Posted in: Games, Paramount+, Star Trek, streaming, TV | Tagged: dungeons and dragons, Forgotten Realms, jeri ryan, paramount, Picard, star trek, Terry Matalas, Todd Stashwick
Star Trek: Picard: Matalas & Stashwick Introduce Jeri Ryan to D&D
Star Trek: Picard EP Terry Matalas chronicled Jeri Ryan's introduction to Dungeons and Dragons with GM Todd Stashwick, Mica Burton & more.
We always knew the kind of lifelong friendships forged because of Star Trek. The most obvious example is the camaraderie shared with The Next Generation crew that easily transitioned into Picard's third and final season. Another blossoming relationship is that of the U.S.S. Titan-A senior officers Captain Liam Shaw and Cmdr. Seven of Nine, played respectively by Todd Stashwick and Voyager favorite Jeri Ryan. While both characters were often at odds with one another, the two actors couldn't be better friends, especially when Picard showrunner Terry Matalas' relationship with Stashwick goes back to his earlier days on Enterprise and SYFY's 12 Monkeys. Now the two shared their love for Dungeons & Dragons with Ryan in a journey Matalas chronicled on Friday.
Star Trek: Picard's Jeri Ryan's Journey into Dungeons & Dragons
"Tonight [Jeri L Ryan] embarks on her first #DungeonsandDragons journey with DM [Todd Stashwick] This is going to be AMAZING. Stay tuned," Matalas wrote. Joining them on the journey included Mica Burton, who played Alandra La Forge, the daughter of Commodore Geordi La Forge (played by her real father LeVar Burton), and Picard writer Matt Okumura. Burton played a Faerie Cleric and Okumura was a Tiefling Rogue Assassin. Ryan played a high elf with the campaign set in the Forgotten Realms. You can check out Ryan's journey through D&D in the tweets below.
When we meet Shaw and Seven on the Titan in season three, we find out the captain is a racist against Borg insisting on deadnaming his first officer to her pre-assimilated former name Annika Hansen. We discover Shaw's prejudice stems from his survivor's guilt in the Battle of Wolf 359 when the Borg assimilated U.S.S. Enterprise-D Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and turning him into Locutus on their way to attempt their conquest of Earth, leaving a path of destruction that included the ship Shaw served at the time. While we never saw flashbacks of Picard, Wolf 359 was depicted in the Star Trek: The Next Generation season three cliffhanger and two-parter "The Best of Both Worlds." In the Picard penultimate episode, Shaw is killed but not before showing respect to his first officer and calling her Seven, and we find out in one of his final acts in the series finale that, recorded a message of recommendation for promotion to captain in her hearing with (her former Voyager crewmate) Captain Tuvok (Tim Russ).