything – he just never looked Korean to me.

I thought he was Chinese. To be fair it’s never said exactly which he is but it seems like everyone is confused there.

Hawaii was more my thought at that time

Oh yeah that sure explains why he’s a guy of Asian descent from the Carolinas.

Although Kim is a Korean surname, Ensign Kim was in fact Chinese. IIRC he has quoted Chinese proverbs or recipes or folk tales in the show, more than once.

Perhaps it all comes down to the ancient secrecy involving Calgon?

I was under the impression he was Chinese-American.

I always thought Kim was Chinese as well.

There was an episode where Harry quoted a Chinese proverb/curse “may you live in interesting times”. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s Chinese but I kinda thought that was what we were supposed to infer.

I know, I am Chinese.

Also I partly can’t think of that without thinking about Discworld. I should reread that particular book.

Yeah, that is Chinese curse that basically means: I hope a lot of bad shit happens to you in the future.

He wasn’t a Seoul Man.

What’s going to happen to all the Ensign Kim jokes once they introduce him as Fleet Admiral?

The reason we’re not getting *Admiral* Janeway is because he demoted her to ensign in revenge.

I’m tired of those jokes anyway so the sooner they end the better.

LOL, that is perfect Lower Decks material.

It’s funny I just saw a video where RMB was praising the Titan crew members and says you are going to get to know and like them after just a few episodes in…unlike the Discovery bridge crew where many fans still don’t know all their names yet (I do now, but it took 3 seasons to fully remember them ;)). Just looking at these guys, I’m already excited to get to know them!

Disappointing but not surprised there is no Janeway, but I assumed if she didn’t show in the final trailer she wasn’t in it. I just think it would’ve been great to have her and Seven in the same room seeing where Seven is today but no biggie. Sounds like all the other people who will pop up will be fun to see. And anything TOS related is another huge plus!

Won’t lie, getting more excited! :)

Hopefully most of them will die by the end of the season.

Even dead they will probably still be more memorable than anyone currently alive on the Discovery crew! Remind me what does Rhys do again?

Throw out another one, I can do this all day.

Rhys is the tactical officer.

Wait Rhys has an actual position? First I’m hearing about this! 🤣🤣

OK good to know but I’m guessing half the people reading this still had no clue lol.

Rhys is the weapons guy right? Anyway who cares what they do. It’s just a tv show.

Yep and still a pretty bad TV show at that. It currently has some of the worst writing in television.

Hopefully not.

Titan is an underdog ship. Fridging underdogs never makes me a happy viewer and both Picard and SNW S1 gave us too much of that.

LOL the guy is just trolling. Don’t over think it. No one else does.

This coming from the troll who finds *any* excuse to dump on Discovery, even when the discussion or article doesn’t involve it any way. And before you post yet another TL;DR rant about how unfair it is to be called out- I have zero issue with you not liking Discovery- what I take umbrage with is how you feel the need to consistently mention said dislike. It’s weird and it’s disturbing. If I don’t like a show, I simply don’t engage with it and don’t discuss it. But you have this pathological need to attack the show and its fans.

I think you need to get some fresh air man .You spend all your time here being offended over a TV show lol. Just ignore my posts then man, your life will improve significantly I hope. Fair enough? TLDR: Bye.

Oh very good.

This is also the one who tosses out accusations of racism and homophobia like they are candy on Halloween.

Some people just aren’t happy if they’re not being offended or rationalizing their POV by writing off anyone they spar with as a bigot or a hopeless liberal.

I think a well-written rant is a testament to the passion we feel for something we (tough) love. It’s certainly a more thoughtful gesture than a blunt insinuation or dismissal.

So THIS was the guy I got confused with a few months ago when I thought you were accusing me gaslighting of other posters.

I think I see your point now!

Yes indeed! Full circle. I’m still relieved I could clear that up with you.

Yeah for sure! 👍

If you’re constantly looking to be offended over things said on a message board discussing entertainment with this big of a fractured ego, maybe it’s just not the right place for you? Especially when you resort to name calling others over it.

He no longer has to worry about any long responses from me because I stopped caring long ago. What I do care about now is that he ignore my posts from this point on and I will happily do the same, period.

I really hope this wasn’t too long for him to read this time.

Ok this was hilarious!

Yeah I been there as well, trust me. People getting triggered over someone saying bad things over a TV show and characters is just the weirdest thing ever to me. Like who cares?? They are just strangers giving their opinions no one is being forced to read or agree with, so relax. And then they take it so personal as if they made the show themselves! 😆 Like it’s their money funding the show.

It’s really bizarre to me.

I get people can be thin skinned but unless they are talking about you directly you have to suck it up and move on. Believe me there are places ten times worse spouting off negative things about Discovery. They are so bad, even I don’t want to be around these people.

This place and TrkCore is a cake walk compared to the true dredges out there.

100% agreed. I’ll leave it there.

I don’t think you were around M1701 for the 2.5 seasons of Discovery where Tiger2 was the voice of moderation and open mindedness about Discovery, very much looking for silver linings – when others were unremittingly negative.

He seems to have been more disappointed in the revelations of season three and all of season four than I, but he’s given a fair shot all along.

Like him, I still find many of the creative choices for that show boggling, but I like it better. It seems to be a Star Trek show for people now in their late 20s and 30s. I can appreciate that while still saying the show continues to have ongoing elements of incoherence by design.

Thank you!

I really wish this place just had an ignore button so you don’t have to get into constant tedious fights with people who just want to argue with everybody because they are that bored in their life or become creepily obsessed over every little thing you say. I just can’t do it anymore.

Truth

I’ve heard a theory that the Titan gets destroyed and THIS crew is our new enterprise crew.

“I’ve heard a theory that the Titan gets destroyed and THIS crew is our new enterprise crew.”

I guess that could Titan the plot a bit.

-ugh-

I’m curious and I hope all the Titan crew get their chance to shine.

I’m going to be unhappy if Captain Shaw is eliminated. Being challenged by new situations and needing to transform himself, I could definitely get behind though.

In the All Access podcast Laurie and Tony made it clear he’s not a wimpy captain foil of the kind Kirk faced off against in the movies. I can’t imagine Stashwick being put in that kind or role, or even that of a Lorca.

But I’m enough of a 2 monkeys fan to want to see Shaw alive, whole and redeemed by the end of season.

I really hope so. It’s funny I’m looking at other boards and everyone is already convinced they are all set up for the spin off show lol. As fans, we can’t help but to always ‘go there’.

But again, listening to RMB slightly discuss them, he mentions they become memorable after the first few episodes and directly compared them to the Discovery crew and lack of any real identity with them (why I mentioned them). So based on that it sounds like a yes, we’re going to get to know them.

I think Shaw is going to be around at least through the season, but yes he could end up dead at some point. But Matalas is also suggesting he’s going to be a fan favorite, you usually don’t kill those off in one season so maybe he will push on through. I’m just not going to wager any money on it yet. ;)

Deacon was also a fan favourite in the end.

I’m not going to spoil 12 monkeys because I want absolutely everyone who hasn’t given it a serious try to do so.

I’d like though to see Todd Stashwick get a lead role in a future series. He can more than carry it, and I believe that Seven works best a character when she has someone to play off.

It seems that in season two, the writers tried to lever that dynamic with Raffi but it did a disservice to both characters. I don’t think the romantic friction is the way to do it for Seven.

If Shaw and Seven can have a dynamic professional tension and contrast, that might get us what Seven offered in Voyager but at between a Captain and First Officer. Something like what TNG tried (unsuccessfully) for in season one.

Yeah I agree with a lot of that! And please don’t spoil 12 Monkeys lol.

I really can’t wait to see how they handle Shaw and Seven’s relationship. I think she will still bump heads like on Voyager too but not as aggressively like on that ship now that she’s officially part of a command structure. But Seven still has to be Seven lol.

Either way I do want Shaw to stick around! I think he’s going to be so much fun!

I hate to say I don’t see Captain Shaw making it very long. Picard is clearly shown in the center seat more than once, so is Riker.

When I first saw Captain Shaw, I immediatley thought of the condescending science officer that gets taken out by an asteroid in Discovery.

Yeah they look totally awesome. I think lots of people going to love them. It’s nice to finally getting real 25th century Star Trek! Fans are getting excited.

Wished Janeway was there too but I’m cool with it As long as she show up in live action in the future I can be patient.

For sure, I think Matalas is really setting the stage for the future here and at least some of these guys will get bigger roles as the season goes on.

And it also proves yeah fans certainly want legacy characters, but the second you give them NEW characters that sound interesting and real development they will immediately fall over them too. It has happened on all the new shows and for me personally I love all the new characters from LDS, yes even Mariner lol.

So I’m hoping we really get to know these guys, especially if they are thinking of a Titan show as a spin off possibility.

Yep my favorite characters in NuTrek are Tendi and Rutherford. Love those guys! Really like Saru too. I was really starting to like Hemmer too before they killed him off. 🙄

Yep I love Tend and Ruthefordi too. I really want to see Tendi make captain some day! Don’t get me started on Hemmer. (sigh) At least they aren’t replacing him with Scotty…for now.

I just want the show to give a chance to new characters that can find their own fanbase.

SNW had the potential to do that, but it seems to be all about setting the stage for the TOS legacy characters. I can love it and be disappointed at that too.

Matalas may be seeking to appeal to the Berman era core of fans with this clearly back-door pilot season, and get them on board with the new era of shows.

He knows very well however that Paramount+ needs his show to draw in an audience beyond Gen X and boomers. The streamer already has enough audience in that demographic.

So, while it will be a great thing if Picard S3 can draw in some of the casual TNG that haven’t been seeing any of the new shows, it’s got to be more than that.

Again, I utterly agree!

Look, I know some people read my posts and think I’m on both sides of the issue…because I am lol. I think MOST of us are, right? We ALL agree that Star Trek needs to expand and bring in new characters for a new audience to attach to that doesn’t have literally decades of baggage. I know more about Picard’s life then I do know most of extended family’s lol. But to be fair to me, because I care about Picard more than most of my family. ;D

Everyone here seems to agree with that and yet I remember being here when people were begging and begging and begging for a Pike show. Yes I believe YOU wanted an actual Pike show, but for the overwhelming majority out there, it was just an excuse to be an extended TOS show on day one and was waiting for the episode Kirk and Bones showed up. And yeah, it became that in droves already. Again, I point this out until this season of Picard, SNW has already had the most legacy characters on a show in a single season of NuTrek so far. Even LDS only had three in its; first season..And is that to attract ‘new’ fans or all the oldies? We know the answer to that. New fans don’t care. It’s for us oldies, period.

Same for Picard. I was NEVER fooled by the idea it was just going to be Picard in a totally separate adventure from all his Enterprise buddies and we may only get a cameo appearance by Riker in season 3. Yes they tried to be a little conservative about it in the first season but it was always going to be a TNG reunion at some point. And even for me I never expected it to be this direct. I sort of thought they would do it like first season, he bumps into Worf on a planet, then run into Beverly at a space station and so on. In other words they are all there, but it’s not everyone standing together on a ship. And yeah it’s basically what next will ultimately become, it just may take a few episodes to get there.

But I’m going to keep saying this as much as possible, this isn’t for us. It’s for all those casual fans out there who doesn’t look at these new shows as ‘real’ Star Trek. The people who will only pay if Kirk or Janeway is in an episode or a show. For us, we can go either way, but I think there is a big contingent out there who has stayed away from paying and CBS noticed. I don’t care how much people want to spin this stuff but the first season of Discovery, they kept saying we’ll never see anyone from TOS and definitely no Spock (which never made a lick of sense anyway after you tied your main character to the biggest legacy character of them all…but welcome to Discovery).

But then come second season, not only is Spock there with Pike and Number One, the entire story is basically about him. My guess is there were so many complaints that Discovery didn’t feel TOS/Star Trek enough, they bent over backwards to get those people on board. And my guess is Picard got the same complaints after its first season too. Yes a little better from the outset but still not ‘TNG’ enough. You don’t dump literally 80% of your new cast two seasons in for old characters if people were truly loving the show.

And now, what’s more funny, you have some of the BIGGEST NuTrek haters online now singing that show’s praises because of it. It’s basically Berman Trek again and it’s obviously working for a lot of them out there. So what do you do???

And the fact is, we now have 5 shows and they were all put in time periods where 90% of the legacy characters exist, basically everyone except the Enterprise characters. So what do people expect? They moved Discovery so there is now one show that can (finally) just be its own thing but you don’t put all those shows in these specific periods other than to mime all the legacy actors and characters they can.

And that’s the other thing, this ridiculous spin that they suddenly care about ‘new’ fans is such BS lol. They don’t care! Again, we have eyes and ears. Everything these shows are doing, everything, is to kowtow to old fans. We drive the shows because we pay every month to watch them, they KNOW that. That’s why Picard, Lower Decks and SNW isn’t going anywhere. Those shows literally exist because old fans complained about Discovery in the first place and that it wasn’t ‘Star Trek’ enough or nostalgia enough and on and on.

I remember telling you this in another thread, if Paramount was so concerned about new fans and supposedly Discovery is driving that, well then, we would have more Discoveys by now lol. This isn’t hard. The reality is every show, every show, has only become more nostalgia bait driven since Discovery premiered. Why is that? We know why.

It’s low hanging fruit spin. Go to social media, Youtube, anywhere. Who is driving the conversation? Old fans, period. CBS knows that, the new fans are nowhere to be found. Show me a link, ONE link where ‘new’ fans are talking up Discovery, LDS, SNW, whatever show that is supposedly attracting these people.TM is probably the OLDEST Star Trek website out there in terms of ‘NuTrek’. Because it was made with the idea that Star Trek was going to get a reboot and drive in new fans after the Berman era was finally done. And yet, 99.9% of everyone here are people whose been watching at least since the 90s. That’s basically everywhere you go online. The ‘new’ fans, if they reach 10% of who is watching these new shows I would be shocked, because you can’t even find 10% of them talking about them online lol.

Funny you can certainly find tons of new fans talking about The Last of Us, a show that’s been on a month and I’m guessing maybe a third of people whose watching it has ever played the game. I have people NEVER heard of that game watching it like flies to honey. Five years of ‘NuTrek’ and I don’t know a single soul watching these shows.Honest question, do you? An if so, are they new to Star Trek? If the answer is ‘no’ well that’s the problem.

So until you can get convince Paramount that the all the videos being made complaining about how new Star Trek has became a dumpster fire since Abram/Kurtzman took over by 40+ year old bitter fanboys, they will continue to kowtow to those people. To pretend otherwise is tone deaf because as the Kelvin movies proved, it’s just not enough ‘new’ fans to drive this franchise. They is not enough of them out there and they are certainly not vocal enough, right?

People need to stop kidding themselves. The old fans have Paramount by the balls….and Paramount clearly knows it. That’s why you have people like Matalas online 24/7 talking to OLD fans why Picard season 3 is everything you remembered from 35 years ago. Do you think Matalas or anyone at Paramount has remotely tried to sell this season to new fans? LOL, what would even be the point?

This is a very interesting post. The subscriptions are more important than so called Neilson ratings of the past. Perhaps “the long tail” is dead, but the medium tail is in full effect.

You make some valid points but I also think younger newer fans are not going to spend a lot of time with us cranky old guys who make the same complaints day in and day out like it’s our job.

They just…. go about being fans instead of defending their likes and dislikes to us.

Obviously, Picard is a very nostalgia driven show, but others shows are using a mix of old and new characters, which seems like standard procedure in franchise building.

Right. Sometimes I’m tired of defending my opinions to old fans and I am an old fan. (I watched DS9 when it premiered when I was like 2 and a half years old so I literally grew up on Trek.)

My rant was only in response to TG47 because he seems perplexed that so many of these shows are really being made to attract older fans and doesn’t seem to really be creating shows that is more open or appealing to a newer or wider audience. And that’s the point in my post, he’s not wrong obviously but that’s because, yeah, they aren’t focused on trying to get new fans lol. That’s kind of the point. What’s funny to me is the opposite effect is happening.

You look at Discovery its first season, everything about that show in the beginning was IMO trying to attract new fans as well as old. They were clearly trying to reset Star Trek for a new younger audience because everything about that show was made under the trend of most modern shows today, from an edgier look and feel to it being more serialized obviously. At one point they compared it to GOT because yeah GOT is for today’s audience and obviously very popular.

Now fast forward to roughly five years later with a show like SNW. That show is basically a remake of the Roddenberry/Berman era. SNW is basically the Star Trek of 1993 lol, just a more modern version of it, which is funny to me because we’ve gone back to episodic, forehead of the week aliens again on that show and fans can’t get enough lol. Again, why is that? Because they are trying like mad to appeal to the old TOS and TNG fans obviously. That’s literally what the Orville was doing because it was trying to reach the old Trek fans too. Neither of these shows are the Expanse for a reason. So it’s funny to see the evolution of where it started with Discovery and every show since then has only became more entrenched with elements fans wanted and yelled about having again. And look at that, they got it!

The bigger irony is SNW is much closer to the Orville than it is Discovery or even Picard early days because they are chasing the same audiences. or am I missing something?

My main point is that if there was a true campaign to get audiences who are younger and grew up on modern TV, we would have more shows like the early seasons of Discovery on that followed those trends instead of shows like SNW and season 3 of Picard which is basically a complete throw back to 1960s-90s Star Trek. This seems pretty obvious to anyone who is paying attention. Even LDS is basically a throw back to 1990s TV but it actually has a very modern sensibility of adult animated shows. That’s what is interesting about LDS, it found a niche to feel modern but nostalgic at the same time. But I’m not naive, I’m guessing over 90% of people who watch it or old fans obviously.

I have no doubt Paramount wants more new fans, but again, explain to me how they are doing that? I don’t see any real drive at all. It seems to be the complete opposite for a reason, there just isn’t a lot of them and there isn’t a drive to get them either, especially when you have five shows on the air. They are pushing these shows for fans whose been watching at least the last 30 years. If that wasn’t the case, three of the shows wouldn’t take place in the TNG era lol. I would think they would’ve moved on a century after Voyager or something and just started a completely new slate with NO old characters or story lines then. There would be no SNW, PIC, LDS, etc because new fans don’t care about old characters. And yet it’s those characters that is still being the most marketed for a reason.

Now there is Prodigy, but again, that’s more of a niche audience. They are trying to get more kids into Star Trek which is great obviously, but everything about that show is still kowtowing to old fans as well. More so than I think a lot of thought in fact, but again it’s working in that regard too…at least the people watching it.

Maybe at some point, the franchise will reach a higher set of newer audiences and then we’ll get an expansion like we did, ironically in the 90s. But until then, don’t be shocked it will just be more TOS and TNG spinoffs for years to come.

“Obviously, Picard is a very nostalgia driven show, but others shows are using a mix of old and new characters, which seems like standard procedure in franchise building.”

Agreed, but again, that’s my point Look at the Berman era. Every show had all new characters. Every single one of them. Yes Worf and O’Brien was the lone exceptions, but the point is they were trying hard for every show to have its own identity as well. Now, to be clear, all those show basically had the same audience, they just tried to expand Star Trek for them like MCU is doing today and give it more variety at the same time. So the idea of having new characters to attract new people is certainly true, but every new show is going to have new characters lol. You can’t clone the TNG characters and put them on DS9 or VOY obviously, so you have to create new ones to keep expanding. But end of the day it was still for mostly the same audiences, just give them more variety. Law and Order has tons of new characters with every new iteration but it’s still attracting the same people.

Today, it’s inverted. They are also mostly chasing the same audiences but also doing it in a way where the shows can actually appeal to different audiences as well. That’s why it’s funny to me people complain about Lower Decks because that show is clearly made to appeal to both old and new fans, but no one is naive to believe it’s grabbing more new fans than old either, it’s only trying to also appeal to new people who may not like traditional Star Trek or see it as too stuffy or serious.

That’s ironically it’s appeal but still throw in all the old nostalgia for old fans. And the other irony unlike SNW, PIC and PRO, it’s made up of completely new characters too. But again, I don’t think anyone is pretending just having new characters is what is driving new fans to it either. They just want to tell their own stories, especially since the characters are supposed to be younger and less experienced.

But overall, there is tons more nostalgia with all the shows today than there were in the 90 shows because now they are trying to do everything possible to keep all those fans who was watching Trek from the 60s-90s with these new shows. And clearly mostly toward the people who watched in the 90s because that is Star Trek’s biggest base today.

This is a very calculated choice for a reason, because say what you will about Discovery in season one, it wasn’t nostalgic lol. It was the complete opposite in fact. Cut to four shows later and ALL of them are now drowning in nostalgia. DIS started doing it itselff in season 2 and look how people responded to it, very positively. Again, why is that? It’s not rocket science to figure out why the changed happened as quickly as it did. The old fans wasn’t happen and they pivoted from that point on to kowtow to them and what we have today, right?

I think when Discovery started, the idea was probably to start building a new base of fans like how TNG did it but it clearly didn’t work or there wouldn’t even be shows like LDS and SNW on IMO because those shows are reliving the 90s version of Star Trek, just with a more modern feel.

I have no idea how putting Michael in the Mirror Universe was going to get more fans. DSC S1 was almost good enough to encourage older viewers to bring in new ones. But it would have been so much better if Lorca was just wrong and causing them all trouble. And/or we saw a Klingon War arc with good original Philippa Georgiou. I am sure the producers are looking at her Academy Award nomination and quite sad about the missed opportunities. I don’t believe she wouldn’t have wanted to be a good captain for a season. In fact, if they had kept her good all season and then pulled a GOT beheading, then they would have really had some interested fans.

I thought Lorca should have been a Section 31 agent and the plot of Discovery S1 should have been the dilemma of the crew as to whether to take him down, or work with him, or something inbetween. At least if they’d stayed in a similar area.

Something like that — in the “real” world. They hadn’t established these characters long enough to put them in the Mirror Universe.

I read somewhere that the original plan (from Fuller before he left) was to go to the mirror universe even earlier than they settled on going. But then again, his plan for the mirror universe episode(s) may have been different, as there was some talk about re-imagining the mirror universe to some extent.

Yeah IIRC, Fuller wanted to enter the MU by episode four, but no idea how long they would’ve stayed there in his version.

I wasn’t as bothered by the Lorca turn but I do agree it probably would’ve been better if he really was someone who was going through PTSD. I think it felt too mustache twirling for some people.

As for Yeoh, I think people really loved her as her prime universe character. I certainly did. But I know others like her as the MU version but it just felt so over the top and why that character is still so divisive now. But I assume if the Section 31 show does happen, they will soften the character more.

Conversely they could have just started and stayed in the Mirror Universe. Then they could have really played with the idea of who some of the established characters were. Like Imagine Burnham and Kirk are more or less… the same age? In the MU that would have been very interesting…

Oh and to make this clear, on the same video I watched, RMB said specifically that the season is not about Honey Bunny seeking revenge on Picard, it goes much more deeper and layered than that!

I’m so glad to hear that. That’s my only red flag and more inane JJ verse supervillains wanting vengeance.

And if you’re going to do it give them some real depth and not some guy monologuing for two minutes before firing weapons. I’m sooo sick of that man and a big reason Beyond failed. No one cared anymore and that was the only one I liked.

I can only guess they are purposely marketing her that way because someone thinks this very very tired trope now gets people’s attention regardless. But then you listen to Matalas talk about her and he keeps assuring people it’s just not another Khan or Krall which signals to me he probably doesn’t like how she is being marketed either. He doesn’t want to give away whatever the big reveal is about her but if you have to constantly tell fans there is more to her, then he’s probably annoyed that’s how she is coming off even if she does have a real score to pick with Picard.

To me, I would’ve not made her such a big focus in the trailer at all and just keep her more of a mystery until the show started. But unfortunately Paramount didn’t call some random nobody typing this in his sweats. ;D

It looks more like supervillain team up. The TNG version of the Injustice Gang.

LOL!

Didn’t RMB try to hijack Star Trek? I don’t quite trust his take on anything Trek-related.

I don’t know what you mean by ‘hijack’? It’s a little vague lol. And obviously you don’t have to believe anything he says about the season. We’re going to find out for ourselves soon enough.

This Show could invent some sort of Holographic Projection like Mass Effects. So that Janeway appear as Hologram Figure inside the Communication Device (Look how Mass Effect use it) so they have an perfect opportunity to give this Janeway an Face Lifting with Holographic Static Communication. So they could make her similar to her Prodigy Avatar

Like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Mb4xO0NETc

OK I watched the clip but I’m a little confused? Are you suggesting Janeway can still appear in the season, just as a hologram? I mean sure, but I don’t know why they would need to do that all since she will be her real age in Picard anyway?

But I already seen posts and tweets where people think Matalas is lying and that Janeway will be in the season to keep the surprise, so who knows? I don’t think she will be but these people have lied MANY times in the past lol.

And if she isn’t it doesn’t mean we won’t see her in the future. There could obviously still be a Janeway spin off show as well. But I think that might be farther down the line after Prodigy is done.

Yes, her Hologram Ego. if She do not weant to apear as Real Actor. Also to avoid Exclusivity Copyright Things with Prodigy. Think it more like an TNG 3D Zoom call with very tight Security. But just an Flat Monitor Screen would be way cheaper :)

But I don’t think it’s Kate Mulgrew who doesn’t want to appear. She’s already said she wants to do live action stuff again and even her own show. I just think they didn’t want to include her character because it didn’t fit in with the story or she cost too much lol, IDK.

It’s obvious a lot of people want to see Janeway in live action form and the producers know that, so it will probably happen at some point.

I had more these Filming Locations and She is only one Person and do not have Clone twins for two Shows, Problems. So perhaps they could use some motion face capturing stuff from Prodigy to easy her Shoulders. Also the Makeup is already build in the Motion Data (Strand of White Hair)

But if they want to shoot her in Real Life i have nothing against it, too

I don’t think Prodigy does any motion capture of its actors. The actors only provide the voices. Prodigy is not Avatar in TV form.

My impression from what he said is that part of the Prodigy deal with Nickelodeon demands exclusive rights to the character in new productions, for the time being at least.

So I suspect the reason they can’t use Janeway is because the character rights are licensed out, perhaps to avoid creative conflicts with Prodigy.

Real life and in-universe time after Voyager are about the same so this time her age is correct to play the character in live action unlike in Prodigy. She wouldn’t need any aging effects.

Matalas said Janeway is exclusive to Prodigy. He’s seems big on controlling expectations so when he shoots down a cameo and tend to take his word for it.

About the “many Systems offline”. Seems like they are running on Backup Batteries. All critical Power are Offline. Warp is Red. i hope there is no Warp Core breach

Hey, Star Trek: Legacy name was my idea :) But well. Let’s see. Keep in mind how Old the TNG Crew is now and how ambitions they are to stand in front of the Camera again. So do not rise the Hype train to much. To play it save. Star Trek:Legacy would really be focused on pass the Torch to the next generation or to Kickstart the new Generation

I had hoped that this season was a set up for Star Trek: Titan with the ‘next next generation’, including Seven and one of Geordi’s daughters, not a show with more than 50% of the cast as legacy characters.

Could be. But i hope that many of these “legacy” survive this Finale and become Mentor for the new Flames/Blood or they use an Time jump ahead and in future Episodes they play some Flashbacks of their Mentors Tips and tricks. I do not hope for “wonder children” solutions. I think the TNG Fans would prefer more the Mentor role solution, if possible of course

example: Worf to fight their inner Rage Demon. Crusher and Troy to uphold Empathy over Distrust and Fear and so on. Riker to do what needs to do, but not Blindly. Picard, try to resolve peaceful things but if all talks are in Vain no fear to fight to Protect and so on, but not like Sisko

Well this is only my opinion. Other have another light of these Characters

Bro I’m like you I want as many legacy characters as possible! 😆

I like the idea of a more mentor role for some of these new guys.

Isn’t that what most of us has been assuming though? You’ve certainly heard me say it more than enough times. I suspect if they are setting up these characters for the spin off show, we’re still have some TNG characters I think only 1 or 2 (like maybe Riker or Worf as the new captain) and others can show up here and there. Seven will definitely be there no matter what.

Now IF they decided to go with another season of Picard, as I also said I would expect the full gang still together if Stewart is back. If that’s not happening, which I really doubt, I think it will be mostly new characters, at least I hope so!

Seven is okay for me, she earn this Position of a Leader now. Trough Vogayer and now Picard. She has seen the Good and the ugly side of Starfleet. So she is my best Candidate for being “Gray”. Perhaps she can use some “What would Janeway/Tuvok/Chakotay…. do in my place?” thoughts. to have still the Voyager Easter Egg root connection

Certainly! And they could just be setting it up as a Seven led show as well. I still think they don’t know what direction to go in, but will probably be on boards like this and read the tea leaves of what legacy character should drive the show if there is a spin off.

I think that’s the biggest reason they threw her in Starfleet so fast because Matalas is probably pushing for either a TNG character or Seven led show. But it’s obvious she will be part of the next show.

Perhaps She raise the Command Rank under some sort of occasion. It do not need to be because of her Captain’s Death. While she raise in Command her friend Raffi (if they plan to spin their relationship further) became her Support Commander, like The Orville solution

Seven is more for the Ship, where Raffi is more for the Away team

I think Raffie will end up on the ship as well and become part of the crew too but probably much later.

And I hope the new captain doesn’t die either. That guy is probably going to be great!

Yes, in this Short amount of time in the trailer he give me heavy “Riker” Humor Vibes

Matalas has said she was in some kind of accelerated officer development program.

So, she’s a ‘Mustang’ of a kind.

Given her time as a specialist in the Delta Quadrant, time in the Fenris rangers and time with Picard, she would have been a reasonable candidate if Starfleet is in a period where they need to fill gaps in command ranks.

my money says the titan gets wrecked and the series ends with them being assigned the new enterprise, and it’s going to act as a “enterprise F series” trial ballon

I would be all for that, but I don’t know if they want two shows with an Enterprise on it? But considering they are separated by 150 years or so, maybe it won’t be that big of a deal. ;)

I think most people would probably prefer an Enterprise F show over a Titan A show, unless they really get attached to that ship next season. Per usual, we’ll see what happens. :)

That would be my first choice and have the next show on the Enterprise F. But I think Tiger2 is right they probably want to distinguish the shows as much as possible. I hope we really see it next season though and not just exterior shots

Perhaps

Titan’s name is bounded to “pew Pew, Peng Peng!” Actions like we saw in Lower Decks and Special OPS Flagship

But with the name Enterprise we have Explorers and other peaceful stuff in Mind. But Seven’s time in the Fenris Rangers could use the Titan’s name very well, too

So you could have an Point there. Time will tell. I do not think that they going to Refit this Ship that early in the Spinoff or after Picard Season 3

I don’t think the Titan’s going to survive the season. But I DO think the titan crew is going to. And I think we’ve seen their next assignment after the Titan already

I’m glad the Titan is getting its season (as many fans have wanted since Nemesis and the excellent series of Relaunch Titan novels).

I don’t see why it shouldn’t have its own show. It can survive with a refit if need be.

We already have an Enterprise-based show. SNW is set on the original 1701 no less.

Wanting every show to be set on Enterprise to be ‘real Trek’ is a bad attitude, limiting the franchise, that I had thought was left behind in the 1990s bulletin board fanwars over DS9 and Voyager.

Voyager gave us another hero ship to love. And it’s been the most successful one for the generation of new fans brought to the franchise by streaming on Netflix.

I’m all in for Star Trek: Titan.

I think they would need to come up with a mission to set it apart from SNW and DSC. SNW has the mostly standalone episodic stories on the five year mission, DSC has them per season.

So what could Titan be? Maybe partly a sequel to DS9 with the Dominion fallout? That could give an ongoing role to Worf.

And most fans would be ecstatic over that angle. I said this to you in another thread, it’s not really that difficult to come up with a slightly different angle since all 5 shows already has one. What is Lower Decks big angle? They do second contact missions instead of firsts. What’s Discovery’s? Who knows because it literally changes every season lol. Same with Picard. Sounds like it will be the same with Prodigy.

So I don’t think it’s a huge deal. All they need to do is what they already been doing, just come up with a premise for the season and then if they want they can change it the next season anyway. Three of the five shows are already doing it as mentioned, which I also notice those three shows isn’t about classical space exploration.

The two shows that are, LDS and SNW doesn’t seem to have some huge story arc that guides the season like the others and free to do what they want for the most part. Probably another reason why both are so popular in the fanbase.

Hey, Star Trek: Legacy name was my idea :)

Not just your idea ;) I suggested it here a couple of years ago for PIC before it was revealed that the name “Star Trek: Picard” had been finalised.

But I like the way you think — Yes, it’s definitely a good name ;)

I do recall that Jai.

I think we’d all hoped Kirsten Beyer’s original idea (which was likely to have been closer to a reunion) would have been the premise from the start.

But this show has been very much shaped by what Patrick Stewart was willing to do and all the more by what he refused to in the first two seasons.

There’s certainly a case study there about how far EPs and creators should go in indulging key talent against the needs of story and characterization.

Glad to see you popping in here more often again to throw out speculations.

Glad to see you popping in here more often again to throw out speculations.

Thank you very much. I prefer to binge-watch PIC in one go after the whole season has been released, so once Season 3 begins I might disappear from PIC-related Trekmovie threads until it has finished (to avoid spoilers etc). We’ll see how it goes.

Oh, did not know that. And sorry for the late reply. i do not have these notice activated here.

Good that we had the same conclusion :) Well, lets see how this Voyage continues

Hmmm, Captain Shaw?… Another Star Trek Gilbert & Sullivan reference?

In case that Captain Shaw ist being killed, i hope Worf will take over at the end of the season and the base-setting for new series is complete. Pacifist Worf with Seven as Xo. I would like that.

I love how people think Worf is now “Pacifist Worf” because of that one line lol.

Worf is more of a Teddy Roosevelt style of pacifist— Speak Softly and carry a big Batleth

Some of the people who seen it says that line is totally out of context in the trailer. And considering we literally see him fighting in said trailer, I don’t think that’s a stretch to believe.

Worf doesn’t want to beat your ass…. but he will if he has to.

Like Elnor’s “please, choose to live”

I can tell you they are correct.

Nice! Sounds like someone else got a sneak peek somewhere. ;)

The Titan is destroyed after Worf cuts power to the weapons systems mid-battle.

He just wants everyone to hug it out.

Or maybe Worf as XO to Seven if they chose to go with him being barred from his own command after what he did to save Jadzia.

That would be an interesting tension given their relative levels of experience as command-level officers.

He was already rehabilitated during DS9 and commanded several ships and led missions with the Defiant after the events. The officially authorized Picard novels also revealed that Worf was promoted to Captain of the Enterprise-E and I bet that something happened then that cost lives and maybe even the ship and Worf was the scapegoat and then he was “grounded”.

So happy they ignored that nonsense that Worf could never have command again on DS9. It was basically dropped as fast it was mentioned.

I took it as he would never be offered his own command, as opposed to commanding missions in his capacity as first officer of the Defiant.

But you raise a good point that if they were to follow through on the logic when it’s first brought up, why would he be allowed to command any mission, especially one related to the war or where Dax is involved?

I already love these guys and haven’t met them yet! Getting strong spin off Titan show vibes here. I think they are going to be awesome though! They just look right!

Maybe Seven will be promoted to captain by the end of the season and lead the spinoff show? She would be my first choice for sure. Riker would be my second.

Riker would be her “Guardian” Admiral, yes. could work. Because Seven reminds him strongly about their own Daughter and vice Versa while she was still an child and Riker & Troy Daughter looks up to her :)

I’m not sure I agree with this. I think that role will always go to Janeway. She’s always been the more mother surrogate to Seven for obvious reasons. It’s a big reason why so many want Janeway on this show or the spin off. I feel it would be too forced if they went that way with Riker and Seven. But I been wrong many times lol.

Time will tell, until now speculations is our Lifeline and Joy :) Perhaps Picard and Janeway are more buddies toghter as with Riker and he (Riker) just follow an request from Picard

Yes, i am also curious how they plan it out

Yeah definitely true. I’m really getting excited to see how these dynamics will play out. Seven is kind of a wild card because we know her so well but this is the first time we will see her actually in command. Can not wait!!

I do get the feeling that it’ll be Seven or Worf in the captain’s chair by the end of S3, if only because P+ has been playing it pretty safe by giving legacy characters large parts in every Trek since LDS. I don’t know if they’ve got the will to launch a new series without the built-in draw of a known character, esp. since they seem to be leaning into the broad appeal of an actual TNG reunion to draw in more viewers.

Agreed! I think if it was up to them they would probably just bring in the TNG cast back in the spin off show. But because Stewart doesn’t want to do it anymore it makes sense to bring in a few of them and some of the new characters.

They know most fans want to see the legacy characters and will pay to see them.

I’ll be totally fine with Worf as captain as well!

Yeah, I think it’ll be Seven if anyone, but Worf seems to be the best shot out of the TNG crew. Levar Burton and John Frakes seem like they have a lot going on that would keep them from wanting to commit to a leading role, any version of Lore in the captain’s chair seems like a stretch, Stewart’s unlikely to come back for another season as lead, Crusher is out of Starfleet, and I don’t think Troi is popular enough for the studio to back Sirtis as a lead. But Michael Dorn’s been stumping for a Worf show for ages, he doesn’t seem too busy, and his character is pretty popular. So maybe.

There is a running joke with fandom that Frakes will play Riker until he’s on his deathbed but I think in all honesty, he probably prefers directing and being behind the camera at this point. I think he loves to play Riker when they ask him to do it but I don’t think he wants to act full time either. I think he would certainly play him every year but maybe more of a recurring role, not a full on lead.

The others I think they will all come back full time but in terms of being in the chair, Seven, Worf and Geordi are the only other candidates and I agree Worf probably is the more suitable choice. For two seasons now, fans were hoping he showed up as a captain on the Enterprise E. But I can easily seeing it being a Captain Seven show too. I’m still shocked they just didn’t keep her as the captain, but I guess they wanted her to ‘earn’ it and not be mocked like Kelvin Kirk got from some fans.

Now of course if there is a Titan focused spin off show, they can shock us all and either keep Shaw as the captain or just bring in a new character altogether but no one seems remotely convinced that would happen lol.

I would be okay, if his name “Admiral Riker” or so would appear as Proof and show us that backup the New Cast. Like i said about being perhaps the Guardian of Seven. No need of him being infront of the Camera, just only his weight of the name

or his Teleport Twin Thomas got a new face (lookalike) and try to become like William. But i bet this solution is blasphemy for the fans

So we know we’re not getting Janeway, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest one of the “other voyagers” is not Chakotay, since that might limit what Prodigy can do. Harry Kim or The Doctor seem to be most obvious choices to me.

Tom Parris, Tuvok (He is a Vulcan with their longer Lifeline) and Neelix

Didn’t Neelix stay in the Delta Quadrant? That seems unlikely.

He is now Ambassador Neelix. So he could have an Ship to travel around with time

Agreed. I think Kim, the Doctor or even Tom and B’Elanna are strong possibilities. And they are my favorite couple in Star Trek so really want to see them on this show or Prodigy.

Since Tom and B’Elanna are currently being feature din IDW comics, along with Worf and Lore, I think they’re the clear choice.

I’d love to see Tom and B’Elanna.

If Matalas was able to get the two of them onscreen together around their respective busy directing schedules, kudos to him.

Oh yeah I definitely want to see them too. I was a bit disappointed they didn’t give us anything about B’Elanna when Tom was on the Cerritos. It would also be great if we saw their daughter and she still joined Starfleet like we saw in Endgame. It is funny both actors ended up being directors.

I seriously doubt that has any bearing on this

I wouldn’t look to the comics for clues.

I already said it, I’m open to anyone in the Voyager crew to show up but I would be most interested in the Doctor or Tuvok. It’s still shocking to me the Doctor hasn’t shown up anywhere yet because that guy is a huge fan favorite. I thought at least one of the animated shows by now.

I think Wang burned too many bridges with the studio in the past, so I have doubts we will ever see him again at least in live action Star Trek. Perhaps at most he might get a one ep cameo animated appearance down the line, but I think that would be it.

I think it’s going to be Tuvok.

I forgot about Tuvok. That could absolutely make sense. Tuvok and/or The Doctor.

Agreed!

My bet: It’ll be Robert Picard’s The Doctor.

Please God don’t let it be Neelix, hands-down The Most Annoying Character in Any Incarnation of Star Trek. Yes, I know he’s still in the Delta Quadrant. Keep him there.

Please, nobody from Voyager, except maybe Tom Paris’ and Janeway’s Warp 10 salamander pups, all grown up!

Fully disagree. As this board and practically every place else shows most want to see them again. We already know more are coming on Picard next season anyway.

And there will probably be more on Prodigy next season too.

Well said, LOL

I think for me, Lt. Reg Barclay edges out Neelix as most annoying, but keeping them both far away from this would please me.

I like Barclay. He is a bit annoying, but ‘Hollow Pursuits’ should be shown to every manager. I really appreciate when Picard tells Geordi to ‘try harder’ to work with Barclay.

Regarding that BTS photo, looks like the Titan is going to get wrecked…hard and will be dead in the water.

Anyone else think we might get a spin off show featuring the USS Titan?

If Picard is a big hit and actually expands the audience, then maybe a spin-off has a shot. If it’s just generally between OK and good, with some fans liking it and some fans disliking it, that’s probably not going to expand the audience much and so then I would say, no. I am hoping for the former, but I am kind of more expecting the latter given what we saw in Picard season one and two, and given Matalas seems to be trying way too hard to promote this as the best thing since sliced bread.

👍👍👍

Totally! I would prefer the Enterprise F though but the Titan A is winning me over.

Perhaps as somehow alike Fenris Ranger’s Flagship

Yeah I also agree with everyone. End of the day, most fans just want to be on a Starship with a mix of old and new cool characters and doing some exploring in the 25th century. Give us Seven or Worf as its captain, you’ll have the fans wanting more for years to come! Not complicated. ;)

You can sign me up for that as well, as long as the writing is very UN-like the first two seasons of PIC! But yes, new exploring in the 25th century on a federation starship with a couple of familiar faces would be great.

Fingers crossed, might be doing a cinematography article on this, hoping to get approval in next week or ten days.

Would be a nice coming-full-circle, since I spent months and months (starting late spring PRIOR to the premiere) getting teased and told ‘maybe’ by PR about a DISCOVERY s1 story, only to finally be turned down AFTER the season had finished airing.

Fingers crossed for you, my friend!

Wow congrats Kmart! :)

I really hope you get it bro! If you do, you have to link the article here so we can read it!

The magazine is trying to get it for the April issue, which is their VFX-heavy one. That makes it a little iffy, because in my experience most space and VFX-heavy shows only want coverage AFTER the season has ended. Since the mag is still temporarily digital-only, they might be able to adjust publication date so the story runs after the season finishes.

Plus I never ask spoilerific questions, so am hoping they take that into account. I mean, since 1991, I’ve covered five features VI thru IX for Cinefex, XIII for ICG and PIC s1 for VFX Voice, so they should have some idea of how I roll on these things and that I’ve never spilled Trek secrets, unless you count me eulogizing my pitch session at TNG!

Cool !!!

Wow interesting, thanks. Well if you do end up writing but can’t link it here, just tell me where to go and I’ll have a read for sure. April is not that far and this season looks like it’s going have the heaviest FX of the show so will be curious to learn more about it. Just keep us informed. You’ve definitely had a long career with Star Trek.

Slight update: principal interview if this goes ahead will be a cinematographer who shot a bunch of season 2 and most of season 3, so the idea is to cover both seasons (or at least as much of s3 as they will allow.) So if there’s anything folks want to know about s2 production (not that it is a popular subject here!), just plant the questions in below. Am thinking now we will get the go-ahead or not in the next couple of days.

I wonder if/how much the story on season 2 was influenced by COVID production restrictions, but the cinematographer may not be the right person to answer that.

Wow that’s great news!

I can’t think of a big question off the top of my head but I would be curious how different shooting seasons 2 and 3 was since season 2 was basically shooting just a modern TV show once they went back to the 21st century and a lot more location shooting. Actually I would be curious what do they prefer in shooting the season, more location shooting like season 2 or sound stage work like season 3 clearly is back to doing?

I kind of assume the latter because you can control all the elements better but I imagine it must be exhilarating when you can just do stuff outside once in awhile at least. Listening to all the actors over the years, any time they got to do stuff outside, it sounded like it was going on a field trip lol.

Thanks for the ideas, I’ll see what I can work into the interviews. Still haven’t gotten the green light from studio but the main DP is in touch and very enthusiastic.

I’m asking for production designer, colorist, vfx supe and a few of the DP’s main camera crew, and as always I ask for the showrunner and/or director, but those latter calls only occasionally ever happen, even though I offer to do them via email if they haven’t got time to talk. (and yeah, I do wind up having to cut a lot of stuff to fit the available wordspace — I’ve still got several thousand words of unused quotes about TUC and GEN vfx that got cut from my Cinefex articles, and I’ve been trying to repurpose those someplace for decades. When CINEFEX cut my making of STAR WARS retrospective in half because they hadn’t sold enough ads to cover the size of my draft — 26,000 words — I wound up being able to sell a big chunk of the cut stuff for a story that ran in HOTDOG a few years later, but surprisingly, TREK-oriented mags have not been at all responsive to such entreaties. Plus I’ve actually accrued a ton of sidebar info on TMP down through the years, since every time I come across a vet from that film, I always squeeze it into our conversation. Just a couple years back, Scott Farrar told me about shooting the motion-control potato, which is practically all that Abel was able to show Wise of what was happening with VFX on the film and apparently led directly to his ouster.)

Now that I’m thinking about PICARD, it really would be cool to talk with Frakes! (has anybody ever asked him why his acting improved once Riker got a beard? Can’t imagine s1 Frakes pulling off the mess hall scene in A MATTER OF HONOR or the wonderful end scene with Data in LEGACY, which is easily my fave Riker moment.)

Hey kmart, I would be interested in how the COVID situation limited the production elements in S2. I mean S1 looks bigger and bolder than S2, and the trailers for S3 make it look bigger and bolder than S2 as well, so I gotta believe COVID constrained them significantly, which may be partly responsible for how lame S2 ended up looking.

Good luck!

Probably best not to call the season “lame” when talking to the people who made it ;-)

I’m usually pretty diplomatic about this stuff … considering I’ve covered films like WING COMMANDER and the Mariah Carey movie, there isn’t much choice some of the time! It’s pretty rare when you get outspoken interviews, and even when you do, it sometimes is best to leave certain comments out, because you don’t want to tank somebody’s career because they were in a bad mood while on the phone for 15minutes.

At Cinefex there was a policy where every interviewee got to read the writer’s draft before it went out to the publisher, or, alternately, got to read the final cut of the piece. That approach probably saved a number of careers, and whenever possible, I’ve tried to do the same in the intervening decades. Sometimes things go wrong even with that approach … on RED PLANET, instead of just reviewing the manuscript for errors and omissions, a VFX house in Australia instead sent the uncorrected draft to the STUDIO, which then beat up the overall VFX supe rather ferociously for comments that he was already in the process of amending.

I think something similar might have happened with the first X-MEN, because I had a great and frank talk with that film’s supervisor, only to have him complain massively about my draft. (also, my editor did a lot of summarizing on his comments, using the info in narrative passages rather than keeping it in quotes credited to him, so his name enters the article about five pages later than it did in my version, so maybe he felt it didn’t seem like there was enough of him in the story.)

And to be fair, both X-MEN and especially RED PLANET were very rough productions and extremely stressful with respect to VFX, with nearly TMP-level problems/issues — with regard to politics and directorial miscues on the former and budget/deadlines o the latter.

There have been a few times when I injudiciously spoke truthfully about a film or an actor — I did pieces on QUANTUM OF SOLACE and SKYFALL and was pretty frank about finding almost nothing ‘right’ about Craig’s Bond in CASINO — but I think there was little backlash because I was just being honest, not meanspirited, and professionals, bless their hearts, seem to usually be able to tell the difference. I imagine that when people tell Frakes that they didn’t love THUNDERBIRDS or that frozen-time movie he directed, he doesn’t exactly break down in tears over it (tho to be honest, I remember watching ‘BIRDS and thinking it wasn’t half bad, and that their Lady Penelope, who later on was on MI-5/SPOOKS, hit just the right tone.)

Dude you sound like you have a ton of stories. I used to read a lot of Star Trek magazine articles back in the day (was even subscribed to the official Star Trek magazine for years), but I rarely saw many articles that discusses FX in any real depth unless we’re talking about TMP of course. I can’t imagine the amount of research it takes for articles like that. But can imagine how frustrating it must be to do that much work and being told they can’t even use it all; but I assume that’s normal too.

I hope you get the interview. Yeah, a lot of us were not exactly impressed with season 2 but I’m still curious on how these things are made. And what I’m hearing about season 3 and what we’re going to see later in the season, especially the last two episodes, it’s pretty obvious they had to make season 2 almost bare bones to save the bulk of the money for season 3.

Terry Matalas…Drops More Clues From ‘Star Trek: Picard’ Season 3

What a shock. :-) This has become drinking game material. Lol

i’m just relaxing and having fun with this unprecedented (for Trek), nutty marketing approach now.

I think this might be his take on what I think was a very effective marketing approach for Strange New Worlds. In that case they heavily promoted the characters and look of the show well in advance which made it seem both familiar as well as new and exciting. Notably though I don’t remember them dropping the same kind of major plot hints.

Thank goodness they didn’t shoehorn Janeway into this. She’s perfectly covered in her own new series now, and I’m glad they’re reserving most of the cameos for characters we haven’t seen in a while and who don’t already have significant roles in the Kurtzman Trek franchise

I would think this also makes a Picard spin-off series with Janeway much less likely. And again I’m fine with this given she already has her own series, and they will only have limited slots for other legacy characters in the near future — and also the DS9 characters have been getting the short end of the stick so far.

Good point. But I think another difference here is for SNW we were getting perhaps some real new info once a week. With Matalas it seems like every 48 hours (give or take a day) we are getting more mini spoilers

Welcome to the family Titan crew!

Welcome indeed! :)

Yeah, by all means, WELCOME!

Absolutely!

Here we go again with a communications officer’s claim to fame being speaking dozens of languages. A comms officer’s main skills should be in things like computational linguistics (think: large language models), cryptography, (radio/subspace) physics and (telecommunications) technology. It seems to me the writers don’t have enough understanding of science to figure that out and the only way they see to make a comms officer character competent is by making them a polyglot (who can speak each of their claimed languages perfectly). So, while on one hand they miss out on the actual relevant skills the character should demonstrate, they set an impossibly high bar on multilingualism that makes the character unrelatable.

Excellent point.

They seem to be mixing up first contact or xenocultural skills (one of Troi’s speicializations) with the actual technological and scientific challenges of communications.

While he didn’t get much profile, one thing that Discovery got right was to make Comms Officer Bryce an engineer.

Bryce was also an engineer? Dude I guess I have to rewatch some of Discovery……someday lol. I had no idea. Have there been scenes where he was actually doing engineering stuff?? And I still don’t think we’ve seen Discovery’s engineering room lol. I swear, this show man.

But to keep it on topic, I agree with you both of you. It’s funny since Hoshi, now every comm officer speaks a dozen plus languages but I too imagine it’s not just that simple and Jacek broke it down really well. I would’ve never thought about any of that..and obviously neither have any of the writers.

All I remember is a whole bunch of, “Oh, um… Bryce is dealing with that big problem off-screen. You don’t need to see that. In his place, please enjoy our new token extra Lt. Christopher, instead.”

Ronnie Rowe had to actually get another job and have his occasional absences explained in order for Bryce to be given something meaningful to do.

Yep…sounds like Discovery alright lol. I heard the actor left for another show. I mean I liked Bryce, but there are about maybe 5 lines of dialogue I can remember him saying in four seasons and that’s probably being generous.

The funny thing is, Discovery had an entire story arc about establishing communications with the 10-C, and I don’t think either of the communications officers was involved. But then, Saru is the one with crazy language skills on that bridge.

Apparently, the reason for Ronnie Rowe’s very limited involvement in season 4 was that he got a starring role in another show.

So he did. He’s one of the 3 principal actors on The Porter a CBC/BET+ historical show that’s in its second season.

He’s had lead and major roles in award winning Canadian independent films, for which he’s been a nominee himself for the Canadian screen awards as lead and supporting actor.

Most of the bridge cast have clearly been using Discovery as a stable source of income while the do other things, much as Colm Meany did with his original regular assignment as the transporter chief on TNG. Unlike in the Berman era however, there seems to be no way for the background cast to breakout no matter how good their craft as actors.

LOL that is pretty funny, but yeah Saru was there at least. I forgot he spoke so many languages.

Yup, he’s an engineer. They wouldn’t have set him up to compete in competence with Burnham’s xenobiologist expertise.

In S3 when the Discovery is in rough shape after its arrival in the future, he’s seen working in rerouting connections and installing some critical thing in a wall in a corridor. Which is exactly what I would expect a communications officer to be doing.

Georgiou wants to ‘borrow him’ for her own purposes in that scene but Saru declines.

The writers wrote Bryce off by saying he’d gone to work for Kovic, along with Nilsson. She was also shown to an engineer before she moved up to be a bridge officer.

As with physicians, Discovery seems to get the point about the necessary skills all the while refusing to identify who is the head or chief of any department. Which would be fine if it didn’t make so much of Burnham’s journey to captaincy and Tilley’s progression.

I also note that in TNG, Voyager and DS9, communications were merged with operations or tactical, clearing emphasizing the technical side.

Getting back to the point of linguistic prodigies, it seems possibly like some kind of unconscious sexism (going back to Uhura’s groundbreaking role in TOS) that leads writers to fail to see communications officers as specialized engineers, or even engineering physicists and instead focuses on language.

Jacek has made an excellent point. Perhaps if we keep hammering at it on the various fan boards, Terry or someone else involved in a future series or SNW might actually get it right.

Dude how do you remember all of this lol. I watched the same show as you do, I can’t recall a single one of these scenes. And yeah, because no one knows what the hell a lot of these people’s positions are, that’s an even bigger problem. I remember being confused a year ago to find out Culber wasn’t the CMO for a show in its fourth dmn season. We never hear the bridge crew talk about their jobs at all. We see them at their stations and they say a few lines in an episode but that’s basically it. Detmer is the only one who has had some kind of development we know about her piloting skills, but still very little when compared to others like Paris and Travis, but I digress.

And you make a great point about the 24th century shows, they combined communications with other specialties so it all felt connected. But from Enterprise on, then it became a separate function again. And Hoshi was made a linguist probably because there was no universal translators and you needed someone who can pick up on languages faster. And I still think it was pretty unrealistic trying to pick up whole sale alien languages after listening to a few words like she was a human universal translator, but you just roll with it like a lot of Trek.

But when they are studying Earth languages, they have the entire language already there and with a lot of instruction and resources how it’s spoken for thousands of years and similar roots.. I don’t think it’s the same as picking up bits of Ferengi after hearing one for ten minutes for the first time. It’s probably like trying to talk to animals on our planet which no one has cracked yet, with any animal species but I digress lol.

But the 24th century shows made it feel more realistic and it’s just part of their job, not the entire job.

Yes, it kind of started with Hoshi, and indeed, one could argue the more conventional language skills could come in handy with the relatively less developed technology of the 22nd century. And then I think JJ Trek took it to the next level when revamping the character of Uhura, overcompensating for her being more of a secretary on TOS (although I remember seeing a clip of her repairing the communication system, it’s been a while since I actually watched TOS).
Have we even seen communications officers in the 24th+ centuries? I kind of took it for granted that the role became obsolete at some point between TOS and TNG. I think the first such case would be mister Bryce after the Discovery jumped to the 32nd century, because the writers wouldn’t admit any of the characters could become obsolete because of the 900 year technology gap.

Yeah I definitely liked the idea with Hoshi a lot at the time even if it’s still unrealistic. Sometimes she was speaking to aliens in full dialogue after meeting them for an hour lol. But it was a unique idea given the time period and how tiny Starfleet was then.

I didn’t mind turning Uhura into a linguist in the Kelvin movies, but I don’t think anyone ever thought the original Uhura ever knew more than two languages, English and Swahili. They wanted to develop her more than basically an operator and continued it for the new Uhura, who I think speaks even more languages lol. But now it suddenly feels like it’s required for all communication officers to be multi-lingual to the point of absurdity.

And yeah I can’t imagine how important that role would be in the 32nd century considering how advance universal translators already were by the 24th.

Communications Officer MOS. Internal, skilled in infrastructure, management of communications operations. External, management of automatic interpretation hardware and software, and personal linguist translation and interpretation analysis. Multi-lingual candidates preferred.

Works for me. It’s all bull s**t made up stuff anyway….

Matalas’ use of the word “exclusively” about Janeway appearing on Prodigy is interesting.
I wonder is it now possible to use Janeway in another show, or have they somehow locked her down into only appearing in Prodigy while it is on air? Could that even happen?

Perhaps it is their deal with her only one Show and only her Voice and motion captures

There could be some kind of contract reason, but in the 30 years of Trek since TNG been around I have never heard of this idea before with past actors. And why would they do it now when legacy characters are showing up on multiple TV shows? Who exactly would even want that?

I suspect that, given Prodigy takes place about two decades before this season of Picard, there may be some concern to avoid locking in Janeway’s future too tightly – especially in a show where she’s passing through as a guest legacy character.

Prodigy is still a prequel to Picard. I’m sure its EPs don’t want to have to start worrying too much about future Janeway canon that Picard could establish.

Does that mean we won’t get Jellico in Picard either?!?

It doesn’t bode well that Matalas mistakes a Deltan for a Vulcan.

The photo appears to be at an angle where the pointed ear isn’t as distinctive. Probably should’ve gone with a profile pic. And there have been bald Vulcans before, namely in TMP and TSFS.

Unless this is some kind of “Rios and the Stargazer crew” misdirection again, I agree this obviously seems to be a trial balloon for a Titan-crew spinoff. It doesn’t mean the Titan itself or all the bridge characters currently being publicised will necessarily survive to star in the spinoff, of course.

Good suggestions upthread about the VOY characters who will turn up on PIC. Pretty sure it’ll be at least one (possibly more) from Tuvok, the Doctor, Harry Kim, Tom Paris and B’Elanna. Maybe “future Klingon messiah” Miral Paris too; she’s now in her 20s, I believe.

Seven getting fast-tracked into an “accelerated Starfleet program” does make sense. Not just because of her experiences in the Delta Quadrant etc, but because her Borg implants give her enhanced intellectual abilities (especially analysis and memory, from what we saw on VOY).

Matalas’s comments about fallout from the Dominion War influencing the main story for the season has given me some more ideas, in addition to the stuff I suggested here last week: Maybe it has parallels with the Allied powers occupying Germany for decades after WW2, ie. the Federation and the Klingon Empire may have effectively carved up Dominion territory between them.

Speaking of the Klingons, I’m thinking one of the DS9 cameos Matalas has mentioned may be J.G. Hertzler as Martok. And Alexander son-of-Worf too, who is now in his mid/late 30s.

Maybe it has parallels with the Allied powers occupying Germany for decades after WW2, ie. the Federation and the Klingon Empire may have effectively carved up Dominion territory between them.

There might also be an “Operation Paperclip” scenario with Starfleet, which could cause a backlash both within the Federation and among the Dominion’s former subjects (Vadic?).

This would be a very interesting angle for the early 25th century macro political environment.

It could be a complex canvas/backdrop that would work for a decade or so of shows, not just this season.

I can see it continuing to provide scope for smaller stories as well as galaxy-wide ones, as well as exploration’, first contact and ‘second contact’ type situations that we’ve seen in LDS and Prodigy.

Maybe it has parallels with the Allied powers occupying Germany for decades after WW2

Germany regained its de jure sovereignty in 1949. Even if you argue that de facto sovereignty took longer, that was hardly “decades.”

I get your point, but there could be a parallel. Or at least a situation where the planets closer to the Klingon Empire would not have as de facto independence.

The West was sovereign, but always conscious that the East was apart. As a country that looked so much to its roots in history, the separation shaped the so much of life.

The situation in the GDR was more delicate, reinforced by the interventions by the Soviets in Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

In both cases, the hidden intelligence and influence war of the former allies, shaped much and is only recently becoming public.

Tuvix got together with the salamander offspring from Threshold?

Re. TOS, I think this is the first time we’ve seen a Constitution-class of some form in a later era. I always thought that felt a bit of an omission given how the Miranda and Excelsior ships got revisited.

Apart from the three chairs (which are presumably meant to evoke the TNG Enterprises) the bridge looks a lot like a further future version of the one from SNW to me (and the TOS Enterprises that’s based on).

Somebody needs to explain to me that face the Vulcan is making. There seems to be way too much emotion there for a Vulcan, and maybe a lot of over-acting.

No, that is not too much emotion or over acting. That would be Quinto’s Spock.

Absolutely. All that incessant weeping by him through those films was the worst part of the Kelvin universe, for me. Tween’ emo Spock.

True. With that kind of acting, he belongs on Discovery.

You know, I also dislike all the melodrama on Discovery. You know what I don’t do? I don’t watch the show, and I don’t go around tearing it to pieces. It’s just… not in my periphery. I’ve moved on.

People’s obsession with hating something, and making sure they let everyone know every chance they get, is so very un-Trek-like, and a big problem with modern culture. In short: the fandom would do better without you.

The fandom would also do better without you personally insulting people in your posts, as I have seen you do many times, because they happen to disagree with you. Public forums are not just to express positive opinions. Some opinions will be negative. Deal with it, and I will indeed continue to criticize and call out idiocy, whether it’s one of your posts or drivel like Discovery.

Lieutenant T’Veen: Stephanie Czajkowski
Lieutenant Matthew Arliss Mura: Joseph Lee
Ensign Kova Rin Esmar: Jin Maley

This seems to be casting with the long view, not just as placeholders.

Hope they get to carry on to another new series.