Star Trek: Picard Actor Reveals One Character Made Him Act Like A Fangirl
Todd Stashwick says his Star Trek: Picard actor, Liam Shaw, will soon be "fangirling" over a new character soon to be introduced, and we think it will be Geordi LaForge.
The third and final season of Star Trek: Picard has been a breath of fresh air, especially because it ditched most of the characters we focused on in the first two seasons to do a kind of reunion show for the main characters of The Next Generation. One new character that quickly became a fan-favorite is Liam Shaw, the captain of the U.S.S. Titan, who makes it very clear that he isn’t impressed by Starfleet legends such as William Riker and Jean-Luc Picard. However, Shaw actor Todd Stashwick recently told Collider that the show would soon introduce a particular character that this cranky captain is “just fangirling over.”
While he may be new to Star Trek: Picard in particular and the franchise in general, Stashwick knows how to build fans’ hype, which is most likely why he didn’t name the character that Shaw adores so much. There is always a chance that this is some character we have never seen before (for example, a revered Starfleet admiral or perhaps some kind of personal hero to Shaw). However, the smart money is that the character he is referencing is none other than Geordi LaForge, played by iconic actor Levar Burton.
Why do we think that Shaw will soon be fangirling over Geordi LaForge in an upcoming episode of Star Trek: Picard? One reason is simple math: we are four episodes into the final season, and Geordi is the only one of the main cast from The Next Generation that we have not been reintroduced to (though we have been introduced to Geordi’s daughter on the Titan). We already know from early previews of this season that Geordi will appear, and if Stashwick is hinting that his character is hyped about someone we haven’t seen yet, then Geordi almost has to be who he is referring to.
Interestingly, Star Trek: Picard has already planted the seeds for why someone like Captain Shaw would idolize someone like Geordi LaForge. In a recent episode, we found out that Shaw studied engineering at Starfleet Academy, and he was serving as a “grease monkey” during the Borg attack led by a transformed Jean-Luc Picard (this is the canonical reason why Shaw is so frosty towards both Patrick Stewart’s Picard and Jeri Ryan’s Seven of Nine: they are former members of the Borg Collective that he is unlikely to ever fully trust) before eventually becoming a captain.
The bridge is a long way from engineering, but it tracks that a former engineer like Shaw would idolize Geordi LaForge, the most famous engineer in Starfleet since Montgomery Scott.
The one potential wrinkle in this theory is that we have already seen Shaw act just as gruff and sarcastic toward Geordi’s daughter as he acts toward everyone else, and you might expect someone who fangirls over the famous engineer to be a bit more deferential to that engineer’s daughter. Then again, we didn’t know about his traumatic experiences with the Borg until the most recent episode of Star Trek: Picard, so we know that Shaw keeps his cards close to his vest. To find out, we’ll have to keep tuning in to watch Captain Shaw boldly “no” where no captain has ever no’ed before.
