Posted in: Paramount+, Star Trek, streaming, TV | Tagged: paramount, patrick stewart, star trek, Star Trek Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Terry Matalas

Star Trek: Picard Showrunner: Looking at "Nemesis" Differently & More

Star Trek: Picard showrunner Terry Matalas on if fans will look at "Nemesis" differently, TOS references & what else he wanted for Season 3.

With Star Trek: Picard wrapping its third and final season, closing a (not "the") final chapter on The Next Generation crew, executive producer and showrunner Terry Matalas did as much as he physically and financially could afford from the budget Paramount allotted him. While there were too many wonderful additions, including the biggest crowning achievement in bringing the U.S.S. Enterprise-D back to its former glory from the ashes of 1994's Generations, Matalas broke down some additional things with That Thing They Did, tackling several subjects, including his thoughts on the maligned 2002 final TNG film Nemesis, references to The Original Series, and things he wishes he could have included since the final season only included 10 episodes.

Terry Matalas Covers A Lot of Star Trek: Picard Final Season Ground

When asked if Star Trek fans will look at the Stuart Baird film differently now, Matalas shared, "'Nemesis?' Um… There's a lot of 'Nemesis' that's really fascinating. I love the deep character dive that it does into Picard and the question that it asks to who he might've been." He continued, "I also think it strikes a really interesting tone. One wonders what that film might've been if maybe John Logan had a little bit more freedom for it to breathe a little bit more. His script was a little bit longer and had some different pivots. But, yeah, I think it's certainly… [pauses] It might not always be as successful as I think it set out to be, but I think it's definitely an interesting film."

Matalas broke down the biggest hurdles that affected production: having enough time & having enough money. "The only time we were challenged was by the constraints of time and money. We always knew the story. The challenge was whether we could afford to do it," he said. "That, and actors' schedules. The budget, the shooting schedule, COVID, and all those things make putting a show together tremendously different. But aside from that, we knew the story. We always knew that this was it.

TOS star Walter Koenig, who played the original Pavel Chekov, made a surprise vocal cameo as Pavel's son Federation President Anton Chekov, "I wanted to honor the original series with an actual original-series actor at least once." The other major TOS Easter egg aside from the original U.S.S. Enterprise-A shown at the Fleet Museum was the reveal of James T. Kirk's body at Daystrom Station…or at least his vitals on the screen.

"Yeah, y'know, it's funny how that blew up. It was supposed to be just a little wink, and it became almost controversial," Matalas acknowledged putting in context the events of the 1994 film in William Shatner's final physical appearance as Kirk. "The way we looked at it was, he was just under a pile of rocks. It wasn't, like, the most amazing burial. And Starfleet immediately showed up at Veridian III. That was the body of one of their most beloved heroes who's been part of how many classified adventures, who's just been inside something called the Nexus… It made a lot of sense that they'd want to study and understand what the heck that was. So we decided he shouldn't be under a pile of rocks."

When it comes to surprising omissions, among them was Worf's son Alexander was left out entirely in Picard season three, "It's mostly about the fact that the ensemble was so big. We wished there was more of everybody. We wished there was more Raffi and Seven; we wished there was more Picard and Beverly; we wished there was more of Worf's back story. We had a lot more of that, with Alexander. There was a scene with Data and Soji in the end that we really wished we could've seen. But, y'know, these are things that maybe one day we'll hopefully get a chance to see, so…we'll see!" For more topics, including John de Lancie's return as Q, fan servicing, death scenes, and more, you can check out the entire interview here.

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