Star Trek: Picard Season 3: Everything We Learned From the SDCC Panel

This past weekend, fandom's biggest party returned to its full in-person glory at San Diego Comic-Con as networks and studios sent their best and brightest to promote upcoming movies and television series. With the Star Trek franchise going through a second renaissance of sorts, Paramount had plenty to choose from for their Star Trek Universe panel in Hall H on Saturday. Cast and creatives were in attendance for Season 3 of Star Trek: Picard, Season 3 of the animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks, and Season 2 of the franchise's newest addition Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Actress and Picard Season 2 director Lea Thompson moderated the panel and welcomed producers Rod Roddenberry and Alex Kurtzman to the stage along with stars Patrick Stewart and Gates McFadden. I was lucky enough to be in the audience for Collider, and I'm thrilled to share everything we learned during the panel about the upcoming final season of Star Trek: Picard. The Star Trek Universe panel opened with a thrilling sizzle reel featuring every property in the now six-decade-spanning franchise, encouraging the audience to look towards that bright, hopeful Star Trek future.

Thompson then began the panel by asking Stewart about the start of the show's third season; the actor charmed the audience by joking about how long ago they filmed the season, having done so in immediate succession after Season 2. Kurtzman stepped in to go back a little further and explain how Seasons 1 and 2 of Picard have been building to what's to come. He told fans that when they approached Stewart about doing the series, he was very clear about not wanting to rehash what had already been done on Star Trek: The Next Generation or the subsequent films. With that in mind, the ultimate goal of revisiting the full TNG crew had to be "earned," said Kurtzman.

star trek picard season 3 gates mcfadden — Image via Paramount+

Kurtzman explains that they took the idea of bringing back this crew very seriously, knowing that they did not want to have them appear for shock value or in brief cameos, "we actually wanted everybody to have pretty significant roles." He believes that the return of these characters will make audiences feel as if they've been welcomed home again. In regards to how Season 3 begins he shared that Picard's friends and former crew members are sort of scattered all over the galaxy and we get to see them slowly come back together for one last adventure. McFadden then jumped in to say that it's been nearly two decades since we've seen many of these characters, namely her Beverly Crusher, and in that time Crusher has been all over the big wide Star Trek universe.

McFadden also hyped fans up by saying how exciting she is to have returned to this character and to have acted with Stewart again. She had high praise for producer Terry Matalas and the story coming in Picard Season 3, saying, "I think it's the best stuff my character's ever had on a Star Trek show. So I was thrilled about it." She continued, alluding to the relationship between Picard and Crusher saying, "there's a lot of unexpected things that happen, there's a lot of unresolved issues between Picard and Crusher." McFadden also teased a little bit about the state of the relationships between the returning ensemble characters, explaining that some of them haven't seen each other much, if at all, in the past 25 years, and others have been in near constant contact. Her comments leave a lot of room for speculation about which of these characters are still friends and which connections have fallen to the wayside — personally, I really hope Deanna and Beverly are still close.

The new season will explore how these characters have changed and the things that they've experienced on their own in the two decades since Star Trek: Nemesis. During the panel, they shared a character reveal teaser featuring the new looks for the main cast of Season 3 including Patrick Stewart as Jean Luc Picard, LeVar Burton as Geordi La Forge, Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine, Michelle Hurd as Raffi Musiker, Michael Dorn as Worf, Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi, Jonathan Frakes as Will Riker, and Gates McFadden as Beverly Crusher. Though the teaser did not include a look at the character Brent Spiner will be playing in Season 3, Kurtzman confirmed he will also return as an "old new character."

star-trek-picard-season-2-finale — Image via Paramount+

Each season of Picard sort of acts as an installment in an anthology series, telling a self-contained story within those ten episodes with its own heroes and villains. Season 1 dealt with an unknown robotic enemy long feared by the Romulans and Season 2 featured the return of the Borg Queen. While he did not say who the villain of Season 3 will be, Kurtzman shared that "she's amazing" and that they were heavily inspired by the classic Star Trek film The Wrath of Khan. Stewart also told audiences that not only will there be multiple Enterprise's in Season 3, but that they also return to "the original Enterprise" which audiences took to mean the Enterprise D as he joked about carpeted floors on the bridge of the classic starship.

Thompson made sure to also ask about returning Picard series regular Seven of Nine, who at the end of Season 2 was briefly tasked with taking on a Captain role in the final episode. In the teaser, you can see Seven back in a Starfleet uniform and Kurtzman explained that in Season 3, she'll be taking on the role of a first officer on a starship. However, as is a trademark of Seven's time with Starfleet, she'll still be wrestling with the question of where she fits in. An audience member asked about the possibility of a spinoff with Seven in the Captain's chair, and while Kurtzman couldn't give away any specifics he did promise that we can expect more Star Trek shows with female leads — he also said they'll definitely be inviting Thompson back to direct future episodes.

Season 3 of Star Trek: Picard will air on Paramount+ sometime in 2023. You can watch the teaser trailer shown at Comic-Con down below and be sure to check out the rest of our coverage from SDCC.

Read more of our Star Trek coverage from San Diego Comic-Con: