star trek picard timeline season 3

PIC Season 3

Season 3 title card

Teaser art for Season 3

This page contains information specifically pertaining to the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard . In North America, season 3 episodes premiered weekly on Thursdays, starting 16 February 2023 , on Paramount+ (USA and Latin America) and on CraveTV (Canada), with the rest of the world following suit through Prime Video with a one-day delay.

In the UK, Australia, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, season 3 episodes were also released on newly-launched Paramount+ foreign subsidiaries the day after their US premieres by the mother streaming service , alongside the Prime Video streamings, with all three seasons of Picard slated to be added to Paramount+ in South Korea later in 2023. [1] [2]

• 3.1.1 Special guest star(s)
• 4 Background information
• 7 External links

Episodes [ ]

Summary [ ], credits [ ], starring [ ], special guest star(s) [ ], background information [ ].

Season 3 teaser art 2

• On 21 October 2020 , Production Weekly included a third season in its listing of upcoming productions, although no official announcement has been made. [3] [4] It was officially confirmed on 8 September 2021 during the Star Trek Day 2021 celebration.
• Season 3 was filmed back-to-back with season 2 in order to control costs and accommodate production schedules, [5] and principal photography, aka production, began at the start of September 2021, immediately after production on the second season had wrapped on 29 August. [6]
• On 3 January 2022 , production on this season was temporarily halted due to a COVID-19 outbreak on set. [7] [8] Production resumed four days later on 7 January 2022 . [9]
• On 8 March 2022 , production on this season had finished shooting. [10] It was also confirmed that this season will be the final one. [11]
• On "First Contact Day", 5 April 2022 , it was revealed that the original cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation – LeVar Burton , Michael Dorn , Jonathan Frakes , Gates McFadden , Marina Sirtis , and Brent Spiner – had joined the cast for the third season, as a means of finally giving their characters "a proper send-off". [12]
• On 2 May 2022 , Alison Pill confirmed that she would not be returning for Season 3. [13]
• On 5 May 2022 , Evan Evagora and Santiago Cabrera confirmed that they would not be returning for Season 3. [14]
• On 6 May 2022 , Isa Briones confirmed that she would not be returning for Season 3. [15]
• The third season being made available on Paramount+ foreign subsidiaries concurrently with Prime Video, making it no longer the exclusive series streamer outside the Americas, might, in the context of the increasingly vicious streaming wars , be construed as a harbinger that the series will be pulled from Prime Video the moment the season release schedule is completed. [16] It was in light of this that CraveTV did loose all its Star Trek content, Picard included with its very recent third season addition, on 1 August 2023, after the Star Trek franchise had revoked its streaming rights in favor of Paramount+ Canada. [17]

Reception [ ]

See also [ ].

• PIC Season 3 performers
• PIC directors
• PIC writers
• PIC Season 3 Blu-ray
• PIC Season 3 DVD

External links [ ]

• Star Trek: Picard season 3 at Wikipedia
• Star Trek: Picard season 3 at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Star Trek: Picard season 3  at Ex Astris Scientia
• 1 Daniels (Crewman)

Everything to Remember Before Star Trek: Picard Returns for Season 3

It's the beginning of the end for star trek: picard , but how much do you need to remember from its actual beginnings.

Star Trek: Picard returns for its third and final season this week, with its titular hero tasked with one last adventure alongside faces old and new. But although the season has made it clear it’s largely operating on a clean break from its predecessors, if you’re hopping on board for The Next Generation nostalgia in season three , here’s what you need to remember coming into it.

Picard’s a Synth Now

At the end of the first season of Picard , Jean-Luc died, his failing body—thanks to the resurgence of the Irumodic Syndrome that we saw plaguing him in TNG ’s finale, “All Good Things”—finally giving the ghost after he rallied to save the synth intelligence Soji and her people from some very angry Romulans. He got better, of course, because we’re talking about the third season of a show named after him, but he did so by getting a brand new body.

That body, an advanced android form designed by Altan Inigo Soong, is completely synthetic, and perfectly healthy, so Picard will never have to worry about Irumodic Syndrome plaguing him again. It still ages and is essentially just a new body, and Picard is still the Picard he was—and remembers dying—but honestly? Almost nobody brings up the fact that he’s a robot now.

Data’s Dead (Again)

Data died in Star Trek: Nemesis of course, but his death hangs over a lot of Picard ’s first season—before he eventually shows up in the finale to have a chat-from-beyond-the-grave with the similarly dead Jean-Luc. H ere, Data re-enforces that it’s Picard who should keep on living, not him, and so he sacrifices the last vestiges of his memory once again so Picard can come back in Soong’s new android body.

We know Brent Spiner is back (again, he’s played multiple Soongs as well as Data in Picard so far) for the third season, and intriguingly he’s been described as playing “a character named Lore,” of course a nod to Data’s evil twin android brother from TNG . Could the original Lore be revived from his original de-activation, or maybe we’re going to finally follow up on Nemesis ’ tease that some of Data’s memories lived on in his other identical android sibling B-4 at last? We’ll have to wait and see.

Welcome to the 25th Century, f or Real This Time

The first season of Picard was set at the tail end of the 23rd century, in the wake of the events of the primary Star Trek series The Next Generation , Deep Space Nine , and Voyager . Although its second was the first Trek TV show to explore the near future of the earliest years of the 25th century, season two is actually barely set there, instead opting for a whole lot of time- travel nonsense.

Picard season three is the first time we’re actually going to be spending an extended period of time in the early 2400s, a period explored by the non-canonical (well, mostly) Star Trek Online , but one fans have been dying to actually see more of for decades at this point.

Q’s Dead (?)

Speaking of time travel nonsense in Picard season two , its bonkers finale saw Q—who sent Picard and his friends to an alternate fascist timeline that then le d to them jumping back to the early 21st century to avoid said fascist timeline happening—reveal that his latest shenanigans were both a test and a parting gift for his long-time frenemy. Q was dying, and wanted to show Jean-Luc how to love himself— pissing him off, nearly eradicating his known existence, and nearly killing him multiple times—by confronting the tragedies of his family’s pasts, and having done so, used the last of his omnipotence to whiz Picard and his friends back to their own time to save the day.

However, Q’s Q, which means there could be any number of contrivances that bring him back at some point. But for now, he’s gone.

The Borg Were Besties With the Federation. Don’t Worry About It.

Q in part did all this to help tweak a temporal paradox that le d to one of Picard’s allies, Dr. Agnes Jurati, joining a reformed Borg Queen in the past to create a less-aggressive collective. This culminated in Borg-Jurati coming to the aid of the Federation when a massive Transwarp Conduit (just like the subspace corridor system the Borg used to advance their cybernetic civilization) opened up in the Sol system, threatening to destroy billions of people for... reasons. After that got dealt with in like, five minutes, Borg-Jurati revealed that despite Transwarp being the Borg’s whole thing , they don’t actually know who tried to open this conduit, so she proposes that the Borg Collective join the Federation in a temporary membership capacity, so Starfleet and the Collective can research and investigate it together.

This is insane. It is insane . That whole season finale was i n s a n e . But don’t worry about it because from what we know, season three of Picard is set about a year after the events of season two and no one ever mentions That Time The Borg Joined The Federation. Everything seems to be fine. No one is screaming about one of the most insane things to ever happen in in Star Trek constantly. Don’t worry about it.

Oh, and Before That, Romulus Blew Up. Worry About That, But Only a Little Bit.

Picard as an entirety is actually set after the events of the opening of the 2009 Star Trek movie. That film, before it established the alternate Kelvin timeline, opens having been set in the primary Trek continuity, where the homeworld of the Romulans, Romulus, was destroyed in a cataclysmic event where the system’s star went supernova. Picard was involved in attempts to evacuate Romulans from the system before the supernova, but things went badly, and the remnants of the Star Empire cast a large shadow over Picard ’s first season.

It’s probably less important now for season three , but, y’know. Good worldbuilding stuff to remember.

Almost Everyone Actually From Picard Is Gone Now...

Picard ’s first two seasons, outside of a few cameos, largely focused on an original cast of characters. That is by and large not the case for season three , which is almost entirely a clean break. Picard primary cast members Isa Briones, Alison Pill, Evan Evagora, and Santiago Cabrera all confirmed after the conclusion of season two that they were done with the show —even if it seems like their characters still had stories to tell. Of the primary cast of those first two seasons, aside from Patrick Stewart only Jeri Ryan’s Seven of Nine and Michelle Ann Hurd’s Raffi Musiker will appear in season three .

... Because His Next Generation Besties Are Back

Why the slate-wiping? Because Picard decided to go all out for its final season with a full on TNG reunion. LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, and Brent Spiner will all return to play their previous Star Trek roles this season. They’re not cameos or one-off appearances ; the return of these iconic stars is a fundamental part of Picard season three ’s story.

It’s not just old faces though, there are some new characters in season three —like Todd Stashwick, playing a Starfleet Captain named Liam Shaw, and Ed Speleers, playing a mysterious new character.

Including Riker, Who’s Been Through Some Shit

Frakes and Sirtis’ Will Riker and Deanna Troi already previously appeared in Picard , giving us some important insight into their lives after TNG . It established that Riker himself is still a commanding officer in Starfleet, having returned to duty after a period of retirement, while Deanna herself was fully retired from service, raising a family with Will on the planet Nepenthe.

Riker and Troi had two children, Thaddeus and Kestra, but tragedy struck the family when Thad was diagnosed with a rare disease—usually curable, but rendered terminal after a ban on android and synthetic research in the Federation. Thaddeus died as a teenager, a tragedy that’s still haunting both of his parents.

Actually, Everyone’s Been Through Some Shit

As far as we know coming into season three , it’s not just Riker and Troi who’ve had a rough go of it since we last saw them. Beverly Crusher begins the season being chased by a mysterious threat, and has seemingly long left Starfleet life behind. Likewise, Worf is now a meditating, monastic wandering ronin from what we’ve seen of him. Perhaps most “normal” is Geordi LaForge, now a Commodore in Starfleet. He continues to serve, and now does so alongside his daughters Sidney and Alandra—but even that’s not perfect, as we know heading into the season that at least Sidney does not see eye-to-eye with her father, having parted from his legacy as an e ngineer to train as a pilot.

Except Wesley Crusher, Who’s Still Going Through His Old Shit

One major TNG name we know is not back for season three is Wil Wheaton’s Wesley Crusher. This is because Wheaton already showed up for a cameo in the aforementioned bonkers season two finale of Picard . There it was established that Wesley was, as he departed the Enterprise to do so in TNG , still working with the Travelers, and whisked away the genetically modified Soong descendant Karre to join him.

Could he show up in season three ? Maybe. After all, season two was filmed back to back with season three , so it’s not like Wheaton w as unavailable. We have no idea if he will return though.

Seven of Nine Is Starfleet Now

Although Jeri Ryan has been a part of Picard from its first season, she’s been playing a version of Seven of Nine that did not join the Starfleet fold after Voyager returned to the Alpha Quadrant. In fact, we learned that her application to join was rejected, causing her to break ties with her former friends and colleagues and eventually forge her own path as a member of the Fenris Rangers, a band of frontier lawmen that attempted to protect and police the border of the Romulan Neutral Zone.

That’s changed as of season three ; having been awarded a field commission in Picard ’s season two finale, Seven is now officially a Starfleet officer, with the rank of Commander.

And She’s Got a New Ship

Seven serves as the First Officer aboard a ship we’ll be seeing a lot of in Picard season three : the Titan -A, captained by the aforementioned Liam Shaw. The Titan was previously captained by Riker before his initial retirement, a Luna-class starship seen in Star Trek: Lower Decks , but the ship we meet in Picard is in fact its refit, redesigned entirely as a spiritual successor to the classic Constitution-class pioneered by the original Enterprise .

The Enterprise Is Back, But Not the One You’d Expect

Although the Titan -A is visually a throwback to the classic Enterprise , it’s not the only nod to the iconic vessel line in season three : the current Enterprise refit, the F, will also play some role in the season.

The Enterprise -F, an Odyssey-class ship, has never appeared on-screen before, but it’s not an entirely new ship to Star Trek : it’s been canonized from the MMORPG Star Trek Online , its design and title replicated based on the original ship’s model in the game.

Picard Might Be Over, But There Might Be More f or These Characters

Picard season three has long since been confirmed as the final season of the show, and yet in the run up to its broadcast its creative team has not shied away from the fact that the season will potentially leave paths open for many of these characters to return, Picard included. Whether it’s the returning TNG crew or specific Picard characters like Seven and Raffi, it’s hard to say right now just what this season will bring to provide both a definitive end to Picard while potentially leaving the door open for more stories to tell. Hell, we don’t even know if it’s true that it does yet—cast and crew alike could just be saying this now to avoid revealing more final ends for any of the cast this season.

We’ll begin to learn more when Picard season three begins streaming on Paramount+ February 16.

Picard Season 3 is Star Trek’s Biggest Comeback Yet, and Its Most Radical

For the latest Star Trek series, the stakes are bigger than you think.

The future of Star Trek isn’t just nostalgia. Although the buzz around Picard season 3 focuses on the reunion of the Next Generation , and the season is replete with callbacks to the classic feature films, the most striking thing about this season is that it looks forward.

If you think Picard Season 3 will be a warm, fuzzy trip down memory lane, think again. What makes it work is that this is a sequel to the most famous era of Star Trek . And this time, everything is on the line.

What makes Picard Season 3 so compelling — and just plain watchable — is that none of this continuity matters as much as you might think. Back in 1982, The Wrath of Khan promised the return of Khan, a villain who had only appeared once in the 1967 TOS episode “Space Seed.” After the smash success of Wrath, the TOS canon and origin story of Khan felt less important than the events of the film. You didn’t need to have seen any of The Original Series (or the previous movie) to enjoy The Wrath of Khan , though, for longtime fans, that film felt like an old-school adventure, even if the film itself was risky and radical.

This is the feeling of Star Trek: Picard Season 3.

In the spirit of films like The Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered Country , Picard Season 3 amps up the stakes of the Trek universe to tell a story that is paradoxically simple and intricate at the same time. You don’t need a flowchart to understand what’s going on in Picard Season 3, but if you do remember certain characters and situations from The Next Generation , the experience will be emotional on a completely different level. The show is endlessly geeky with its retro callbacks, but the story isn’t a vehicle for fan service.

This is a season in which things happen that cannot be undone. The stakes are high, and nobody should expect a smooth ride. Where Picard Season 2 existed in a kind of closed-loop time paradox, Season 3 takes this era of Trek into the future, without any do-overs.

Picard Season 3 introduces a massive new threat to Starfleet, but, crucially, this threat is not a generic, galaxy-ending doomsday explosion. The threat is a natural outgrowth of things that happened in the TNG/DS9/Voyager era. In other words, there are consequences for some of the things that Starfleet has done over the years. Starfleet has made mistakes, and a few of those mistakes have come back to haunt this venerable space navy.

But the mistakes of Starfleet are only dramatically interesting if we’re also talking about our beloved TNG characters facing their own personal flaws, too. What sets Star Trek apart from Star Wars is usually the fact that it acknowledges the failures of human nature (“the dark side”) along with the good stuff. In this way, Picard Season 3 returns both the inner light and inner darkness of the human soul. Yes, there’s a bit of “seeking new life” this season, but the tone is closer to the emotional character stakes of the movies. This character work also is what defined TNG , which, paradoxically, couldn't allow the crew to change too much week-to-week, because that really wasn’t how TV worked back then.

Captain Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Admiral Picard (Patrick Stewart) on the USS Titan in Picard Season 3.

Successful sequels are often called “different, but the same.” What makes Picard Season 3 the same is that it touches on aspects of The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager canons. But, what makes it different is our beloved characters behave slightly more realistically than they did back in the 1990s. These people are a big space family, but that doesn’t mean they’re a happy family all the time. The action and the threats to Starfleet are exciting, but we only care because of the people. The show is still, ostensibly, about Jean-Luc Picard. But his relationships with his most important friends and family is the real focus of the show.

All of the new Trek series since 2017 (other than Picard ) have begun in a preexisting timeline. Strange New Worlds is a prequel. Discovery began as a prequel. Lower Decks and Prodigy technically take place a decade and change before Picard . So, if you’ve been looking for adventures that tell the continuing stories of Starfleet after Voyager, Deep Space Nine, and Nemesis , the events of Star Trek: Picard have pretty much been the only game in town. And with Season 3, Picard is finally taking that aspect seriously.

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 debuts on Paramount+ on Thursday, February 16, 2023. New episodes drop on Thursdays, for 10 weeks.

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Picard Season 3 Looks Borg-eous

Well, this is an Enterprise -ing development: The trailer for season three of Star Trek: Picard was just released, and boy does it have stakes. I mean, “There’s a darkness, an all-consuming darkness” and “Jean-Luc, trust no one” are both said within one minute of the trailer beginning. Some shady stuff is going down. Luckily, we’ve got a crew that can handle it with many of the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast joining Patrick Stewart as Picard for the final season of the show. LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, and Brent Spiner will all be present, plus Ed Speleers ( Outlander ) and Todd Stashwick ( Riches ) will have regular and recurring roles, respectively. LeVar Burton may not be on Jeopardy! , but it sounds like he is “in jeopardy.” Live long enough for the premiere February 16 on Paramount+ with new episodes streaming weekly.

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How many episodes of ‘Star Trek: Picard’ season 3 are there?

The third, and reportedly final, season of the 'Star Trek' spin-off premiered last week

Star Trek: Picard season 3 premiered on Friday (February 17) with Sir Patrick Stewart returning to his iconic role as Jean-Luc Picard.

The Star Trek spin-off was first announced back in 2018 with the first season then premiering in 2020, with a second season airing in 2022.

Star Trek: Picard is set in the year 2399, 20 years after Jean-Luc Picard’s last appearance in Star Trek: Nemesis (2002). The spin-off first found the character deeply affected by the death of Data and the destruction of the planet Romulus.

“Retired from Starfleet and living on his family’s vineyard, Picard is drawn into a new adventure when he is visited by an apparent daughter of Data, one of several new synthetic beings, or ‘synths’,” reads a synopsis.

The second season then reunited Picard with The Next Generation ’s Q (John de Lancie) and Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) before they journeyed back to the year 2024 to adjust the timeline. 

Season three sees the return of more iconic Star Trek: The Next Generation actors with Michael Dorn as Worf, Gates McFadden as Dr. Beverly Crusher and LeVar Burton as Geordi La Forge joining the series. Brent Spiner, Marina Sirtis and Wil Wheaton – who previously guest-starred on Picard – also return for the final season while newcomer Amanda Plummer debuts as big bad Vadic.

How many episodes does Star Trek: Picard season three have in total?

Recommended.

There are ten episodes in season three of Star Trek: Picard . 

The first episode aired in the UK via Amazon Prime Video on Friday (February 17) the day after it was shown in the US on Paramount+. New episodes will now be released weekly up until the finale on April 20/21. You can check out the full schedule below.

Episode one – The Next Generation (February 16/17) Episode two – Disengage (February 23/24) Episode three – Seventeen Seconds (March ⅔) Episode four – No Win Scenario – (March 9/10) Episode five – Imposter – (March 16/17) Episode six – Bounty – (March 23/24) Episode seven – TBA – (March 30/31) Episode eight – TBA – (April 6/7) Episode nine – TBA (April 13/14) Episode ten – TBA (April 20/21)

Showrunner Terry Matalas has described Star Trek: Picard as “a send-off to [the cast of The Next Generation ] now, post feature films and looking at them decades later.”

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The Biggest Unanswered Questions From Star Trek: Picard Season 3

"Star Trek: Picard" Season 3 capped off a three-season run that saw Patrick Stewart reprise the role of Jean-Luc Picard. The entire crew of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" returned, making Season 3 something of a legacy sequel to the 2002 film "Star Trek: Nemesis." The third and final season put to bed plenty of longstanding questions debated by Trekkies for decades, like the fate of the Enterprise-D and the final resting place of James T. Kirk.

The story sees Admiral Picard and Captain William Riker commandeering the U.S.S. Titan to answer a desperate plea for help from their old friend Beverly Crusher. They uncover a fiendish plot from a mysterious new villain named Vadic who is poised wipe out the Federation. To stop this new threat, Picard must bring together his old crew, board a relic of a starship, and face off against an old nemesis.

However, while the final season wrapped up quite a bit for the "TNG" crew, it left us with as many questions as it answered. So grab your interferometric polaron disrupter and set your inverse tachyon field generator to full flow, because we're looking at the biggest unanswered questions from "Star Trek: Picard" Season 3.  Spoilers ahead.

So... when is that spin-off coming?

Even before the season ended, series showrunner Terry Matalas was teasing his hopes for a spin-off to "Star Trek: Picard." He even had a name in mind, suggesting it would be called "Star Trek: Legacy." It would feature a new ship with a crew that would be a mix of old returning favorites and a younger generation of Starfleet officers. By the time the final episode of "Star Trek: Picard" had rolled its credits it became clear that this was no simple pipe dream, as the story clearly sets up such a series.

In the closing moments of the finale, the U.S.S. Titan is rechristened the U.S.S. Enterprise-G, while Seven of Nine is promoted to its captain. Raffi has been reinstated and assigned to be Seven's first officer, and at the helm is Sidney La Forge (daughter of Geordi). Jack Crusher — the son of Picard and Dr. Crusher — takes his place as Seven's special advisor on the bridge. Jack even awkwardly name-drops the proposed title of the potential spin-off when he remarks on Captain Seven writing her own legacy, making it crystal clear what's in store.

With "Strange New Worlds" also set on a U.S.S. Enterprise, perhaps Paramount might wait a few years to put a little distance between them. But with Jeri Ryan raring to go, and a cast all set up from "Picard" — as well as a mid-credits scene that teased a coming trial from a returning Q — there's no better time than now.

Wait... how did Q come back?

Season 2 of "Star Trek: Picard" saw the return of Q, played by John de Lancie. Last seen in live-action in  "Star Trek: Voyager," he came back here to torment Picard one last time (or so it was claimed). He also helped him sort out some personal issues. In the story, Q makes one small change to history and throws Picard and his new crew — including Seven of Nine, Rios, Jurati, and Raffi — into a twisted alternate timeline. To fix it, Picard must not only travel back in time, but come face to face with ghosts from his past and come to terms with a tragic childhood trauma.

As the season unfolded, we also learned that part of the reason for Q's visit was to say goodbye: His people are dying, and would be ending their existence. In a tender final moment in the series finale, Picard and Q share an almost loving embrace as the godlike, letter-named foil disappears, never to be seen again... or so we thought.

In a truly unexpected moment, Q returns for a mid-credits stinger in the finale of "Star Trek: Picard" Season 3. He tells Jack Crusher that a trial is about to begin. Jack questions how he could still be alive, but Q gives no concrete explanation, merely saying that Jack shouldn't think so "linearly," implying it's a version of him from before his death. Is this a set-up for a new adventure, and if so, is Q back for good? Only time — and a potential spin-off — will tell.

What happened to the Enterprise-E?

The Enterprise-E  was introduced in the film "Star Trek: First Contact" and was the hero ship for two more films, "Star Trek: Insurrection" and "Star Trek: Nemesis." And while it's been 20+ years since it was last seen on-screen, many fans were still puzzled to see the Enterprise-F as the flagship of "Star Trek: Picard" Season 3. What's more, it was being decommissioned, meaning the F had likely served for quite a while. This suggests that the Enterprise-E was either retired or destroyed not long after "Star Trek: Nemesis," but it's never said exactly what happened to it.

The fate of the Enterprise-E doesn't go entirely without mention, though. In the penultimate episode of the third season, when Geordi La Forge takes the crew back to the fleet museum to retrieve the old Enterprise-D, he notes that the Enterprise-E wasn't available. Everyone immediately turns to Worf, who gets surprisingly defensive, quipping that whatever happened to the E wasn't his fault. 

So what happened to it? It was confirmed by showrunner Terry Matalas that Worf had succeeded Picard as captain of the Enterprise, so did he lead it into a battle that saw the ship destroyed? We did see it pop up in a recent episode of "Star Trek: Prodigy" set just a few years after "Nemesis" in a scene that saw it heavily damaged. Could that have been the moment the E met its fate? Sadly, we may have to look to novels and tie-in comics to get the answer.

Where is Queen Jurati?

Like Q, the Borg played a key part in the story of Season 2 of "Star Trek: Picard," culminating in a finale that saw a new splinter group of Borg emerge. Created by the fusion of a Borg Queen from an alternate reality and Dr. Agnes Jurati, they apparently spent hundreds of years in hiding, evolving their own mini-collective that was far more benevolent and focused on rehabilitation. At the climax of the story, they return and ask to join the Federation, offering to help with a new threat posed by a potentially dangerous cosmic phenomenon. 

Season 3 completely glosses over that plot point, ignoring the development entirely and focusing on a different storyline. But at the end of Season 3, we learn that the Borg — the real Borg — are the true villains, hoping to finally assimilate mankind. This makes us wonder, given the obvious point of connection, where Jurati's Borg Queen and her group of "good" Borg are during the events of the finale? We know they are out there keeping tabs on a growing interstellar threat, but surely they would have better means of defeating the insidious Borg Queen seen in the series finale than Picard and his decades-old Enterprise-D?

The real question is, given that Season 3 opted to just pretend like the Jurati Queen didn't exist, will we ever see a resolution to this story? Or will it join the pantheon of unresolved "Star Trek" storylines?

Does Picard retcon the finale of Enterprise?

This might seem like a random question, but bear with us here. In the mid-season episode "The Bounty," Picard leads the U.S.S. Titan to the fleet museum to get the help of Geordi La Forge. There, viewers are treated to a parade of Easter eggs, getting glimpses of famous starships from "Star Trek" past. This includes Kirk's Enterprise-A, the U.S.S. Defiant from "Deep Space Nine," and the U.S.S. Voyager. We also see the NX-01, the ship that was the focus of the 2001 prequel spin-off  "Star Trek: Enterprise."  Its refit form — with an additional secondary hull — calls into question that series' own finale.

In the infamous "Enterprise" series ender, "These Are the Voyages," Riker and Troi recreate the final voyage of the NX-01, a mission that sees the death of engineer Trip Tucker, much to the dismay of fans. But, as seen in that episode, the NX-01 is shown without the refit secondary hull, which was only designed for a fifth season that was never produced. This has led to fans theorizing that perhaps the events of that finale aren't exactly canon: Riker and Troi might not have been re-living actual history, or the holodeck program wasn't an accurate reflection of what really happened.

To the delight of fans, this could also mean that Trip Tucker didn't really die, setting him up for a possible return in another potential nostalgic reunion series.

What is the status of the Dominion?

One of the biggest surprise reveals in Season 3 of "Star Trek: Picard" is the identity of the villains hunting for Jack Crusher. In "Disengage," fans were thrown for a loop with the unexpected discovery that Crusher's pursuers were none other than the Changelings , the shapeshifting leaders of the Dominion who went to war with the Federation in "Deep Space Nine." Many fans have wondered what happened in the aftermath of the Dominion War, and while there were some hints on spin-offs like "Lower Decks," it finally seemed like we might get some answers in "Picard."

Unfortunately, all we really got was a new villain: The deadly Vadic, a rogue Changeling who had been kept captive by Section 31 and who rallied a group of her fellow angry Changelings on a mission to destroy the Federation for what they had done to her. While Worf does make one mention of his old friend Odo — still in the Great Link in the Gamma Quadrant where he was left at the end of "Deep Space Nine" — we don't get any further updates as to the status of the Dominion.

As it stands, there are still many unanswered questions following the Dominion War: What became of the Jem'Hadar, the Vorta, and the thousands of worlds that were ruled by the Dominion? Is there a struggle for power with their empire in ruin, or did Starfleet step in to bring stability to the Gamma Quadrant? We may need yet another spin-off to answer these questions.

Are the rogue Changelings still a threat?

Though the question of what became of the Dominion still lingers, of more immediate concern is the fate of Vadic's rogue Changelings. Throughout the final season of "Star Trek: Picard," the insidious Vadic led this new group of deadly, bloodthirsty shapeshifters on a mission to capture Jack Crusher as part of a plan to destroy Starfleet and beyond. But after Vadic met her end, it isn't said what happened to the rest of the Changelings who had been loyal to her. 

Oddly, with the revelation that Vadic had been working for the Borg Queen — who'd used the Changelings as her own soldiers in absence of a Borg army — the story just seemed to forget about Changelings by the season finale. But that just makes us ask: Are the rogue Changelings still a threat? Having infiltrated Starfleet, could they return to wreak more havoc? 

Sure, at the tail end of the finale, "The Last Generation," it's noted that Dr. Crusher — now a Starfleet Admiral — has developed a way to detect them via the transporter. We can't imagine that will be able to ferret out all of them, though, and some must have escaped unnoticed. For a season that focused so heavily on the Changeling threat, it seems curious that the plotline was abandoned so abruptly, and we have to wonder if a follow-up story is in the works.

Where is Admiral Janeway?

Yes, an animated version of Admiral Kathryn Janeway currently stars in "Star Trek: Prodigy," the Nickelodeon-produced series. But that series is set more than a decade prior to "Star Trek: Picard," and Janeway has received so many conspicuous references that it seems odd she didn't make an on-screen appearance by the time the final credits rolled, particularly with so many other major cameos. 

Earlier in the series, Seven of Nine namedropped an "Admiral Janeway" as someone who helped her secure entry into Starfleet in the first place, and for recently encouraging her to stick with it despite her struggles. Later, while Picard is meeting in secret with Commander Ro, Janeway is namechecked again, this time as an influential Starfleet figure who might be able to help them thwart the Changeling conspiracy. When the Titan moves to intercept the Changelings on Frontier Day, Janeway gets one more reference, said to be in charge of the festivities, suggesting that she may indeed have a very high-ranking role within Starfleet. 

Yet, despite plenty of fan theories circulating online about how Janeway might ultimately play a key role in the conclusion, she was nowhere to be seen. This seems strange, what with her protégé Seven of Nine getting command of the new Enterprise, and her old nemesis the Borg back threatening the Federation. This leaves us questioning where she is, what she's really doing, and if we'll ever see her again on-screen, played in live-action by Kate Mulgrew.

The status of Section 31

Section 31, the clandestine Starfleet black ops intelligence agency, first made its presence felt on "Deep Space Nine." Over the course of the Dominion War storyline, we learned that they were responsible for a deadly virus that infected the Changelings and threatened them with genocide. This wound up being a key plot point in "Star Trek: Picard" Season 3, as the villain Vadic never forgot how Section 31 had tried to wipe out her people. She was also left scarred — physically and otherwise — after years of gruesome experimentation while their prisoner, a part of Section 31's covert operation to create the perfect Changeling.

While the organization played a big part in the background of "Picard," we are given no info on their current status. They would seem to be active, as Daystrom Station is described as a Section 31 black site. However, Captain Riker seems very familiar with them, which is a major change from when they were almost unknown to everyone on "DS9." So is Section 31 now common knowledge among Starfleet officers, the way it was during the events depicted in "Star Trek: Discovery?" Or has the network of officers with clearance simply been broadened?

It also seems like a change for Section 31 to even have a site like Daystrom Station. Back on "DS9," their leader Director Sloan said emphatically that the agency had no official headquarters or base of operations. Is this a change to their operating procedures or was Sloan simply an unreliable source?

Where does Laris go from here?

At the end of "Picard" Season 2, the Romulan Laris was set up to be a new lover for Jean-Luc, and they seemed poised to embark on a romantic relationship. When Season 3 began, however, we only got a few brief moments with Laris, and it's never said if they're in a relationship. Before long, Picard is off on a new mission to save his old flame Dr. Beverly Crusher.

When Picard locates Dr. Crusher, she reveals that she has a son, and that Picard is his father, the result of a whirlwind romance decades earlier. When she became pregnant, she severed all ties to Picard and her old shipmates in an effort to keep her son, Jack, safe from the danger that comes with being the son of the great Jean-Luc Picard. Over the course of the season, Picard and Dr. Crusher renew their friendship, and there's even a few hints of romance, as there's still clearly chemistry between them. Given that the on-again/off-again romance between them was one of the biggest unresolved stories of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," this seemed like it might end with the two getting back together.

Sure enough, by the end of the season finale it seems that Picard and Dr. Crusher are closer than ever, and Laris is nowhere to be found. Still, it's not implicitly said whether Picard and Crusher are a couple or just good friends and co-parents, leaving the status of their relationship an unanswered question once again.

Who is Worf working for?

When we are first reintroduced to the old crew of the Enterprise from "The Next Generation," we find some of them in unexpected places, with Geordi at the fleet museum and Data being used as a security system for Section 31. When we first see Mr. Worf, he's working for Starfleet Intelligence, a field operative for Commander Ro Laren investigating the Changeling threat. But Worf's actual position and role is murky at best, as he describes himself more as a "subcontractor" to Starfleet, implying he's actually in service to someone else. The question is, who?

While we know that Worf eventually attained the rank of captain, commanding the Enterprise — possibly to its end — we don't actually know what he's done since. Considering actor Michael Dorn's own thoughts that Worf may have gone off to join the Klingon Empire, it's entirely possible he's working for a Klingon intelligence service we're unaware of. Or perhaps he's merely a mercenary do-gooder, a private crusader and soldier-of-fortune who lends his services to those who need them. Whatever the case, it's not entirely clear, and a plot thread that seems perfectly poised for a follow-up, perhaps in the long-rumored "Captain Worf" series.

What is the nature of the new Data?

For a season billed as a proper send-off for the crew of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," the third and final year of "Star Trek: Picard" doesn't give us much of a glimpse into where they end up when all is said and done. The biggest question mark might be the new Data, who is said to be an amalgam of the former Lt. Commander Data, his evil twin Lore, and even a little of his own daughter Lal, among others. Described as "more" than just Data, he's as close to being human as we've ever seen the character, and yet there are still many questions.

For starters, is he considered the same person or a new person? While this might seem like a silly question, it will undoubtedly be one that Starfleet asks. Second, given his new golem body, does he possess all the same abilities as his old android self — including superior strength, intelligence, and reflexes — or is he more like an ordinary man? 

And what of his goals and aspirations now that he has essentially achieved his dream of becoming human? Will he continue his career as a Starfleet officer where Data left off, or will he look to forge his own new path? Perhaps this is left open-ended by design, to allow for a follow-up, spin-off, or sequel that provides a new future for him, but for now, it's all up in the air.

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Published Jun 21, 2024

How the Picard Season 3 Soundtrack Unlocks All of Star Trek

For World Music Day, let's look at how Picard's final score stretches across the entire final frontier, from familiar themes to deep sonic cuts.

StarTrek.com

The music of the Final Frontier is one of the most grounding aspects of the entire Star Trek phenomenon. Rather than sounding overtly futuristic, the musical world Trek has always been the opposite — old-fashioned and classic. When Nicholas Meyer hired James Horner to compose the music for The Wrath of Khan , he asked for a score that was "nautical, but nice." This single phrase perhaps best describes a large swath of famous Star Trek scores; the music is rooted in an antique style, combined with a buoyant sense of optimism. The music of Trek looks forward, partly, by looking back. In real life, Star Trek scores have been played at the commissioning of space shuttles, at least one U.S. Presidential Inauguration , and on March 11, 2024, Jerry Goldsmith's themes from Star Trek: First Contact were played during a ceremony in which Sweden was inducted into NATO.

Sometimes, it seems the classical music of Star Trek is oddly more pervasive in everyday life than Star Trek itself. Yes, there have, of course, been examples of non-classical music in Star Trek ; from Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride," to Enterprise 's "Faith of the Heart," Kirk blasting The Beastie Boys' "Sabotage," and, in 2023, musical theater and pop stylings throughout " Subspace Rhapsody " in Strange New Worlds . But, for almost six decades, classical scores have been the sonic glue binding the Trek universe together. From Original Series composers like Alexander Courage and Sol Kaplan, to Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner in the classic films, to Dennis McCarthy in The Next Generation era, Michael Giacchino 's scores for the Kelvin Universe films, to Jeff Russo in Discovery and Chris Westlake in Lower Decks , Nami Melumad on Strange New Worlds and Prodigy , each Trek score often contains a piece of another. But, perhaps more than any orchestral Star Trek event to date, the soundtrack for Star Trek: Picard Season 3 bridges various eras simultaneously, but also created edgy, new directions for Trek scores that had never been tried before.

The Picard Season 3 score — composed by Stephen Barton and Frederik Wiedmann— is a rosetta stone of nearly all of Star Trek music, ever. Here's your guide to why this 2023 score is so unique, how it's the perfect place to start your Star Trek musical education, and why, if you haven't already, consider spinning this one on vinyl .

"All Good Things…Must Come To An End"

"The Last Generation"

While it's somewhat obvious that Star Trek: Picard Season 3 is a direct follow-up to Picard Season 2, a huge thrust of the series is also a coda to the era of The Next Generation TV series and four feature films. So, throughout this score, there are various musical references to the hugely famous main theme from Star Trek: The Next Generation composed by Jerry Goldsmith. But, within this musical cue, there's an Easter egg to 1979. As many fans know, the immortal TNG main theme was actually first composed by Goldsmith for the film Star Trek: The Motion Picture . And while the bombastic march opens that film, and every episode of TNG, a slower more ballatic version of the theme was created for the classic track "The Enterprise ," in which Scotty and Kirk view the newly refitted ship for the first time.

'The Next Generation'

In Picard Season 3, this dreamy arrangement of the TNG/TMP theme is on full display in the back-to-back tracks "Hello, Beautiful" and "Leaving Spacedock," in which Picard and Riker take a shuttle to the U.S.S. Titan -A, and we hear the gentle strings of "The Enterprise " from 1979. However, as this musical moment continues, and Commander Seven takes the Titan out of spacedock, a new musical theme emerges, which showrunner Terry Matalas has called " The Titan Theme, " since it plays in many instances in the series that focus on the scrappy starship itself. And yet, by the end of Picard Season 3, the Titan becomes a new version of the Enterprise . So, when Riker and Picard roll-up on the Titan and hear the TNG/TMP main theme, it's not just a neat Easter egg, the music becomes a foreshadowing element that helps tell the story.

Deep Cuts Reveal Myriad Star Trek Legacies

"The Next Generation"

Just as Beverly Crusher sends Picard a transmission as a myriad codec, the Picard Season 3 soundtrack contains a myriad of references to all sorts of other Star Trek music. Some of these cues are somewhat obvious. The end-credits for the series borrows from the First Contact main themes, first introduced in 1996, while Jeff Russo's arrangement of the TNG main theme, crafted for Picard Season 1 and Season 2, still exists as part of the brief title card at the top of each episode. But, once you start digging into the episode-by-episode tracks, deeper cuts start to reveal themselves, ever so slowly.

In "Old Communicator," ominous woodwinds play as Picard riffles through his stuff, to find his TNG-era red uniform. These notes are reminiscent of Ron Jones' music for " The Best of Both Worlds " in The Next Generation , reminding us of that time Jean-Luc lost a uniform just like this when he was assimilated by the Borg. But, for composers Barton and Wiedmann, this is just the first of many musical cues from the past.

"The Bounty"

When the Titan arrives at the Fleet Museum in the sixth episode, " The Bounty ," we get a track called "Legacies," which has rapid-fire sonic Easter eggs like no other piece of Star Trek music before or since.

As Seven and Jack observe the various ships in the museum, each one gets his own theme; for the Defiant , we hear Dennis McCarthy's main theme for Deep Space Nine , for the movie-era Enterprise -A, an arrangement of the Alexander Courage TOS theme, and as Seven waxes nostalgic about the U.S.S. Voyager , a triumphant and bittersweet rendition of the Jerry Goldsmith main title from Star Trek: Voyager plays. Impressively, these musical cues are packed into three minutes and fifteen seconds, meaning "Legacies," tells the story of four starships, through music, in a very short amount of time.

Did we say four ships? Yes! Because in addition to the Defiant, Enterprise -A, and Voyager , the medley of "Legacies" eventually concludes with Leonard Rosenman's 1986 themes from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home . And that's because Jack realizes that the captured Klingon Bird-of-Prey, which Bones christened the H.M.S. Bounty all those years ago, has a cloaking device that the crew of the Titan can use. And so, this wonderful nod to Rosenman's music not only references The Voyage Home , but also moves the present tense of the story forward.

That Cinematic Feeling

A Musical Legacy: Scoring the Final Season of Star Trek: Picard

On the liner notes to Picard Season 3, Terry Matalas specifies that the score for this season was designed to remind fans of the big, epic music from the films. Even though this was a season of a TV series, the sound of Picard Season 3 is cinematic. "I knew early on that Picard Season 3 needed to sound like the great Trek film scores that came before it," Matalas writes in the liner notes. "[When] I was five…the track 'The Enterprise ' was imprinted onto my brain."

And so, in collaboration with composers Barton and Wiedemann, Matalas steered the music of Picard Season 3 into a massive tribute to the entirety of previous Star Trek film scores. This was accomplished by the sonic Easter eggs we've just pointed out, but this feeling also exists more broadly throughout the entire soundtrack. The dark track "Dominion" isn't one that contains any sonic Easter eggs, but is unique to this soundtrack, as is the heroic hero theme for the Titan , heard in "Leaving Spacedock" and throughout the all ten episodes of the season.

But, the brilliance of the Picard Season 3 soundtrack isn't that it simply checks-off various Star Trek musical boxes. Instead, it seamlessly blends the old with the new. In "Legacy and the Future," longtime fans will be reminded of Denis McCarthy's tender music from 1994's Star Trek Generations , but as the track builds, we move from the immortal Alexander Courage fanfare, and into the new , future-facing music created for the Titan , which is destined to become Captain Seven's ship, the Enterprise-G , boldly headed into the future.

And so, the Picard Season 3 soundtrack isn't just a series of nostalgia hits. Its music allows us to revisit stories from across the whole timeline of Star Trek , but, also, imagine an unfolding new future, full of wonder, hope, and adventure.

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Ryan Britt is the author of the nonfiction books Phasers on Stun! How the Making and Remaking of Star Trek Changed the World (2022), The Spice Must Flow: The Journey of Dune from Cult Novels to Visionary Sci-Fi Movies (2023), and the essay collection Luke Skywalker Can’t Read (2015). He is a longtime contributor to Star Trek.com and his writing regularly appears with Inverse, Den of Geek!, Esquire and elsewhere. He lives in Portland, Maine with his family.

In addition to streaming on Paramount+ , Star Trek: Picard also streams on Prime Video outside of the U.S. and Canada, and in Canada can be seen on Bell Media's CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave. Star Trek: Picard is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.

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• How <i>Picard</i> Fits Into the <i>Star Trek</i> Timeline

How Picard Fits Into the Star Trek Timeline

I t’s been 26 long years since Star Trek: The Next Generation graced the small screen. But beginning Jan. 23, a new series centered around that show’s captain, Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), will “boldly go” to the network’s streaming service, CBS All Access. Star Trek: Picard is about our titular captain’s life many years after his last fateful mission for Starfleet.

But how does Picard fit into the larger Star Trek timeline? The CBS series is set where no Trek has gone before, well past the events of TV’s Star Trek: Voyager and the last film of the Picard era, Star Trek: Nemesis. Many fan favorite characters are expected to return, including Commander William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Seven-of-Nine (Jeri Ryan).

For Trek nerds out there, this means Picard takes place in the “prime” timeline, which is where each of the television series and the original films live. In 2009, J.J. Abrams rebooted the series with the film Star Trek, creating a new timeline for the already confusing Trek universe. In the film, a bad guy travels back in time and destroys the USS Kelvin, killing Captain Kirk’s father, George Kirk, in the process. All three of J.J. Abrams’ movies take place in this alternate timeline called the “Kelvin Timeline,” after the annihilated ship.

To familiarize yourself with the Trek universe, here are the two timelines:

Prime Timeline

Star Trek: Enterprise (2151-2161)

Airdate: 2001-2005

Plot: Set 100 years before the Enterprise ‘s mission in the original Star Trek , this series traces the adventures of the first Warp 4 capable Starfleet ship, also called Enterprise . Scott Bakula starred as the human captain Jonathan Archer, and Jolene Blalock as the Vulcan officer T’Pol.

Star Trek Discovery (2255)

Airdate: 2017-

Plot: Sonequa Martin-Green plays officer Michael Burnham, a human who was raised by Spock’s parents, Amanda and Sarek. Burnham has suppressed her human tendencies in order to assimilate into the hyper-logical Vulcan society but tries to reconnect with her emotional side when she serves Captain Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) and then Captain Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs).

Star Trek (2265-2269)

Airdate: 1966-1969

Plot: The original Star Trek series created by Gene Roddenberry featured Captain James Kirk (William Shatner), First Officer Spock ( Leonard Nimoy ), Officer Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Montgomery “Scotty” Scott (James Doohan), Hikaru Sulu (George Takei) and the other Starfleet members on a mission of exploration and self-improvement. One of the most diverse shows on television at the time, Star Trek ran for three seasons and inspired future space sagas like Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica .

Star Trek: The Animated Series (2269-2270)

Airdate: 1973-1974

Plot: After the original series went off the air, Roddenberry created an animated series that continued the stories of Star Trek and reunited much of the same cast to do voice work for cartoon versions of their characters.

Original Star Trek movies (2273-2293)

Airdate: 1979-1991

Plot: Roddenberry leveraged the massive success of the syndicated series into a number of feature films starring Shatner and Nimoy. Star Trek: The Motion Picture , Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , Star Trek III: The Search for Spock , Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , Star Trek V: The Finale Frontier and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country continued established storylines.

Star Trek: The Next Generation (2364-2370)

Airdate: 1987-1994

Plot: Set 100 years after the events of the original Star Trek , this series followed Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his crew (Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton and Marina Sirtis, among them) on the fifth iteration of the Enterprise , USS Enterprise-D .

Next Generation Movies (2293-2379)

Airdate: 1994-2002

Plot: In Star Trek: Generations (1994), Captain Picard teams up with the once-presumed-dead Captain Kirk. The story unites the casts from the two Star Trek series at the time, effectively passing the baton from Shatner to Stewart. The Next Generation cast went on to star in three more movies, sans the original cast: Star Trek: First Contact , Star Trek: Insurrection and Star Trek Nemesis .

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (2369-2375)

Airdate: 1993-1999

Plot: Set on a space station rather than a starship, Deep Space Nine focuses on the adventures of the people charged with guarding the opening to a wormhole at the end of the galaxy. Deep Space Nine was helmed by Trek’ s first black captain, Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks). It was also the first Trek series created without Roddenberry, who gave the concept his approval before he passed away in 1991.

Star Trek: Voyager (2371-2378)

Airdate: 1995-2001

Plot: After the ship Voyager gets stranded in the Delta Quadrant (the far side of the Milky Way galaxy) while searching for a renegade ship, they must make the 75-year journey home. Voyager was fronted by Trek’ s first female captain, Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew).

Star Trek: Picard (2399-?)

Airdate: 2020 — ? (A second season is already in the works)

Plot: Many years after a daring mission to save a dying planet, Captain Picard — now an Admiral — has left Starfleet (or, more accurately, Starfleet has left him). But when a mysterious young woman with a potential connection to a certain beloved android shows up at his doorstep, it sets in motion events that lead Picard back into space — albeit with a crew that’s more swashbuckler than Starfleet.

Kelvin Timeline

Star Trek (2233-2258)

Release date: 2009

Plot: A bad guy named Nero (Eric Bana), angry that his planet is destroyed in the future, travels back in time and kills Kirk’s father (in 2233). He then hangs out for a long time to destroy Vulcan (in 2258) in front of old Spock who has also traveled back in time (and is played by Leonard Nimoy) because Spock failed to save the baddie’s home planet. Current-day Kirk (Chris Pine) encounters old Spock who explains all the confusing time-jump mechanics to him. Together, current-day Kirk and Spock (Zachary Quinto) become begrudging friends and save the universe.

Star Trek: Into Darkness

Airdate: 2013

Plot: The second J.J. Abrams film stars Benedict Cumberbatch as a villain that the marketing team really tried to convince people was not genetically-engineered superhuman Khan. (He was Khan.) Kirk leads a mission to capture Khan after her murders a bunch of Starfleet officers.

Star Trek Beyond

Airdate: 2016

Plot: Justin Lin took over for the third reboot film and threw in some motorcycles because he has a thing for fast vehicles. In this one, a baddie named Krall (Idris Elba) kidnaps part of Kirk’s crew in hopes that Kirk will exchange a powerful McGuffin for their safety.

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Here's How Star Trek: Picard Fits Into The Fractured Franchise Timeline

Patrick Stewart and showrunner Alex Kurtzman delve into the details of Jean-Luc Picard's new life.

During a panel at the Television Critics Association winter press tour on Sunday (January 12), showrunner Alex Kurtzman offered some clarification on the show's timeline, where it sits within the ever-expanding Trek universe.

"We are in the Prime timeline," Kurtzman confirmed, referring to the original series timeline as opposed to the alternate "Kelvin" timeline established in JJ Abrams' 2009 Star Trek movie. "Events from the Kelvin timeline impacted Picard , but if you look at that movie, the destruction of Romulus was in the Prime timeline. It is what enabled the Kelvin timeline jump to happen. So that is very consistent with canon." In other words, the fall of Romulus is the inciting incident for both the Kelvin timeline, and for Star Trek: Picard, which is the first onscreen Trek story to explore the aftermath of that event.

It's fair to say that things are a little bleak for Picard as the series picks up – per Stewart, "Picard's life has changed. He's troubled, disturbed, lonely, and with feelings of strange, unnatural guilt." But there is one extremely significant piece of good news about Picard's new life: he has a really, really excellent dog named Dinero. Even better? Dinero was Stewart's idea.

"To just see him with a dog seemed to me to write a lot of things that didn't have to be said," Stewart explained, "because the presence of the dog alone means that he's looking for some form of comfort, which he cannot find anywhere else, but he finds it in the dog." Stewart pushed for the dog to specifically be a pit bull, he added, "because I'm passionate about these dogs, and they are abused and treated appallingly all over the world. I'm now campaigning in the UK for the laws to be changed and for them to be allowed into the country. So it's terrific to have Dinero in the sequel, and I hope we see much more of him." Hard same.

Later in the panel, Kurtzman shared some insights on how the show compares to other current Star Trek series, particularly CBS All Access's Discovery and Lower Decks . "I think the proposition is that every time you watch a Star Trek show, it has to feel and look totally very different from every other show," he said, adding that Picard will spend substantially more time on our planet than is typical for Trek . "The first chapter is really earthbound. It's very rare that you see a lot of time spent on the planet Earth in the world of Star Trek , and we did not want to rush that. We wanted to take the time to show the condition of Picard's life, and to watch him evolve to taking off into the stars, and we were not in a hurry to do that."

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‘Star Trek: Picard’ Timeline: From ‘Next Gen’ to J.J. Abrams’s Film, Here’s How The Series Fits In

Where to Stream:

• Star Trek: Picard

Star Trek: Picard pushes the Star Trek franchise into the future when it comes to prestige storytelling. Instead of following a crew of do-gooders exploring the fringes of space, Star Trek: Picard follows a disillusioned Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) as he is roused out of retirement to help a young woman… who might be Data’s daughter ?

Star Trek: Picard is a lot to unpack, not merely because it futzes with the storytelling conventions of Star Trek. The series also uses the supernova that destroyed Romulus (and helped create an alternate timeline) as a major cultural flashpoint for the Federation. We learn that Picard led efforts to ferry refugees away from Romulus and to safety and that an android insurrection led to draconian new rules about synthetic life forms in the Federation. Because Starfleet would not consider bending the rules and letting androids aid in the Romulan rescue mission, Picard quit.

All this leads us to ask…what happened when? What is the deal with Star Trek’s timeline — or is it timelines? When does Star Trek: Picard take place? How long ago did Data “die”? When did the Romulan supernova happen? And what does Star Trek: Picard have to do with J.J. Abrams’s 2009 Star Trek film with Chris Pine?

WHEN DOES STAR TREK: PICARD TAKE PLACE? WHAT YEAR IS STAR TREK: PICARD SET?

Star Trek: Picard takes place in the year 2399. That’s 14 years after Picard retires, 20 years after Data’s death, and almost 30 years after the end of Star Trek: The Next Generation .

WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION AND STAR TREK: PICARD ? WHEN DID DATA DIE AND ROMULUS GET DESTROYED BY A SUPERNOVA?

Okay, okay, okay…so a lot of random dates and years get thrown around in Star Trek: Picard and it might be a little bit difficult to figure out what happened in what order in the Star Trek Prime timeline. Between an official video timeline on StarTrek.com and what we learn about the android ban in Star Trek: Picard Episode 2, we believe this is the order of major events brought up in Star Trek: Picard :

2364-2370 – The Events of Star Trek: The Next Generation 2365 – Starfleet Makes First Contact with Borg Late 2366 – Early 2367 (circa) – Data Creates His First “Daughter,” Lal  2369 – Data Paints the Twin Oil Paintings entitled “Daughter” 2379 – Data Sacrifices Himself and Dies in Star Trek: Nemesis 2385 – Androids Rebel on Mars, Sparking a Ban on “Synthetic” Life 2387 – Romulus Destroyed by a Supernova (Alternate Kelvin Timeline created in J.J. Abram’s Star Trek Film) 2399 – The Events of Star Trek: Picard

HOW DOES STAR TREK: PICARD TIE IN WITH THE ALTERNATE KELVIN TIMELINE IN STAR TREK (2009)

Before Star Trek: Discovery (which is a prequel set in the years before the original Star Trek , sheesh), there hadn’t been any new additions to Star Trek canon…except the film trilogy. J.J. Abrams’s 2009 film was not merely your standard reboot; it was set in a canonical alternate timeline created by the same supernova that destroyed Romulus in Picard’s 2387.

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When Jean-Luc Picard heard that Romulus would soon be destroyed in a supernova, he pushed for a massive rescue effort. However, another Starfleet great, Spock (Leonard Nimoy) tried to stop the supernova altogether. He developed something called “Red Matter,” aka that red spinning ball thing, to shoot into the supernova to stop it. However, he was late, and the planet was still destroyed. His attempt to stop it, though, created a space time rift sending him and some Romulans from 2387 back in time to 2233. The Romulans, led by Eric Bana’s Nero stranded Spock on an ice planet and crossed paths with a Federation ship called the USS Kelvin . This sparked a new timeline, called the Kelvin timeline, and it’s the one with Chris Pine, Zoe Saldana, and the Enterprise that looks like it was made by the Apple store.

So the Romulan supernova created the Kelvin timeline, but Star Trek: Picard ‘s timeline isn’t aware of this. Does that make sense? No, take it up with the Star Trek people, then.

Where to stream Star Trek: Picard

• CBS All Access

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Star trek has forgotten its infamous pleasure planet.

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The Complete Star Trek Timeline Explained

I don't care if modern star trek breaks established canon, captain kirk's "death" proves a truly dark fact about star trek's entire universe.

• Risa has been forgotten in modern Star Trek, with only brief mentions in newer shows.
• The franchise's ability to expand Risa's story is being sidelined, missing out on its potential.
• Modern technology like the AR wall could help bring Risa to life like never before.

Despite its immense potential, the Star Trek franchise seems to have forgotten about its most infamous pleasure planet. Although Star Trek is mainly about space exploration and scientific discovery, all Star Trek TV shows have had an episode where the crew is allowed to blow off steam, and no shore leave planet has become more famous in the franchise than Risa . First introduced in the Star Trek: The Next Generation season 3 episode, "Captain's Holiday," Risa has become synonymous with vacation and tourism, although it was only included in a handful of episodes across multiple series.

Over about four episodes, TNG and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine showed the planet's status as a popular shore leave destination in the 24th century, with characters like Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) , or Worf (Michael Dorn) and Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) vacationing there. Star Trek: Enterprise also fleshed out Risa's backstory, showing that it had once been more inhospitable before the native Risians had terraformed their planet into a paradise with advanced technology. Risa had enormous potential for Star Trek , but in recent projects, the franchise seems to have sidelined it.

Star Trek's timeline spans a thousand years of Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets, with alternate realities and time travel galore.

Star Trek Has Forgotten Its Infamous Pleasure Planet Risa

Risa hasn't appeared in star trek for ages.

Aside from a brief appearance in Star Trek: Discovery season 3, modern Star Trek has completely forgotten about Risa as a setting for any of its episodes. The planet has been mentioned once or twice in episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Picard , and Discovery provided two more concrete references to it. These took the form of briefly showing the Mirror Universe Risa in Discovery season 3's "Terra Firma, Part 2" and the character of Ruon Tarka (Shawn Doyle) , a native Risian, in season 4.

Although the Enterprise episodes that depicted Risa technically aired after DS9 , the events in them took place chronologically over a century before.

However, no Star Trek main character has been shown visiting the planet since Worf and Dax vacationed there in DS9 's "Let He Who Is Without Sin..." Although the Enterprise episodes that depicted Risa technically aired after DS9 , the events in them took place chronologically over a century before. The lack of Risa in newer and upcoming Star Trek projects is disappointing , especially because the franchise now has the ability to expand the planet and make it more interesting.

Modern Star Trek Could Actually Make Risa More Inviting Than Ever

The franchise has better capabilities to depict risa than before.

Thanks to CGI technology and special effects abilities in 2024, newer Star Trek shows could flesh out Risa in ways that weren't possible in the 1990s. The recent slate of Star Trek streaming shows has adopted technology called the AR wall, which consists of large LED screens that allow shows to create enhanced visuals, letting actors see their surroundings unlike green screens, and building more interactive environments without the need to shoot on location. Using the AR wall to depict Risa would be a chance to make the planet feel more real .

While the visuals in the 90s-era Star Trek shows were cutting edge at the time, the production team often relied on 2D matte paintings for wide shots, and rarely shot on location, instead shooting on sound stages and artificial environments. This didn't help make Risa feel particularly fleshed out, but with bigger budgets and better technology like the AR wall, the possibilities for the planet in modern Star Trek are endless . If the franchise brought Risa back, it could finally depict the planet in all its glory.

Star Trek is one of pop culture's biggest multimedia franchises, spanning multiple movies, TV shows, books, comics, video games, and various other media. The franchise was created by Gene Roddenberry and started with the 1960s TV series starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. Over the decades, several equally popular series have come out since as Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Discovery.

I Forgot About Captain Picard Day, But So Did Star Trek

• Captain Picard Day was overshadowed by recent Star Trek franchise developments, such as the end of Discovery and new casting announcements.
• Fans celebrated Captain Picard Day on June 16, a real-world occasion inspired by Star Trek, but Paramount+ did not acknowledge it this year.
• Despite not being commemorated by Star Trek, Captain Picard Day remains a significant event for fans and a tie-in for the beloved character.

I forgot about Captain Picard Day this year, but so did Star Trek . June 16 is Captain Picard Day, which is one of the three holidays Star Trek celebrates in the real world, along with First Contact Day in April and Star Trek Day in September. Fans remembered Captain Picard Day, and it was commemorated by dedicated fan-run Star Trek websites. But the occasion came and went without fanfare from Star Trek on Paramount+ or me.

Captain Picard Day didn't register for me as it did in the past because so much has recently happened in the Star Trek franchise. Star Trek: Discovery ended on May 30th after 5 successful seasons, and it was a lot to unpack. Meanwhile, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 wrapped filming. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy , which is going into production in the fall, dropped two huge casting announcements, tapping Academy Award-winner Holly Hunter as the series lead and Academy Award nominee Paul Giamatti as the next Star Trek series' recurring main villain. Star Trek: Prodigy season 2 finally announced its July 1st release date on Netflix, and Star Trek received a Peabody Institutional Award . With so much happening, Captain Picard Day got lost in the shuffle.

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Why Star Trek Celebrates Captain Picard Day

"i'm a role model".

Captain Picard Day was introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation season 7, episode 12, "The Pegasus". It was a special occasion organized by Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) to allow the children aboard the USS Enterprise-D to celebrate their heroic Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart). Captain Picard Day was a memorable bit of whimsy in TNG that was later acknowledged by the older Admiral Picard in Star Trek: Picard season 1.

Captain Picard Day is celebrated on June 16, which is the Gregorian calendar's equivalent to stardate 47457.1 in Star Trek: The Next Generation 's "The Pegasus".

Star Trek recognized how fans took to Captain Picard Day and turned June 16th into a real-world occasion. In 2019, StarTrek.com marked Captain Picard Day with an entire week of festivities. Captain Picard Day was also a convenient tie-in for Star Trek: Picard on Paramount+ when the series bringing back Patrick Stewart in his iconic role premiered in 2020, running for three seasons. This year, however, Captain Picard Day celebrations ended up taking a back seat for a few reasons.

Why Captain Picard Day 2024 Went By Without Notice From Star Trek

Star trek has new things to announce... but not yet..

Captain Picard Day fell on both a Sunday and Father's Day in 2024, which helps explain why it didn't receive its normal fanfare. In terms of Picard himself, the end of Star Trek: Picard in spring 2023 was followed by the celebration of Patrick Stewart's memoir, "Making It So", in the fall. Unfortunately, Paramount+ did not choose to develop Star Trek: Legacy as a continuation of Star Trek: Picard. In addition, Star Trek: Picard showrunner Terry Matalas is moving on to executive produce Vision for Marvel Studios and write an Enemy Mine reboot for 20th Century Studios, so there is nothing to announce in terms of seeing more of Jean-Luc and the crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation .

Netflix has not released any promotional material for Star Trek: Prodigy season 2, which could have happened on Captain Picard Day.

Star Trek on Paramount+ opted not to use Captain Picard Day to announce any of its new upcoming projects. Most likely, announcing the full cast of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy , revealing more details about Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 , dropping a trailer or release date for Star Trek: Section 31 , and/or a trailer and release date for Star Trek: Lower Decks season 5 is being saved for San Diego Comic-Con in July. There is also Star Trek Day in September that Paramount+ can use to hype upcoming projects, while Paramount Pictures is not ready to reveal anything about its theatrical Untitled Star Trek Origin movie. Hopefully, Captain Picard Day won't be forgotten about in 2025, and there will be something exciting about Picard's side of Star Trek worth announcing.

Cast Michael Dorn, LeVar Burton, Brent Spiner, Wil Wheaton, Jonathan Frakes, Patrick Stewart, Marina Sirtis, Gates McFadden

Streaming Service(s) Paramount+

Franchise(s) Star Trek

Writers Jeri Taylor, Michael Piller, Rick Berman, Brannon Braga, Ronald D. Moore

Directors David Carson

Showrunner Jeri Taylor, Michael Piller, Rick Berman

Where To Watch Paramount+

Cast Orla Brady, Michael Dorn, LeVar Burton, Brent Spiner, Jonathan Frakes, Jeri Ryan, Patrick Stewart, Alison Pill, Isa Briones, Evan Evagora, Marina Sirtis, Amanda Plummer, Whoopi Goldberg, Gates McFadden, Todd Stashwick, Santiago Cabrera, Michelle Hurd, John de Lancie, Ed Speleers

Writers Akiva Goldsman, Terry Matalas, Michael Chabon

Directors Terry Matalas, Jonathan Frakes

Showrunner Akiva Goldsman, Terry Matalas, Michael Chabon