Watch ‘Star Trek: Picard’ Promo With New Footage + More Season 3 Behind-The-Scenes Details Revealed

| February 26, 2023 | By: TrekMovie.com Staff 88 comments so far

There are still eight episodes left for the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard and we have a new look at what is coming up. We also have the latest behind-the-scenes details and images from the crew.

New Promo

Paramount released a new “Now Streaming” promo from Star Trek: Picard which features some new footage from upcoming episodes.

Contrast issues fixed

If you had issues with the contrast and over-saturation when watching the latest episode, showrunner Terry Matalas says those have been fixed.

Behind the scenes on episode 2

Once again, production designer Dave Blass is sharing images from the sets, including a closer look at District 6 gambling, featuring a Tongo Table designed by Jim Martin (who also worked on DS9).

Art director Liz Klockowski provided a closer look at some of the detail on Beverly Crusher’s ship.

Liz also called out “someone” for sitting on the bridge console. (Frakes?)

Scream queen doctor

Episode two introduced Dr. Ohk, apparently, the CMO of the USS Titan, played by Tiffany Shepis-Tretta, who took to Twitter to celebrate, showing off a behind-the-scenes look at her Trill doctor. Shepis-Tretta has an extensive list of credits and is mainly known for roles in horror movies.

More behind-the-scenes on The Ready Room

Blass also pointed fans to the latest episode of The Ready Room, which has a closer look at the design of the Shrike.

Watch it below. (Shrike segment starts at 2:10.)

Picard streams exclusively on Paramount+ in the Americas, Europe, the Caribbean and South Korea. It also streams 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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The quick shot of Frontier Day looks really exciting. Lots of ships in the background, too small for me to make out but I’m sure some detectives on Twitter will be on the case.

This Ship design, feels like an Scorpion with 4 Tails on his Sides. I can see some influences from the ST Kelvin Timeline movie. But also from other classic TV Series Sci-FI’s. Some Spacestation that gave the Klingon Priest inspiration, too. Yes i am talking about Babylon 5

The Texture remind a little bit of the Vorlon’s Ships and i like it

While I like the ship designs and think the fx work is top notch, I don’t think it holds a candle in quality to the remastered TNG fx work, particularly the ships. I know it would be cost prohibitive to film models at this point, but I do find it fascinating that a 30 year old show looks better than the new show. (I’m fully aware that remastering the original film stock made it a unique use case)

I actually think the remastered TNG FX are highly flawed. The models weren’t meant to be seen in HD, and they show a LOT of problems even at 1080p. The decals are wrinkled, seams in the models show, bad paint jobs can be spotted.

Frankly, I prefer the CG in this season. It’s not the best you’d find in a billion dollar blockbuster, but it’s frankly better than just about any Trek project we’ve ever seen.

LOL, the VFX in this season are passable, but disappointing — many fans have pointed that out.

And I just watched Ep 10 of SNW S1 again last night, and the VFX are way, way better. Same for DSC. It’s obvious that the VFX on Picard S3 is not up there with SNW and DSC, but I get that they had to cut that budget some given all of the actors salaries, so I’m not going to be too hard on them for it. They are passable, but that’s it.

LOL why do I care what “many fans” have said? Also, might help to read what I actually wrote and stop embarrassing yourself.

I will say firmly that they’re much better than passable, but if you just want to agree with what “many fans” are saying just because someone might “LOL” at you, hey that’s on you, pal.

Fine, it’s on me then, because it’s the correct assessment. And I read exactly what you said:

It’s not the best you’d find in a billion dollar blockbuster, but it’s frankly better than just about any Trek project we’ve ever seen.

That’s laughable. Spin it any way you want it, and keep trying your lame personal insults, but the VFX are simply not as good as SNW or DSC. And trying using the fact that many fans have noticed it against this as some bizarre negative is also laughable and smacks of over zealous fan desperation…lol

I thing what’s missing here is a comparative discussion of 1. quantity vs quality of vfx; 2. world building content detailing.

All the shows face vfx constraints in terms of financial cost and availability of vendor’s’ capacity. It seems they’ve just prioritized different things.

Many (including here) have criticized Discovery for it incredibly sparse use of space scenes and views of ships after the two pilot episodes of S1. Discovery often seemed uncharacteristically like the only ship. It was a major boon to get the 1701 at the end of S1 and not just because she’s Enterprise. The number of angles and elevations of the main ships is incredibly few.

In fact there has been a bit of a running joke elsewhere that there’s only one stern view of the Discovery that is reused. Discovery always has the shuttle bay open and the same storage pods stacked in the same location.

We have got more images of new ships in the 32nd century at HQ but they are very brief and often at a distance. The commemorative Archer scene in S4 was a big moment.

Strange New Worlds chose to put some great renderings in the title sequence so it has more of a base, but the use of space scenes is also relatively sparse.

What’s different about Picard S3 is the sheer volume of space based images. The rendering may not be so fine, and often isn’t, but there’s a great deal of it. The quantity is hitting Trek movie levels.

The attention to details such as habitats on the moon, consistency in including ship parts that are established in function by previous canon, or having multiple angles on a nebula add to the believability as well.

Overall, I think we’re seeing a clear trade off.

What’s most important for believability is in the eye of the viewers.

Strange New Worlds chose to put some great renderings in the title sequence so it has more of a base, but the use of space scenes is also relatively sparse.

That helps give it a TOS vibe – there are lots of scenes where people talk about what’s happening without the audience actually seeing it, and so far it seems to work. But also, from what I gather, SNW has the lowest budget of the streaming live action shows anyway, so they’re gonna have to cut corners somewhere.

I don’t disagree with any of this. But when we do see those limited space scenes and the starships I find the quality of the CGI to be superior on SNW and DSC versus what I saw in Picard season two and so far this season.

Try doing this — go watch SNW Ep 10, and then watch Picard S3 Ep 1, and then tell me I’m wrong? :-)

Guess I’m going to disagree with you both and say just about all the VFX in modern trek series totally suck. S1 DSC’s taridgrade was really great, but the look of space and spaceships in all of these shows is just horrendous compared to the Berman-era miniature work, and even to a lot of the mediocre CGI of VOY and ENT. It is definitely an artistic call to do stuff that looks this way, because the vendors do great work elsewhere.

Yeah I am aware of your opinions on this. Where I definitely agree with you is how “cloudy” space looks so much of the time in all of the new Trek series…it’s borderlines on being ridiculous at times.

That all being said, I challenge anyone to take my visual test of watching SNW Ep 10 and Picard S3 Ep 1 and then try to tell me that the VFX on SNW is not superior — in this relative comparison?

More than passable. If the story is good enough I really don’t care about the VFX/PFX quality. If I did, I probably wouldn’t care much about legacy Trek. I would be perfectly happy with PFX and the engaging stories of the past, but 4K doesn’t really lend itself to PFX anymore.

While I have noticed flaws in the VFX, they in no way detract from my enjoyment.

Yeah, when I say it’s passable, that means it’s passable. One dude got his panties into a bunch on this because I mentioned that SNW and DSC had better VFX, but you are correct — it’s good enough this season on Picard.

Also, the Shadow’s ships a bit as well.

This promo has been out for a while (I first saw it 2 weeks ago) but probably has the best view of the E-F.

I know the Enterprise F is not the star of the Season but man I am really hoping the F comes to the rescue of the Titan and beats the piss out of Valic.

I didn’t know the CMO was a trill. They won’t turn on the lights. I couldn’t tell.

HA!

Looks pretty darn good!

In the promo at 0:23 you can see Deanna on the Shrike bridge. Just to the left of her you can see the dividers they put up on the set that they refer to in The Ready Room. The hair department have been making all of the female crew members hair SUPER styled and preened, but Deanna’s hair looks kind of messy here, so I’m guessing she has been taken as a hostage by Vadic. And given that I already had the feeling that Troi won’t make it through the season, and as Matalas has said that not everyone will make it out safely, I’m assuming this is how she possibly meets her ultimate demise.

I need to stop looking at these promos.

There is zero chance that Matalas is going to kill off any of the main TNG cast. He’s too big a fan. Raffi? That wouldn’t surprise me. Not a chance Deanna is dying.

One of my wishes for the season before i saw any of it was no deaths. I don’t care about keeping spin-off hopes alive, I just don’t need another depressing ending.

I hope you’re right, as Alpha Predator said I just don’t want to see any of the legacy cast being killed off as it’d be way too depressing.

I’ve heard rumblings from a friend on set that you may be… well, wrong here. :)

I believe Matalas has tweeted that Troi is not killed off.

It seems the speculation was getting out of hand.

Ah ok, thank you for this!

This is great news.

Woo hoo!!!

Troi’s hair probably looks like that because they used her old Nemesis wig (assuming) like they did on season 1.

Good point.

She has said that if she hadn’t hung onto the Nemesis wig, they wouldn’t have had anything for Nepenthe.

The episode was added relatively late and the hairstylists hadn’t planned for her to have a wig.

I hope that’s not the case. I was hoping at least one Trek family could live happily ever after. Even if the Rikers did already lose one child.

Turn on the lights! I like this season so far, but why can’t they just turn the lights on? I wish someone could just ask Matalas that. It really is ridiculous.

Did you see the information from Matalas that there was a problem with the colour saturation of episode 2 on Paramount+ in some countries?

It’s been fixed so you may wish to try rewatching to see if it’s better.

I just tried looking at ep 2 on Par+ again and just the recap of ep 1 looks TONS AND TONS better than it had the first time through. Watched a little more and 2 seems less objectionable as well. Suppose I need to get another look at ep1 when they first go on the bridge, which was the most terrible part as I recall.

I might look at the screeners as well – had only seen 2-6 on the screeners, but I can check to see if the ep1 screener was as horrid as P+ was originally. Then again, screeners aren’t necessarily finals and might have been downgraded to cut down on piracy factor.

Same here. I watched the second episode again and it’s a big improvement, on the level of the first episode now.

Does the series get back to the level of the great Ep 1 in Ep 3 that is coming next week, because Ep 2 I thought was pretty weak?

I’ve seen 1-6 and they’re all excellent. But we’ll have wait until we have other opinions so you can decide what yours is!

Thanks!

Lol

Yeah I saw that. I mean, even watching that new “now streaming “ promo looked like the lights were still off. I did re-watch episode 2 and it looked better, but still too dark on the bridge. But, here we are.

So glad for this update. Big improvement! Same thing happened to me. Last week, I called their tech-support. The whole episode was opaque, lacking colors, too dark. Did not see this issue in the first episode.

Wasted an hour on hold, waiting, trying to explain the issue, them telling me what to do. They told me to reset my Roku, TV settings, and tried to blame my device/connection.

I got his attention as soon as I told him that other movies and episodes look perfect. Episode one as well, looked terrific. :P

Glad they actually fixed this on their end.

If you look closely at the pictures of Beverly’s shelves there is a picture of the moon, as she was born there – but if you look even closer there is green spots in the craters. Seems to be the first time Star Trek has bothered (or remembered) to show the settlements on the moon.

Loving Season 3 so far but I was watching Next Gens ‘Family’ yesterday. I just realised, what happened to Picards older brother Robert in Season 2?

He’s not even mentioned in any of Jean Luc’s flashbacks? Did the writers just forget he existed? The whole of season 2 plays out like Jean Luc was an only child.

There’s a mention that Robert was away for some reason during those flashbacks.

“There’s a mention that Robert was away for some reason during those flashbacks.”
In an episode? Which one? I don’t recall him ever being mentioned.

He was definitely mentioned, I believe his mother says he’s away at boarding school.

The episode Hide and Seek in Season 2 of Picard.

Thanks William – I will rewatch it but it would have been nice to see the dynamic between Jean Luc, Robert and their parents. Seems like a bit of a cop out by the writers that they didn’t include him.

Robert and Renee burn to death in a fire at Chateau Picard. It’s part of how Generations begins.

True–but also irrelevant to the question. He was asking where Robert was in the flashbacks to Jean-Luc’s youth in PICARD season two.

“He’s not even mentioned”

He is. They mention that he’s away at boarding school.

Even though the highlights were blown out in a few places, the overlook look of everything was much more enjoyable when it was… broken. (Somewhere a video editor is pulling his hair out while reading that. I feel you. And I’m sorry. But the heart likes what it likes.)

Could be a video editor that was a “her” and not a “his”. Let’s assume and promote that everybody capable is a man! It’s been going on for thousands of years, why stop now! :/

If you interpreted that as somehow suggesting otherwise, that’s entirely on you. It was a hypothetical individual not based in reality. But do, please, introduce controversy into something completely devoid of it. We don’t have enough of that online nowadays.

I do really wish that people would just default to using they/them in situations like this.

It’s starship, not “space ship”

I remember how so many fans were critical of JJA for saying, “give the E more of a muscle car look,” and many of the same fans were so critical of the more gothic look of the Klingon ancient ship in DSC S1.

Well, the Shrike looks like Matalas’s might have said, “give the baddie’s ship more of a a Batman look.” I mean, it just looks like that to be “cool looking” to the viewer — there is no classic Star Trek reason for that ship’s appearance. But of course this silly design gets a “free pass” from most of the fans for this series.

Eaves should know better. Drexler, well, that’s probably where this silly design mainly came from I would guess given his lackluster starship designs in the past.

I liked Ryan Church’s Sketch more than the final design. Hated those Hot Rod Bussards on The JJprise. But the Linprise was worse. The only JJverse ship i liked except for the Kelvin was the USS Franklin. The Vengeance was like a Dark Sovereign meets an Evil JJPrise.

Agreed, and I didn’t like the Klingon sarcophagus ship either. My point is that the Shrike is just as bad. It looks like something from The Phantom Menace or a Batman movie. It’s silly looking for a Star Trek series — they can do better than Star Wars/Superhero movie “doesn’t that look so cool” middle school-level doodling designs.

Or we could interpret it as being designed by a nefarious character who wants to use her ship to intimidate people. We aren’t talking about a starship that is representing an alien race with a design ethos. The ship is a one-off meant to evoke the shrike, a carnivorous songbird that impales its victims on spikes.

Yeah, good point. Perhaps my initial impression is wrong, but it wasn’t a great initial impression.

We’ll see.

Which is precisely what Vadic is trying to instill. But you know what they say, when you have it you don’t need to show it, and conversely, when you show it it’s because you don’t have it. So for me at least, Vadic is an annoying little barking chihuahua. Or a bully. Best way to defeat a bully is to confront them and punch them in the face. So yes I agree with UpperDecks, that ship is way over the top and a caricature of something that’s supposed to look intimidating. But this is poor writing. That idiotic look Vadic had in a previous photo, I was hoping she would have a deaper layered personality but so far she’s just that mustache twirling joke of a villain. It would be funny if it wasn’t so annoying. But I’ll give the show a chance. It’s only ep 2…

Well said. Like you, this is just my first impression of Vadic, so I’m hoping to get more of a back story concerning her context and motivation that will make the character less cardboard-silly.

I’m hoping Ep 3 is as good as Ep 1, because Ep 2 was disappointing.

Well the Kelvinprise is absolutely ridiculous with those nacelles. and the Enterprise isn’t supposed to be a hot rod. It has a very scientifically minded design to her.

Alien ships that aren’t already established in canon I don’t really care about. There could be any number of reasons why they do what they do.

Except that the alien ships in TOS, TOS movies and TNG, generally followed the principles of starship design with warp engines, impulse engines, etc. I mean, are those silly spines on Vadic’s ship suppose to be warp engines? If so, that is sort of nuts looking them.

I can just see someone saying, “hey, give us something like the Vorlon or Shadow ships that were so cool on B5 back in the day”…instead of starting with normal Trek starship design principles.

I will agree that with JJA and DSC they started getting away from that, but I thought that this Matalas season was suppose to get us back to TNG sort of more normalized look of Trek? I guess not.

Well, not exactly. Let me explain if you would not mind. The Enterprise followed a very specific design. The saucer. Where people worked and lived. Separated from the engineering hull and nacelles. The Engineering hull, where the engines were… those were those the “guts” of the ship that made it work. Separated from the saucer from the radation from the Matter/Anti/matter reactions. Finally, the nacelles, they were separated from it all where the WARP field was generated and thats where the “bubble” was created to send the ship “FTL” even though it wasn’t actually travelling FTL but instead bending space.

Now look at the TOS Romulan WAR Birds. They did none of that. They looked much more like DS9’s Defiant then they did they TOS Enterprise. They made no scientific sense.

Imagine if that shot of the F was of the E instead…

Anyone else have a bad feeling about the Ent-F?

Yeah. I would have preferred that they didn’t show it in the trailers. They blew the surprise for me. I really don’t understand why Matalas has to show and talk so much… As far as the design, I just don’t like those red nacelle end caps that we’ve been seeing on every starship since TNG. It looks like something you would find on a toy and not a functional thing… But globally the design is OK, except that it looks like stretched-out toffee… I think they over designed it and made it look too much like “the next Enterprise”. Like the way they tried to make cars look futuristic with those crazy 60’s designs.

I hope they’ll make the Ent-F a Yorktown class, which is the upgrade to the Odyssey class. Also the fact that it’s from STO kind of takes away the special feel that the Enterprise should have. Not sure how to word that differently. Nothing will ever beat the refit Enterprise from TMP, so I guess every other Enterprise has been a disappointment for me (especially the D!). So to answer your question, yes!

Yeah I’m ignoring this new trailer. And I don’t know why we need new spoilers during the freaking season?

Really hoping that the third time will be the charm for me with this show. I’m not at all comfortable with being the ghost at the feast, and would much rather join the party. Hey, all it would take is for Vadic to admit, during a tense standoff with the Titan crew, that she needs to go pee, and I’d be totally onboard. I’m easy!

Well I agree with you, so let’s make this a party of 2.

Then she would truly be pissed off

You beat me to it!

Though now I’m thinking that line should happen after she is captured. I can just imagine the TITAN captain accompanying her to the head, looking down and saying “Gee wizz.”

LOL

Really starting to think y’all didn’t get the reference, he said in his disappointment.

Naahh, I watch PULP FICTION every couple of years, and my wife and I definitely incorporate some honeybunny dialog into our day-to-day (not as much as SEINFELD, though) … ‘shoot him in the face’ is the one of Amanda’s I like to use for just about every situation that merits the slightest retort.

The weirdest in-joke ref we have is from EXORCIST II of all things. We both always bust up when James Earl Jones intones about Linda Blair’s character being ‘a good locust,’ but somehow my wife poached that for when I go to bed ahead of her, telling me to ‘be a good locust’ the next day.

Sounds like you and the missus have an awesome marriage. I envy you. But if you got the reference I’m not sure why you would have her say that line after being arrested, since its use in the midst of a life-or-death standoff is what makes it so funny.

My marriage isn’t so wonderful that my wife wouldn’t call me out for the exact reason you cite. I have a tendency to ‘take the shot’ with anything I find remotely funny, regardless of context. When I force the issue with a joke, it sometimes comes off like the obnoxious unfunny comedian on SEINFELD who wants Jerry to take him to lunch at Mendy’s — Christina will often puncture my feebly-filled humor ballons with ‘Mendy’s Jerry – Mendy’s.’

Don’t know if I’ve mentioned this here or not, but we met when I was managing a metaphysical bookstore operated by the Rosicrucians (no, neither of us were or have ever been members, so I can’t explain why the ‘members’ section of the store contained swords and Robin-style face masks.) The store had an amazingly diverse selection of spiritual tomes, and when I was giving her the welcome tour of the store after my boss in admin had hired her, I pointed out we had sections on ‘sufism’ as well as ‘women’s studies,’ then sprang my trick question. Grabbing a copy of the book ‘women & sufism’ I asked her where this book should be shelved, then tried to nonchalantly toss the whole thing off as a matter of ‘sufi’s choice.’ I could see she ‘got it’ — something that wasn’t true for other people working there.

Well, you two certainly “met cute.” :-) It must be nice to share your space with someone with like interests, and while you might not always like it, you’re better-off having a person who cares enough to call you on your B.S. than not. I haven’t had anyone to do that for me since my parents exited, and though I have relatives and friends in my life who look out for me to a degree, it’s not the same thing.

Pulp Fiction?

Look at the big brain on Amirami! 😎

Thats what my mommy tells me :-)

Is it like the brain of that Captain whom Dax likes on DS9 — the one where it is visibly outside his skull?

There is no way the Titan isn’t going to spin off, they’re developing side characters and building actual, detailed sets. I just wish, rather than messing with the contrast, they’d light these sets so we could see all that detail. I’m heartily tired of the lack of lighting. Save it for the Orion spice dens.

There is no way the Titan isn’t going to spin off

That line made me flash back to the horrible ‘jump’ effect on DSC. Geez, do they still use that awful visual?

Ah, “spin off,” clever. Took me a beat or two. When they do the spore jump, they do. Which is less often, for some reason I can’t remember.