Star Trek: Picard had a few wobbly episodes and made some odd decisions in the season 1 finale, but has gone down as a success. It was especially nice to catch up with beloved Next Generation characters like Riker, Troi and Data, with most fans assuming season 2 will go on to surprise us with even more classic faces. We know John de Lancie will return as Q and Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan, but that might be it for TNG‘s cast.
Michael Dorn has said Worf isn’t coming back, LeVar Burton isn’t reprising Geordi La Forge and now Gates McFadden has confirmed that she won’t be appearing as Dr. Beverly Crusher. Next week, she’s launching InvestiGates, a new Star Trek-focused podcast interviewing her friends involved in the franchise. And in advance of the first episode, TrekMovie.com spoke with her and asked if she’s in Picard season 2. Here’s what she said:
“I’m not in the second season. I’m sad that I’m not. Things have changed a lot on different levels. So I have no idea at this point. I’m disappointed because it would have been so much fun to just work with those people. But we’ll see. I have no idea. I wish I could tell you.”
The news will disappoint fans, particularly as in a 2020 interview she said there was a “good chance” that Crusher would be in the show. Her exclusion is a head-scratcher, too, as the character has so much unresolved history with Picard. The pair famously had the mutual hots for one another aboard the Enterprise-D, but Starfleet regulations forbade the captain from having relationships with members of his crew.
McFadden went on to give her perspective on the relationship, saying:
“I think that there was a chemistry between us. I can’t speak for Patrick, but I really loved playing scenes with his character. In the first season when we did the episode “The Naked Now,” that was the audition scene that I did for Star Trek. So she’s free and she’s coming on to him and he’s coming on to her. I loved that that was underneath. There was something so wonderful about these two people who were usually very serious.”
Now that Picard is no longer a starship captain, there’s no reason why he couldn’t reignite that love story with Crusher. However, there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since they last met, so the duo may have grown too far apart to rekindle that romance. McFadden reflected on this in the interview as well, saying she thinks they still have a connection.
“It could be any number of things. I think by then people are living so much longer. And I know that when there’s people in your past that you loved, you kind of always loved them. And yet you’re not going to be with them, but there’s history, there’s background. Or the same can be true in reverse, people you couldn’t stand and maybe things have changed.
I think a lot about time and ponder on it. And what is time? Is it just this construct that we’ve put on something we don’t understand? And people in the Next Gen century, they lived a lot longer. And they could choose to change their appearances in ways that we can’t yet do. I don’t know, I think there’s a lot of possibilities. I wouldn’t want to limit something in a sort of soap opera way. But I think there’s a tremendous amount of possibilities that could happen. But that’s me. And I’m not not a writer on the show.”
If did reunite, Crusher could find that Picard‘s shiny new synthetic body has a couple of sexy tricks up its sleeve. Let’s hope we eventually see them together.
