Daniel Davis is open to another Star Trek appearance

This post contains spoilers from Star Trek: Picard season three, episode six “The Bounty,” with guest star Daniel Davis.

Daniel Davis returned in an all too brief scene in Star Trek: Picard “Bounty,” and it wasn’t at all like fans expected. Whereas many assumed he would be returning as Professor Moriarity, the villain from his Star Trek: The Next Generation days, instead, he was actually a hologram at the Daystrom Institute trying to help Captain Riker, Worf, and Raffi…or at the least provide a clue. I’d previously speculated that the Professor would be returning as a hero, and while I wouldn’t go so far as to say he was that, he was certainly an interesting aid for the three.

And what did Davis think of his return as the holodeck Professor? In an interview with Yahoo!Entertainment, he said he didn’t really understand his character until after he saw the episode after he’d filmed it. He did know it wasn’t the character he’d played on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

"“All I saw were the pages that I was on, and I read the scene and thought, Well, this is not exactly the Moriarty from Next Gen.’ It’s a different take on it…So by the time I got to L.A. I still didn’t have a complete script, and I didn’t know what happened after my scene and what I was doing, really…It made sense to me after I saw it, but not so much sense to me when I was doing it. But somehow or another it worked out ok.”"

Given that his scene was unique and brief, would Daniel Davis reprise his character yet again for Star Trek?

Even though this is the final season of Picard, Davis said one of the producers told him Moriarty is one of those characters that can show up anywhere. That makes sense since he is a holodeck character. And it seems Davis isn’t opposed to such a return.

"“Even though it’s supposedly the final season of Star Trek: Picard and Patrick has said in one place that he’s done with Picard and another place he says, “Never say never,” there’s always a possibility. One of the producers said to me Moriarty is one of those characters who can show up anywhere. And so, there’s so many incarnations of Star Trek right now. I might pop up on Strange New Worlds! What could be more strange than that?”"

It might be a little difficult for Daniel Davis to show up on Strange New Worlds without a holodeck, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened. After all, the series is going to have live-action characters interacting with animated characters’ live-action counterparts. If that can happen, well, anything can.