Terry Matalas is sharing details of his unmade Star Trek series that would have shockingly brought back a killed-off Trek character in a new way!
Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Picard season 3.
The third and final season of Picard was a fantastic ride for Star Trek fans. It brought back the entire cast of The Next Generation in a stunning battle against Changelings and the Borg, which also introduced new characters like Picard and Crusher’s child, Jack.
The series was also a fine showcase for Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine, who served on the USS Titan under the tough Liam Shaw, played by Todd Stashwick. He could be disdainful of Seven (only referring to her by her human name of Annika Hansen) and dismissive of Picard and his crew.
Shaw met a harsh end, with his final log revealing how he truly admired Seven and letting her become captain of the Titan, which was renamed the Enterprise-G. This was to set up a new spinoff written by Matalas, called Star Trek: Legacy.
Sadly, that didn’t happen for various reasons, with Matalas moving on to the Marvel Vision Quest series. But he is hoping for Legacy to air with a big turn involving a late character!
Star Trek: Legacy could bring back Captain Shaw
Speaking at STLV: Trek To Vegas with Stashwick, Matalas discussed Legacy, including confirming Michelle Hurd’s claims that he had written a treatment for it.
“There was a moment in which I was pretty inspired, in which I just sort of spit out 30 pages over a couple of weeks, not for anybody necessarily to see, just in case one day it happened. I knew what the first 20 minutes of it was.”
Matalas didn’t go into details but hinted the storyline would involve the Klingon Empire. He and Stashwick discussed how much they enjoyed Shaw and the fan theory that Shaw could be brought back by Borg nanites. Stashwick, however, had an even wilder idea:
“I will say, since we’re so far away from the possibility of Legacy, that he wasn’t going to come back to life with Borg nanites… He was going to be the Emergency Engineering Hologram who did not want to turn off and was really pissed off that the Titan was turned into the Enterprise, and would refuse to call it the Enterprise, until late.”
It was a wild idea, a turn on Shaw and the EMH Doctor from Voyager, and having him as an engineer would have been hilarious. Stashwick took what looked like an unlikeable jerk and made him sympathetic, so fans were saddened he was killed off. Thus, having him return in some form would have been delightful, and having it be a “Holoshaw” would have been an intriguing turn.
Matalas noted “never say never” on a return to Star Trek, so it’s possible we may one day see his ideas for Legacy after all and allow Shaw and the rest of this new crew to fly high.