Picard's Huge Starship Twist Is a Secret "Origin Story," Showrunner Says
Turns out, the entire season was a backdoor origin story.
These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Again. As Picard Season 3 closes out its 10-episode run, it also concludes the journey of The Next Generation, 36 years in the making. But, in terms of the timeline of the early 25th century of Trek canon, there’s a major change in this finale — one which redefines the legacy of the most famous starship in all of Star Trek history. And, according to Picard showrunner Terry Matalas, part of the arc of this season was an “origin story” of a very specific starship.
Spoilers for the Picard series finale ahead.
Just before the final poker game with the TNG crew, and before the tantalizing post-credits scene, Picard Season 3 reveals that the hero starship from this entire season — the USS Titan-A — has now been rechristened the USS Enterprise, registry NCC-1701-G. Yes, that’s right, Picard Season 3 has given us a lot of onscreen Enterprises, from a glimpse of Kirk’s Enterprise-A and the to the refit NX-01 Enterprise, in the Fleet Museum during Episode 6, to the Enterprise-F in Episode 9, and of course, the epic return of the beloved Enterprise-D in the final two episodes, there are perhaps more different Enterprises in this season of Picard than any Star Trek season or movie ever before. And, counting the revelation that the Titan has been renamed, that’s a total of FIVE different Enterprises.
“The spirit of this was all of this was about passing the torch from one generation to the next,” Matalas tells Inverse. “And so, it was also about the origin story of another Starship Enterprise.”
The newly christened USS Enterprise-G in the finale of Star Trek: Picard.
Detail-oriented fans will notice one thing about the Enterprise-G that differs from the last few versions of this ship — it’s smaller and more compact. The obvious in-universe reason for this is because it was previously the Titan, a Neo-Constitution-class starship, designed, like Kirk’s Enterprise, to be a deep-space research vessel first. And so, by making the new Enterprise-G smaller than the D or the F, the hypothetical future of Trek is going back to its roots.
“It goes back to that Original Series feeling,” Matalas says. “Like it’s the underdog. The Enterprise-D and the F were like these huge battleships. As opposed to something like the G, which can totally get its ass kicked in the wrong situation.”
This isn’t to say the Enterprise-G is less technologically advanced than its predecessors. The finale of Picard makes it clear that the Enterprise-D was effective only because it was offline from the other networked Starfleet ships being controlled by the Borg. But, the Titan (now the Enterprise-G) was more agile and is one of the newer styles of ships in Starfleet, which has more maneuverability than most other ships of its size. Funnily enough, way back in 1986, an early concept for The Next Generation would have put Picard and the crew on the Enterprise-G in the 25 Century. Now, with the Picard finale, that has more or less happened.
Matalas also points out that the legacy of the name “Titan” could also live on in another ship, too. Picard Season 3, established that the Titan-A was the third Starfleet ship to carry that name. In Lower Decks Seasons 1 and 2, fans saw the Luna-Class Titan, captained by Will Riker, about two decades before the events of the ending of Picard. Matalas imagines that “there would be another Titan after this. It would probably go back to another kind of Luna-Class upgrade. The Titan-B would probably be a newer version of that flavor.”
The new captain of the USS Enterprise — Captain Seven (Jeri Ryan).
As of this writing, there’s no officially announced Picard spinoff happening. Yet. But, Matalas is hopefully, saying that he has very specific ideas for how the crew of the Enterprise-G would operate, and how the trio of Captain Seven, Jack Crusher, and Raffi echoes aspects of The Original Series.
“Jack certainly rushes in where angels fear to tread, like Kirk,” Matalas says. “He's the guy who's like, I'm gonna get a phaser, go kill the Borg Queen, and he's an idiot. We, always felt like he had the most Kirk-like energy. But, so does Raffi, and Seven has that calculated strategic energy, that is like Spock, I guess, but also like Kirk, too. They’re kind of a mix of all of [the TOS] characters. I just love the way they look up there on the bridge.”
Star Trek: Picard is streaming now on Paramount+.
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