The Next Generation is alive and well at Picard’s end

Season three of Star Trek: Picard won’t be the end of The Next Generation after all.

Much has been said about the threat to the characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation who will be returning to Star Trek: Picard to finish off that series’ final season. Terry Matalas, the showrunner for Picard, tweeted back in September that “safety isn’t guaranteed” when a fan asked Matalas to let the characters live happily ever after. And that left us with more questions than answers. Will they be safe? Will the series end with the death of a beloved character? Will this really be the final goodbye for the TNG crew?

But Jonathan Frakes, who will return to the series as Captain Will Riker, spun things around in an interview with Den of Geek as he offered up a statement that contradicts what Matalas might have been teasing in his tweet.

"“As you’ll see by the end of the season, it’s ripe for a continuation of some version of what we’ve established in the show. Not more Picard, but certainly, Next Gen is alive and well.”"

The Next Generation being alive and well seems to indicate all characters will end the season safely.

All of the TNG characters are returning, except Lt. Commander Data (for obvious reasons) and Will Crusher, who showed up at the end of season two, presumably as a way to explain his absence from season three. And all of the returning actors have no problem with returning for a movie, and if that’s a possibility, it would make sense that Paramount wouldn’t want to eliminate any of the characters at the end of Picard.

With only six of the actors remaining from the original line-up of TNG, losing even one could really change the balance and not in a good way. If the crew were to reunite somehow aboard another version of the Enterprise for yet another adventure, the absence of any one of those would be keenly felt as Data’s absence will be in Picard.

With Frakes saying TNG is alive and well, that seems to be a good sign that, while the crew will encounter untold dangers, they will, in the end, still be around for future adventures.