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While the entire “Star Trek” fandom is focused on “Strange New Worlds,” a few exciting things have leaked out about the third and final season of Patrick Stewart’s show. That is, “Star Trek: Picard” will stream the final season of the series. Season 3 could be the last time fans will see the Starfleet hero and possibly, the rest of his crew from “The Next Generation.”
Fans who follow LeVar Burton (Geordi La Forge) on Twitter saw that he recently shared a note about Season 3. On May 26, 2022, Burton tweeted that he was “on the [Warner Brothers] lot today. Doing ADR (additional dialogue recording) for Picard.”
Burton at ‘The Lot’
That is a clue that production is getting close to wrapping everything up. ADR ensures that dialog can be heard and understood in a scene and is part of the post-production process. Actors go into a booth and re-record some of their lines, which can be added to the video editing software. This way, the audio in the final cut, which will be heard on screen, is understandable.
Thanks to a teaser video, fans are aware of the inclusion of Burton and the majority of the main cast from “The Next Generation” — including Burton, Michael Dorn (Worf), Brent Spiner (Data), Jonathan Frakes (Riker), Marina Sirtis (Troi), and Gates McFadden (Dr. Crusher). While those classic characters will be back — though Spiner will likely portray a Soong rather than Mr. Data, who died in Season 1 of “Picard” — fans know that many of the other “Picard” cast members will not return.
Among the departing actors are Allison Pill (Dr. Agnes Jurati/Borg Queen), Isa Briones (many characters), and Santiago Cabrerra (Captain Christobal Rios). That would leave just Orla Brady (Laris), Michelle Hurd (Raffi), Evan Evagora (Elnor), and Jeri Ryan (Seven) as the only holdovers from the original “Picard” cast to come back for Season 3.
Teasing a Villain
TwitterA tweet by Terry Matalas
As most fans can agree, the very best villain in Trek history was Khan (Ricardo Montalbán). As Collider’s Liam Gaughan wrote, all Trek villains “live under the shadow of” Khan. That being said, “Picard” co-showrunner Terry Matalas must have something good in mind for someone for Picard to face on this final adventure. Matalas has been sharing his excitement about this individual on his Twitter feed, saying that fans are “not ready.”
“It is a new character,” Matalas said on May 19, 2022. “Played by someone you’ve seen a million times before. Someone I’ve always wanted to work with. And… wow. You’re not ready.”
In an interview with SFX Magazine (as reported by Magzter), Matalas said that Season 3 would feature “some game-changing ’Star Trek’ universe ideas.”
“I grew up with the original series and the Kirk (William Shatner) movies,” Matalas said in the interview. “That’s my ‘Star Trek.’ So you’ll see a few of those things kind of tie some ‘Star Trek’ together. And I think Akiva [Goldsman] has constructed a really fascinating and heartbreaking psychological exploration of Picard that no one is expecting.”
Season 3
Since Matalas is hyping up this new character — which he did clarify, would be played by someone new to “Star Trek,” which rules out fan-favorite Jeffrey Combs — fans have made it their job to try to use those few clues to guess who the character and/or actor will be for “Picard: Season 3.”
Among the fan favorites for this new villain on Reddit are Sir Ian McKellen (who is a great friend of Patrick Stewart and is known worldwide for his roles in “Lord of the Rings” and “X-Men”), Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker from “Star Wars”), and J.K. Simmons (known as J. Jonah Jameson in the “Spider-Man” films).
Fans also brought up names of actors who are big Trek fans but have not yet been a part of the franchise, like Tom Hanks (who said that he’d like to play a peaceful Romulan). Eddie Murphy is also a big Trek fan who almost appeared in “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.”
Interestingly, writer Josh Goldman reported in 2021 that the new villain could actually be a son, which Picard was unaware of. Goldman suggested that this son of Picard could be played by actor David Corenswet. Please note that Goldman writes for the site Illuminerdi, which has been known to get some of its reporting wrong.
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