Star Trek About To Kill Off A TNG Hero?
Terry Matalas, the producer of Star Trek: Picard, says that a main character could die in the upcoming season.
Star Trek is a franchise that began in the 1960s and has spawned a crop of sequels and spin-offs that still continue to this day, including Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: Discovery, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. One of the more popular series, Star Trek: Picard, saw the return of TNG Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and a ship’s worth of cameos from the series, not all of who may survive the third and final season. In a series of tweets, executive Producer Terry Matalas (12 Monkeys and MacGyver) eluded to a surprise ending by announcing a proper send-off for the crew while stating the possibility of killing off one of the main characters from TNG stating that, “Safety Not Guaranteed.”
The first season of Star Trek: Picard saw the return of franchise icon Patrick Stewart. Living on his family’s vineyard in 2399, the retired captain is pulled into adventure again by the daughter of his late beloved friend, Data. The season sees the death of Picard, but his consciousness is transferred to a device holding the consciousness of Data, where he gets to say goodbye and awaken in a synthetic body.
Star Trek: Picard Season 2 sees Picard and the crew forced to go back in time to 2024 Los Angeles to save the future of the galaxy in a battle against Picard’s old nemesis, Q (John de Lancie). Both seasons see the return of franchise favorites, Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), Data (Brent Spiner), Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg), Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton), Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), and William Riker (Jonathan Frakes).
While Matalas eludes to the possibility of killing off one of these beloved series’ original characters, he is warned by a fan that killing them would be risky; to which he replies with the words from Captain James T. Kirk’s (William Shatner) famous speech, “risk is our business.” Killing off one of the main characters isn’t a new idea in Star Trek; Spock (Leonard Nimoy) died in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and Kirk himself (or at least one version of him) met his demise in Star Trek: Generations, and the beginning of Star Trek: Picard shows Picard dealing with the death of Data. Giving one or more of these characters an honorable death and a proper end to their story is not that far-fetched for the franchise.
Matalas gave a lot of information for fans to salivate over as they wait for the release of Season 3, including the tidbits that we would see our fair share of starship action, we wouldn’t see any more time travel, and we could expect the destruction of an old building on an old planet (seen in the trailer). While the showrunner played coy with who could possibly be in the last days of their character, he did confirm the return of the main cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation for a proper send-off, which makes us think that either the captain or number 2, will meet their end. You can see which, if any, of the characters make it out when the final season of Star Trek: Picard airs on February 16.
