Season 3 of Star Trek: Picard is billed as the series' finale, though showrunner Terry Matalas thinks The Next Generation cast could fly again. If they do, it may not be in another season of Picard, but rather a new series aptly called Star Trek: Legacy. Matalas floated the idea, complete with title, in a tweet, and the campaign to get this series greenlit got some help from not just fans, but current and former cast.Even Sir Patrick Stewart would return for a new season, though making him the central focus of the show is a lot to ask of the 82-year-old legend. The introduction of the next Next Generation with Jack Crusher, Sidney and Alanda La Forge means there are already new characters a series could focus on. Seven of Nine and Raffi also shine in Picard -- having been fixtures on the show since the first season -- and could easily support stories without him. Other legacy characters like Worf, Will Riker and Deanna Troi also seem like they have more story to tell. Their time serving under Picard is when they are at their best. Yet on their own, they can still be pretty impressive. While Legacy is just an idea right now, it deserves to be more.
Star Trek: Legacy Is the Kind of Series All Fans Want
Fans and critics agree Star Trek: Picard is excellent this season, in part because the series looks and feels more like a classic The Next Generation adventure. Consider Strange New Worlds, a series that not only goes back to adventure-of-the-week storytelling, but is set on the USS Enterprise NCC-1701. It suggests a return to baseline for Star Trek after the new approaches taken by earlier seasons of Picard or Star Trek: Discovery. Yet no franchise will survive if it only looks backwards. This is what makes Star Trek: Legacy the perfect spinoff.
Part of the reason the Enterprise-D gang was so absent from the first two seasons of Picard is the series is about Jean-Luc. No one is still hanging out with everyone they worked with 25 years ago. The show brought in great new characters like Raffi and Elnor, the Vulcan warrior monk turned Starfleet cadet. Star Trek: Legacy could check in on them, offering discreet stories that eventually tie in together. Or it could be an anthology series focusing on legacy characters who have loose ends to tie up, like Ro Laren did when she returned in Picard.
During an appearance on The View, host and Next Generation alum Whoopi Goldberg asked LeVar Burton about the fan campaign that arose from Matalas's tweet. He said he'd be interested in playing Geordi La Forge again, especially if he gets to continue to act with his real-life daughter Mica and Ashlei Sharpe, who portray Geordi's daughters Alandra and Sidney La Forge. A show with those characters would move Star Trek forward, both in the timeline and by introducing new heroes to continue boldly going for many more seasons.
Paramount Needs a Series Like Star Trek: Legacy
With sluggish box offices across the industry, the heavy spending by streaming services leading up to and during the COVID-19 pandemic has given way to a more austere approach. Only Star Trek: Strange New Worlds remains in production at Paramount, though producer Alex Kurtzman says more series are in the works, like the Starfleet Academy spinoff. Star Trek: Legacy would be the only one they'd need for a while. As great as Captain Pike and Una are, eventually James T. Kirk and company have to take over their ship. A show set after the events of Picard has a wide open timeline to explore.
Fans want to see characters from Deep Space Nine and Voyager get the Picard treatment. Benjamin Sisko is still missing and presumed dead. Admiral Kathryn Janeway is in animation on Prodigy, but fans would love to see her in live action. Legacy can serve up these long-awaited returns while also spinning off any popular new arrivals into other shows in the future. Independent analysts Parrot TV found that demand for Picard is higher than 99.4 percent of "all action and adventure titles in the United States." Kirk and his crew got their movie series swan song. The Next Generation-era fans are hungry for an epilogue for other favorites who weren't on the Enterprise-D.
The USS Titan set is already built, and putting Seven of Nine at the front of a new series that dives into Star Trek's legacy is a sure plan for success. Storytellers took fans from before the era they know all the way to the 32nd century. There's a lot of room for exciting stories in Star Trek's future, not too much further ahead than where Picard left off.
The complete series of Star Trek: Picard is now streaming on Paramount+.