Posted in: Paramount+, Star Trek, streaming, TV | Tagged: Garrett Wang, Nana VIsitor, Scarlett Pomers, star trek, Star Trek Picard, star trek: deep space nine, star trek: voyager, Terry Matalas

Star Trek: Picard: Matalas Wanted Kate Mulgrew/Janeway Return & More

Star Trek: Picard EP Terry Matalas reveals how much Season 3 could have been like "Avengers: Endgame" of crossovers with Voyager & DS9 cameos.

It's hard being a sci-fi fan sometimes, knowing what could have been, especially in the realm of streaming. Instead of 20+episode seasons, we typically get 10 or fewer episodes. Few can argue that Picard showrunner and executive producer Terry Matalas might have put together the best season of modern Star Trek in the Paramount+ era blending the new and the old with The Next Generation cast reunion in Picard's third and final season. Matalas was even able to fit in TNG holders like Daniel Davis, Michelle Forbes, and Elizabeth Dennehy in epic cameos. Voyager wasn't even left out as Tim Russ reprised his role as Tuvok and reunited with Jeri Ryan's Seven of Nine; also a part of the Picard cast since season one. When you hear about what Matalas wanted for his conceptualized Legacy series and what got left on the cutting room floor, you realize how much meat on the bone there still is.

Speaking with the Master Replicas Collectors Club (via TrekMovie.com), Matalas shared more on what he had to sacrifice due to the constraints of streaming in the Paramount+ series including cameos from Voyager actors Scarlett Pomers, who played Seven's protégé Naomi Wildman; Garrett Wang as "Captain" Harry Kim; and Kate Mulgrew making her live-action return as Admiral Kathryn Janeway. We would've also had our first Deep Space Nine actor in a live-action return with Nana Visitor's reprising her role as Colonel Kira Nerys. "There was an episode once the Titan was on the run and it needed to hide. And so we had this idea of Seven bringing them to sort of like space Tortuga, like spacedock for pirates where the Fenris Rangers were," Matalas said. "And she gets help from an older Naomi Wildman, who had also followed in her footsteps as a Fenris Ranger and was a badass. But Seven realizes she sort of created a monster because Naomi had become harder than she was. And so it was it was a Seven/Naomi story. We broke the story, and we had reached out to the actress who played Naomi [Scarlett Pomers]. But it just didn't feel—if you had 13 episodes, you were doing this for sure. But if you had 10, you're like, 'I need to get to LeVar.' It's time to get there."

Upon season three's Frontier Day celebration in what ended up with Dennehy's all too brief return on the U.S.S. Enterprise-F as Admiral Elizabeth Shelby, Matalas envisioned something far more epic. "Harry Kim appeared as the captain of the Voyager-B in the first draft of Frontier Day. But 'Prodigy' was telling a lot of Voyager stories, and we didn't know if Harry was going to appear, and we didn't want to step on their toes. But yeah, for me, I would have had as many as we could get. I would have made that Star Trek Avengers: Endgame. I would have made Frontier Day with many ships… I would have Kira [Nerys from DS9] there, even if all you get is a bridge shot. But all of that is very expensive. We were already way too ambitious."

Sadly, Wang wouldn't even return for Prodigy for season one as the only Voyager cast returning for the Netflix animated series were Mulgrew, Robert Beltran (Captain Chakotay), and, at least for season two, Robert Picardo (The Doctor). Wang's Delta Flyers podcast co-host Robert Duncan McNeill would reprise not only Lt. Tom Paris from Voyager but also Nicholas Locarno from TNG on the animated Lower Decks. Regarding Seven's promotion scene in the Picard series finale, thoughts initially turned to Mulgrew's Janeway before opting for Russ' Captain Tuvok. "We had talked about Janeway, obviously, because her name got dropped a bunch of times. But mostly just because she's the admiral everybody knew. It would have felt like if we had put Janeway in the finale—specifically in the last scene where [Seven] is promoted—that was the original idea; she gets a promotion from Janeway, it might have overwhelmed the scene and made it more about Janeway and less about Seven of Nine. And we couldn't afford Kate [Mulgrew] even if we wanted to. So it all worked out as it was supposed to," Matalas explained. "They got the last two scripts and they were like, 'How do you?' We had to start building the Enterprise-D in the second week we turned the key on season 3, because it takes so long. So honestly, the fact that we got away with what we got away with—like Tuvok. I was really glad to get Tuvok, I always loved Tuvok."

For more including the plotline explaining the fate of the U.S.S. Enterprise-E, you can check out the piece here. Star Trek: Picard is available to stream on Paramount+.

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