“You’ll probably find this inspection boring for the likes of you,” a Starfleet official tells Admiral Picard and Captain Riker at the start of the latest trailer for the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard. “Well, we won’t be blowing things up,” he goes on to explain when Picard responds with incredulity. “Or taking or engaging in fire, crash landing expectedly or unexpectedly.”
Leaving aside that those things didn’t happen nearly as much in Star Trek: The Next Generation as this trailer seems to suggest, the official’s litany forgets one of the things that excites people most about the upcoming season: the debut of the Enterprise-F, the latest iteration of the ship Captained by Picard and his predecessor James T. Kirk. This will be the third version of an Enterprise under Picard’s command, as the Enterprise-D and the Enterprise-E first appeared in Star Trek: First Contact, after the previous ship was destroyed in Star Trek Generations. While the trailer does suggest that RIker will be the Captain of the E, Picard does outrank him and gets to sit in the captain’s chair and say “engage.”
Picard’s signature command is just one of the many callbacks to Next Generation that fans can expect from Picard. This season brings together most of the senior staff from that series, with Worf, Geordi, and Crusher joining Picard, Riker, and Troy, as well as Seven of Nine from the Voyager. While Data died (again) in season one of Picard, Brent Spiner will be playing Lore, the contraction-using, Pakled-loving twin brother of his most famous character. Also returning to the ship is Daniel Davis as Professor Moriarty, the holodeck creation who gained sentience way back in Next Generation episodes “Elementary Dear Data” and “Ship in a Bottle.”
For video game fans, the Enterprise-F itself will be a returning element as well. The ship appeared as part of the long-running MMO Star Trek: Online, under the command of Andorian Va’Kel Shon. In Star Trek: Online, the Enterprise-F took part in missions to free Deep Space Nine from Dominion control and to resist the forces of Terran Emperor Wesley Crusher of the Mirror Universe.
