Star Trek: Picard has brought back a popular Next Generation character.
Star Trek: Picard is all about the Next Generation reunion. While season three has been about the return of iconic characters like Beverly Crusher, Geordi La Forge and Worf, the entire series has been about reunions and returns. Season one brought back William Riker and Deanna Troi, while season two saw Q, Wesley Crusher, and Guinan all come back and season three has the rest of the core Enterprise crew back in the saddle.
That’s not all though, as season three of Star Trek: Picard has also brought/will bring back names like Lore, and Moriarty. Yet, none may be as surprising as a former Next Generation character who had an entire franchise built around her, Ro Laren.
Ro Laren was supposed to star in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as Benjamin Sisko’s number one officer on the bridge, but the actress behind Ro, Michelle Forbes, backed out. In her place, the series created a similar character in Kira Nerys
Ro Laren went into stasis as a character and fans had no idea what happened to the Federation-turned-Maquis officer until the final season of Picard.
Star Trek: Picard wasted Ro Laren’s return to the franchise
Ro Laren returned to Star Trek thanks to Picard’s fifth episode of its final season. She returned as the covert handler for Worf and arrived aboard the USS Titan to have one final conversation with her former captain.
Despite her would-be return is a big deal to fans, showrunner Terry Matalas thought it’d be a good idea to kill her off after only minutes of her on-screen character. While her death was a noble sacrifice, it greatly impacted how effective her return to the franchise could’ve been.
Her death was unnecessary and spat in the face behind the season’s entire gimmick. The series opted to go with the Changelings over the “Conspiracy” parasites because the parasites kill their hosts and Matalas wanted fans to linger with characters, wondering who is a Changeline and who isn’t.
As Ro was brought in to investigate the Changelines, you’d think she’d be kept around, but apparently, that wasn’t to be the case. Wasting a surefire return that would have been great to see across multiple episodes (dare I say even different series).