That Star Trek: Picard midcredit scene sets up a spin-off

Star Trek: Picard ended on a compelling note yesterday, leaving the door wide open to a spin-off that should happen.

Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Star Trek: Picard series finale “The Next Generation.” Do not read if you do not want spoilers! 

The series came to a beautiful conclusion yesterday, and though it didn’t answer all of our questions, it did provide us with a relatively happy way of saying farewell to these characters, some of which we’ve known for decades. But, while the farewell scene with the crew playing poker as they had on the Enterprise on Star Trek: The Next Generation was set up as the “last scene,” there was a midcredit scene that made us think about anything but goodbyes.

In another surprising cameo, John de Lancie returned as Q, Admiral Picard’s nemesis, and even though we thought the omniscient being had passed on to another plane of existence or wherever those in the Continuum go, clearly we were wrong. For there was Q standing face-to-face with Jack Crusher, Dr. Beverly Crusher and Admiral Jean-Luc Picard’s son. And it’s not a pleasant meeting as Q is clearly up to his old tricks.

Terry Matalas did an excellent job with the Star Trek: Picard ending scene that came out of nowhere.

And the Picard showrunner confirmed to EW that Jack Crusher’s journey isn’t over. The idea came from Season 2 when Matalas was working on season 3. de Lancie was one of the guest stars that season and that took Matalas back to “Encounter at Farpoint,” the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and then Captain Picard’s first encounter with Q.

"“Once I had the genesis of this idea and I knew it would be about Picard’s son, I had envisioned a post-credit sequence in which you passed the torch to [him]. The first major interaction is Q and Picard. Where better to end than at the beginning?”"

And Matalas knows more about Ed Speleers’ journey as Jack Crusher than he’s telling. He simply told EW that he knew what the plans are for Speleers moving forward which means we enter another holding pattern until Paramount+ decides to move forward with another Star Trek series.