Star Trek: The Next Generation's Enterprise-D is due to appear in season 3 of Star Trek: Picard, despite having been destroyed. Speaking at Comic-Con 2022, Patrick Stewart revealed that multiple Enterprises were set to appear in Picard season 3's TNG reunion. Most surprisingly, Stewart mentioned that they would also revisit their original Enterprise-D, last seen in the movie Star Trek: Generations.
The Next Generation crew's first big-screen outing ended with the Enterprise-D being destroyed after a clash with Klingon sisters Lursa and B'Etor. It was an underwhelming end for the iconic starship, despite how visually impressive it looked on the big screen. In the next TNG movie, Star Trek: First Contact, a new Enterprise was introduced into canon, confirming once and for all that the Enterprise-D had been destroyed beyond repair.
Not much is known about what brings the Next Generation crew back together, with co-showrunner Terry Matalas only confirming that Star Trek: Picard season 3 would have a more galactic scope than the more intimate focus of the first two seasons. The show's return to the Enterprise-D is fitting, given that it will reunite the TNG crew for one last adventure together.
The Enterprise-D Is A Holodeck Simulation
The most obvious way for Jean-Luc Picard and the original TNG characters to revisit the Enterprise-D would be via a holographic simulation. In Star Trek: Picard season 1, Jean-Luc recreated his French châteaux as a holographic ready room aboard Rios's ship, La Sirena. It wouldn't be a huge surprise if he did the same with the bridge of the Enterprise-D in Picard season 3, in pursuit of nostalgia. After all, he once shared a drink with Star Trek: The Original Series' Montgomery Scott ("Scotty") on a holographic replica of the original Enterprise bridge.
Having spent the best part of a century in a transport pattern buffer, Scotty felt out of touch with the future and struggled to fit in. A holographic reproduction of the original Enterprise in the season 6 TNG episode "Relics" gave Scotty comfort and allowed him to discuss his fears with Jean-Luc. Scotty lamented that he's an old man hiding in a computer-generated fantasy version of his past. Picard has seen Jean-Luc hide from his own future, something his recent encounter with Q has helped him to come to terms with. His new life with Laris suggests it's unlikely he'd replicate an Enterprise-D bridge for personal use.
Geordi's nostalgia for the Enterprise in the season 3 trailer suggests that he may create such a simulation. Given the Enterprise-D crew's legendary status, perhaps Geordi recreates the bridge for educational purposes at Starfleet academy. As with the Stargazer in season 2, the opening of a new Enterprise-themed training simulation could bring Jean-Luc back into contact with some of his former crew mates.
Picard Dreams Himself Aboard The TNG Enterprise
Dream sequences were integral to Picard seasons 1 and 2, casting light on Jean-Luc's regrets over keeping his mother's secrets and his guilt over the death of Data at the end of Star Trek: Nemesis. A dream sequence set on the Enterprise could similarly help Jean-Luc come to terms with his past, or unlock some important information related to Picard season 3's wider story.
Alternate Reality Where The Enterprise Survived Generations
An alternate reality may seem unlikely after Q created a nightmarish fascist federation in Star Trek: Picard season 2. However, the crew had left this darker Star Trek timeline by the opening scenes of Picard season 2, episode 3, "Assimilation." This show has been a more mature, character-led take on the Star Trek universe, with Jean-Luc Picard reflecting on past decisions as he approaches the end of his life. An insight into a reality where he never left the Enterprise-D's captain chair would neatly fit with this tone.
Perhaps such an alternate timeline could give the TNG crew their best Picard season 3 story, exploring the ways that nostalgia can often become a prison. It would be a very meta way to end Jean-Luc Picard's Star Trek story, commenting on how the Next Generation spinoff could never replicate its predecessor's glory days. In presenting the TNG crew as characters weakened by their inability to move on, it could lend huge emotional weight to their fulfilling lives in the post-Enterprise prime timeline. Of course, for this timeline to feature the Enterprise-D, they would have had to have survived their encounter with the Klingon sisters in Star Trek: Generations, which should be easy enough.
Picard Season 3 Travels Back To The TNG Timeline
The time travel plot in Star Trek: Picard season 2 makes a similar storyline highly unlikely for season 3. However, that doesn't completely remove the possibility of time travel somehow factoring into the 10 episodes that will comprise Picard season 3. While the plot of Picard season 3 is still unknown, Matalas teased that it will be a game-changer for the Star Trek universe. An abandoned follow-up movie to Star Trek: Nemesis would have sent Jean-Luc Picard back through time to assemble a team of Starfleet's best and brightest to defeat classic Star Trek villains. It sounded like an unwieldy idea and still wouldn't have provided the fitting ending that Nemesis denied the TNG crew, but Star Trek: Picard season 3 could tackle something similar.
For Picard's final season, an older Jean-Luc traveling back along his timeline would be a neat inversion of the Star Trek: The Next Generation finale, "All Good Things," which saw him propelled backward and forward in time by Q as a result of a temporal anomaly. That potential future version of Jean-Luc was very similar to the one audiences first met in Picard season 1. The former Enterprise captain is retired from Starfleet and living with Irumodic syndrome, a neurological illness that will eventually kill him. Jean-Luc's neurological condition was a significant plot point in season 1 of Picard, confirming that elements of the potential future seen in the TNG series finale became a reality.
Perhaps the universe-ending temporal anomaly from "All Good Things" has also become a reality, requiring Jean-Luc Picard to reassemble his former Enterprise crew to avert disaster. After proving to the Q Continuum that he could theoretically save the day in the TNG finale, Picard season 3 could see him doing it for real. The back and forth nature of the anti-time anomaly would allow the older Jean-Luc and his crew to travel back to the Enterprise-D as he did at the end of Star Trek: The Next Generation — only this time, they could retain their present-day bodies. Whatever way showrunners Terry Matalas and Akiva Goldsman find to get the TNG crew back on board the Enterprise-D, seeing this iconic team reunited on the bridge will be the perfect way to end Star Trek: Picard's story.