What Happened To Geordi La Forge After Star Trek: The Next Generation?

Star Trek: Picard has already seen the return of Data, Riker and Deana Troi. Plus, Voyager‘s Jeri Ryan is coming back as Seven of Nine for the second half of the season. But there are still a bunch of characters from The Next Generation that fans would love to see again on the show. Chief among them is Geordi La Forge. But while we wait for the former Enterprise-D’s chief engineer to reappear, let’s recap what we know happened to him after the events of TNG. 

After the conclusion of the series, La Forge returned in all four TNG movies. In Generation, he was kidnapped by Doctor Tolian Soran who used La Forge’s VISOR to hijack the Enterprise, which ultimately resulted in its destruction. When we next saw him in First Contact, La Forge had given up using his VISOR and had opted for ocular implants instead.

First Contact featured the crew, in the newly constructed Enterprise-E, being flung into the past – 2063, to be precise. Here, La Forge got to meet his hero, Zefram Cochran, and together they were able to return the ship to the proper period. In Insurrection, he experienced a sunset with his own eyes for the first time thanks to the regenerative radiation of the planet Ba’Ku temporarily healing his sight.

Finally, in Nemesis, La Forge aided his best friend Data in sacrificing himself to save the rest of the crew, though he also helped construct B-4, Data’s “brother” who appeared to recall some of Data’s memories. However, as Picard has explained, B-4 was ultimately decommissioned as he failed to reach Data’s level of sentience.

Our most recent update on La Forge comes from the Star Trek: Picard Countdown comic. This revealed that he was a key part of the construction of the Romulan rescue fleet on Mars – the same one that was destroyed by synthetic terrorists. However, Geordi is believed to have survived the attack.

LeVar Burton is certainly up for a return alongside his old TNG cast members in Picard, but as far as we know, it’s not going to happen in season 1. Hopefully Burton – and the fans – will get their wish in Star Trek: Picard season 2 though, which is already confirmed to be in the works.