Paramount+ debuted a new teaser for the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard on Saturday, October 8, 2022, at the Star Trek Universe panel at New York Comic Con 2022. The Star Trek fam showed up and turned out for the panel that left all the Trekkies in the room in tears (for real, the fans were in tears as they marched up to the stage one by one to ask about the Star Trek: Next Generation cast’s epic and long-awaited return in Jean Luc-Picard’s final season on the TV screen), and answered some of our burning questions about what to expect when Picard’s third season premieres on Thursday, February 16, 2023, on Paramount+ in the U.S., with new episodes of the 10-episode-long season available to stream weekly on Thursdays.
Among cast from across the roster of the Alex Kurtzman-helmed shows, such as Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Prodigy, at NYCC was the cast of TNG who is set to return to for the third season of Picard, including Sir Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, and Michael Dorn. Revealed during the event was another teaser for the third season, giving Trekkies several exciting glimpses of what’s in store for our heroes next season (and before we get to our villains, Picard is introducing a new hero into the canon, Geordi La Forge’s youngest daughter, Ensign Alandra La Forge (Mica Burton, LeVar’s daughter), who works alongside her father).
Check out the Star Trek: Picard teaser below:
Lore and Professor Moriarty Return in Star Trek: Picard Season 3
Paramount
Trekkies also learned at the NYCC panel that Star Trek: Picard’s third and final season would see the return of two of TNG’s greatest villains, Lore, played by Brent Spiner, and Professor Moriarty, played by Daniel Davis. As Picard discovers more about himself in Picard, he is forced to reckon with his past and has faced one of his previously undefeatable foes in each of the prior seasons of the series: in season 1, fans saw Jean-Luc finally figure out how to deal with his mortality, and in season two, the captain had to face his fears and square off against the Borg.
In TNG and the subsequent movies, Trekkies saw Picard defeat many foes, but one he could not outsmart was Professor Moriarty in the 1993 episode “Ship in a Bottle.” Even before there was Star Trek: Voyager’s Doctor, Moriarty was able to will himself into existence and take control of the Enterprise’s computer. “I think, therefore, I am,” he says. The holo-man is never defeated; instead, leaving to explore the galaxy with his lover.
Picard will also introduce a new villain to the franchise, played by Tony Award-winner Amanda Plummer (Pulp Fiction), who joins the cast in a recurring role as Vadic, “the mysterious alien captain of the Shrike, a warship that has set its sights on Jean-Luc Picard and his old crewmates from his days on the Enterprise,” according to StarTrek.com. In addition to Burton, helping Jean-Luc and the rest of his Enterprise bridge crew go after Vadic is franchise newcomer Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut, joining the cast in a recurring role. However, there was still no more word on Denise Crosby’s return as Tasha Yar.
Star Trek: Picard season 3 premieres in the U.S. on Thursday, February 16, 2023, on Paramount+., with new episodes of the 10-episode-long season available to stream weekly on Thursdays
