Star Trek: Picard showrunner Michael Chabon broke down how the reunion between The Next Generation characters Picard, Troi and Riker actually happened in the seventh episode.
In an interview with Newsweek, Chabon spoke about the highly-anticipated reunion between the trio, describing how the show had to build up to the reunion by sprinkling other elements from the previous series.
Chabon elaborated on how the point came in the series by stating, "So that was the objective in this episode: finally have two authentically important, central, richly embroidered—over the course of many seasons of TNG and the films—characters, in the form of Riker and Troi. It was a summer rapture."
Chabon and the other producers had thought about how to treat Troi and Riker when the time came. "So to finally be able to play with some TNG characters is deeply pleasurable," he explained. "And on top of that, we had the challenge—the challenge from the first lines of the first episode of Star Trek: Picard—of presenting well known, deeply beloved characters who have not been seen for roughly 20 years, and to both convey a sense of the sweep of the passage of time in their lives, but also not get bogged down in that and get updated quickly to the moment when they were needed for the story we were trying to tell."
Chabon felt like the reunion was not real until Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis, who played William Riker and Deanna Troi, respectively, stepped on set.
He stated, "But with these two, with Marina and Jonathan, even though we knew they were getting back together, until they actually got on set and started acting with each other, to see and feel the extent of the depth of the love those three have for each other: the depth and extent of that friendship, the longevity of that friendship, the history underlying that friendship, that friendship among all three of them."
Star Trek: Picard stars Patrick Stewart, Alison Pill, Michelle Hurd, Evan Evagora, Isa Briones, Santiago Cabrera, and Harry Treadaway. New episodes of the series premiere every Thursday on CBS All Access.