Picard Showrunner Terry Matalas Regrets The Third Season Ditching Characters That Made Fans Hate The Show In First Place

May 28, 2025

Star Trek: Picard showrunner Terry Matalas has made the baffling admission that he regrets not including the widely despised characters from seasons 1 and 2 in the critically acclaimed third season, apparently oblivious to the fact that removing these characters was what made the final season watchable for longtime Star Trek fans.

In a recent interview, Matalas expressed remorse about having to sacrifice the original cast members, stating: "We got to the end of [Picard season 2], and Akiva's like, 'It's your turn. What do you want to do?' And I was like, 'I want to bring back the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation…' And they said, 'Look, if you can convince Patrick, then we'll consider this.' And it was tough because there was a whole cast in season 1 and 2 that were wonderful, but there was not the budget to carry them all. So there were sacrifices. It was terrible. It was a terrible place to be in."

What Matalas characterizes as "terrible sacrifices" were actually the best creative decisions made in the entire Picard series. The characters he's lamenting losing – Santiago Cabrera's Rios, Allison Pill's Jurati, Isa Briones' Soji, and Evan Evagora's Elnor – were central to the show's most reviled storylines and represented everything fans hated about the first two seasons.

The audience reception data tells the real story. Season 1 of Picard earned a lackluster 52% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, while season 2 plummeted to an abysmal 30%. Season 3, which jettisoned these characters in favor of The Next Generation cast, soared to an 88% audience score – a dramatic vindication of the decision Matalas now regrets.

Seasons 1 and 2 failed because they fundamentally misunderstood what made Star Trek appealing. Instead of the optimistic exploration and moral philosophy that defined The Next Generation, viewers were subjected to grimdark storytelling, convoluted time travel plots, and characters who bore no resemblance to the beloved figures from the original series.

Season 1's central premise – that Picard had become a bitter, broken man haunted by past failures – immediately alienated fans who remembered him as Star Trek's most dignified and principled captain. The season's focus on synthetic life forms and conspiracy theories felt more like a generic sci-fi thriller than Star Trek, while new characters like Rios and Elnor came across as poorly developed archetypes rather than compelling individuals.

Season 2 somehow managed to be even worse, trapping the characters in an alternate timeline where they spent most of their time in present-day Los Angeles dealing with immigration issues and climate change. The heavy-handed political messaging and complete abandonment of Star Trek's future setting made it feel like a completely different show that happened to feature Patrick Stewart.

The synthetic storylines involving Soji and Jurati were particularly problematic, introducing concepts that contradict established Star Trek lore while failing to generate any emotional investment from viewers. These characters felt like they belonged in a different science fiction universe entirely, not the carefully constructed world of Star Trek.

When Matalas took over for season 3 and brought back Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Marina Sirtis, and Gates McFadden, he gave fans exactly what they'd been begging for: a proper continuation of The Next Generation that respected the characters and their relationships. The dramatic improvement in audience scores proves that this approach was exactly what the series needed.

Rather than regretting the "sacrifices" that made season 3 successful, Matalas should be celebrating the fact that he had the wisdom to recognize what wasn't working and the courage to change course. The characters from seasons 1 and 2 weren't casualties of budget constraints – they were casualties of poor creative decisions that nearly killed the series.

If you like Star Trek, read The Stars Entwined on Amazon! Space intrigue and drama, like some of the best of Deep Space 9, await you in this original sci-fi universe.