Star Trek: Picard is over but fans want to see the story of the characters of the show to continue in a new spinoff series. Picard concluded its three-season run in April 2023, and while its series finale nicely wrapped up Jean-Luc Picard’s (Patrick Stewart) story, it also set up what could be a new spinoff show.
Is there going to be a spinoff of Picard?
There’s currently no Star Trek: Picard spinoff series in development but Star Trek: Picard showrunner Terry Matalas has been vocal about his dream of making a new show that would see legacy Star Trek characters interacting with younger players of the beloved sci-fi franchise.
In an interview with TrekMovie.com ahead of Picard season 3 premiere, Matalas dubbed this dream spinoff series Star Trek: Legacy.
“There’s no question that this will feel, by the time it’s over like the final voyage of the Next Gen cast. And without going into spoilerrific detail, that doesn’t mean to say that a kind of Next, Next Generation show couldn’t continue with legacy characters,” Matalas told the website in February 2023. “A kind of Star Trek: Legacy if you will, where these characters can continue to interact with a whole new generation. And when I say that, I also mean characters from Deep Space Nine and Voyager as well. But again, I will remind fans, this is just my dream of dreams. And it’s not currently in development in any way. But should it ever be, I would be there in a New York minute.”
Is Star Trek: Legacy happening?
When the series finale of Star Trek: Picard dropped on Paramount+ on April 20th, fans got more idea about what Star Trek: Legacy could be like, and it appears that a lot of Trekkies are up for it. In fact, there’s a Change.org petition calling Paramount+ to greenlight Star Trek: Legacy with Terry Matalas as showrunner.
Long before the season 3 finale of Star Trek: Picard, the weekly pop culture podcast The Popcast created a Change.org petition calling Paramount+ to pick up Star Trek: Legacy to series with Matalas at the helm.
A week after the finale dropped on Paramount+, the petition passed the 32,000 mark, which, according to TrekMovie.com, was the same level of support received by a previous petition calling for a show with Captain Pike and the USS Enterprise after Star Trek: Discovery season 2 in 2019.
Fast-forward to May 17th, the petition reached 50,000 signatures. On the same day, Jeri Ryan, who plays Seven of Nine in Star Trek: Picard and one of the stars of the potential Star Trek: Legacy, took to Twitter to share the new milestone reached by the petition, all while showing her appreciation for the fans.
Holy crap, over 50,000 signatures and climbing! You guys are unreal…! 👊🏼🖖🏼❤️#StarTrekLegacy https://t.co/5cf965SNqB
— Jeri Ryan (@JeriLRyan) May 17, 2023
As of March 19, 2024, the petition has already earned over 64,000 signatures.
When asked how the constant calls for Star Trek: Legacy have made him feel, Matalas told CinemaBlend: “Oh, it’s flattering. I mean, it’s very flattering. I love Star Trek. That’s lovely. That’s very lovely to hear.”
While Matalas is very much willing to helm Star Trek: Legacy, the decision to order the spinoff series is not exactly his to make. He, however, shared that he is in constant talks with Star Trek boss Alex Kurtzman.
“You know, there’s conversations happening all the time. I think Alex has a plan for the Star Trek universe and I think he has to figure out how all these things play out, right? I don’t think he wants to rush into anything,” Matalas explained of why Star Trek: Legacy won’t happen anytime soon. “He’s got two great [live-action] shows happening right now, Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy, and the Section 31 movie. So, you know, they’re pretty well stocked.”
But on the other hand, Matalas firmly believes that “there’s a demand” for Star Trek: Legacy. “I would say the fans should be loud and tell the world what they want. And maybe one day we’ll be able to do it,” said Matalas, before pointing out that “the fans are heard, but they should keep doing their thing.”
Matalas shared the same sentiments in a separate interview with SFX Magazine (via GamesRadar), saying: “These shows are expensive to make. They currently have two shows, with Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy [beginning production in 2024] and I think Paramount would have to financially justify a third one. I think the way they look at it is that they’re well-stocked. So unless fans can convince them otherwise, that’s certainly the point of view at the moment.”
For his part, Kurtzman told Fox LA that “anything is possible” in terms of Star Trek: Legacy becoming a reality. “We’ve heard the fans loud and clear. There’s obviously more story to tell. So, we’ll see,” Kurtzman told the news outlet earlier this April 2023.
Why Star Trek: Legacy hasn’t been greenlit yet?
While Star Trek: Legacy has yet to be greenlit, CBS President George Cheeks said that Trekkies have nothing to worry about the future of the franchise, as the network is working very closely with Kurtzman to figure out a plan to deploy the various Star Trek shows and projects at the right time.
“Star Trek remains one of the most important franchises for Paramount Global, and Paramount+ specifically,” Cheeks told Vulture in March 2024. “There’s so much great opportunity with the franchise, and it’s really about the cadence and the timeline of it. We don’t want to offer up all these amazing premium drama series at once. We want to time it out appropriately. Luckily, we have this incredible partner in Alex Kurtzman, and we all work together to sort of manage long-range planning across many years, to figure out what’s the right cadence for dropping new Star Trek series. So there’s a lot we’re focused on, but it should not suggest to you [a scaling back]. There is a tremendous amount of focus and prioritizing of the Star Trek franchise.”
What will Star Trek: Legacy be about?
If Star Trek: Legacy gets picked up into a series, the show will follow the adventures of Captain Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), Number One Raffi Musiker (Michelle Hurd), Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers), and the rest of the crew of the rechristened USS Titan, now called the USS Enterprise-G. Terry Matalas told Collider that the potential Star Trek series would start with the newly built crew.
“I think I would want it right there with them,” Matalas said of his ideal starting point for the potential series. “I think the idea of Captain Seven, Jack Crusher, Raffi as Number One, the La Forge sisters (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut’s Ensign Sidney La Forge and Mica Burton’s Alandra La Forge) and Esmar (Jin Moley) and [Mura] (Joseph Lee), I would love to see the crew of that USS Enterprise out there as the next generation, mixed in with a lot of these legacy characters again. I think that they’ve never been better and more interesting.”
Matalas also told Entertainment Weekly that “Jack’s got a lot to do” in Star Trek: Legacy. When asked if he has a specific plan for Picard’s son, who met Q (John de Lancie) in the mid-credits scene of the Star Trek: Picard series finale, Matalas said, “Oh yes, I do”.
Who will be in Star Trek: Legacy?
In addition to the USS Enterprise-G crew, Terry Matalas told SFX Magazine that they “do have plans for a Shaw character – specifically Todd Stashwick – to be a part of Legacy” despite Captain Shaw apparently being killed off in the penultimate episode of Star Trek: Picard season 3.
As previously mentioned, fans can also expect legacy characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager to appear in Star Trek: Legacy.
“It’s about Seven of Nine. It’s about Jack Crusher. It’s about the La Forge sisters. It’s about what else is going on in the galaxy with the Deep Space Nine characters and the rest of the Voyager characters,” Matalas told Fox LA about the potential spinoff. “Honestly, some of these [TNG characters], I’m not ready to say goodbye to. I think in a lot of ways, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, they’ve never been better. They are at the top of their game and I want to see more.”
Aside from the above-mentioned actors who have all expressed their interest in returning for a possible Star Trek: Legacy spinoff, Star Trek: Picard star Patrick Stewart also revealed to Variety that he would be willing to make an appearance in the potential series to check in on his on-screen son Ed Speleers.
“Certainly, there is a wonderful future for Ed there, I’m sure of it,” Stewart said. “And if I can occasionally crop up to offer a little bit of comedy myself, then I shall be happy to do that.”
Will Star Trek: Legacy be renamed?
If Star Trek: Legacy becomes official, it’s likely that it will be getting a new name. As pointed out by Daily Star Trek News, the name Legacy has already been used on a number of different projects within the expanded Star Trek universe.
There’s a 2006 real-time tactics space combat video game for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 called Star Trek: Legacy. A story in the Star Trek: Waypoint comic book miniseries published in 2016 is also titled Legacy. It is also the title of the 1991 The Original Series novel by Michael Jan Friedman. It’s worth noting that none of these previous Legacy projects have anything to do with the storyline of the potential spinoff series, so a name change is very likely.