How much involvement should the Next Generation cast have in Picard?

Star Trek: Picard is bringing in the Next Generation cast but how much should they be used?

By this point, we know that Star Trek: Picard is going to be bringing in the major cast and characters from The Next Generation. We’ve already seen a few guys pop up in the show, like Brent Spiner’s Data, Jonathan Frakes’ Will Riker, and Marina Sirtis’ Deanna Troi. Now the rest of the cast will be popping up. Michael Dorn’s Worf, LaVar Burton’s Geordi La Forge, and Gates McFadden’s Dr. Beverly Crusher.

Of course, they’ll all be rejoining Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard on the series. This is great news until you realize the series has its own cast and one has to now wonder just how much the new cast will be involved and how much the old cast should be involved.

The show has its own cast, with Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill), Soji Asha (Isa Briones), Rafaella Musiker (Michelle Hurd), Cris Rios (Santiago Cabrera), Elnor (Evan Evagora), and of course Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine). Save for Ryan, no one is reprising any characters from past series.

So with the show now making room for an entire second cast, how much time should the current crew get and how much time does the old crew deserve?

Balancing the old vs. the new in Picard’s third season will be important.

It’s no doubt that the current show has its own set of fans but you’re dealing with The Next Generation cast, easily one of the most popular versions of the show historically speaking. It has a lot of support still, nearly 40 years after it first debuted in the late 80s.

So do you make the old cast just do cameos in one or two scenes per character, or do you limit how much the current cast get in order to accomdate the older characters?

This is a challenge, and really is dependent on the purpose of bringing The Next Generation crew into the show. Is it to draw in the old fans? Then you clear out the current cast and focus on the older crew, plus Ryan, as she has ties to that era through Voyager.

If it’s just to say good bye, you don’t risk the current cast, and you use the older cast as cameo fodder. It may not be a fun thing to hear, but it’s the best way forward if that’s how  you’re viewing the return of these actors and characters.