For one year, Star Trek fans obsessed with the early 25th century have had their hopes slowly diminished. After the triumph of Picard Season 3 — a run of episodes that seemed to unite hardcore and casual fans alike — the stage was clearly set for another spinoff series. These spoilers are a year old now, but as a refresher: Picard ended with Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) getting promoted to captain, and her next assignment was the newly rechristened USS Enterprise NCC-1701-G. This fact, combined with a post-credits scene featuring Q (John de Lancie) seemed to very much suggest the adventures of the next next generation were coming. Showrunner Terry Matalas has called this hypothetical show Star Trek: Legacy, and it has a groundswell of fan support.
But a combination of economic factors has led to what appears to be overall belt-tightening in the Trek camp, with head honcho Alex Kurtzman admitting in early 2024 that greenlighting Legacy was “beyond my pay grade.” Meanwhile, Terry Matalas has moved on to other projects, most prominently as the showrunner of the upcoming Marvel Vision TV series, a show he was recruited to oversee specifically because Kevin Feige was a fan of Picard. So, if Legacy ever happens, it won’t be anytime soon.
Now, in a surprising revelation, Jeri Ryan has revealed that a different Star Trek series pitch was apparently presented to her but that she gave it a hard pass. According to TrekMovie, while speaking at Spacecon in Texas, Ryan said: “There was an idea that was actually pitched to me after Picard ended, which was not the Legacy show that I know the fans are asking for, that I want to do.”
For fans who have been following all the updates on Legacy, the idea of a competing series focusing on Captain Seven is a shocking revelation. While Ryan didn’t offer any additional details, she did emphasize that whatever this pitch was, she wasn’t comfortable entertaining the idea. “But it just wasn’t me… It didn’t feel like the right kind of thing,” she added.
Like most of the cast of Picard Season 3, Ryan has been very vocal about her support for showrunner Terry Matalas, and the elevation of her character within the series overall. Although Seven of Nine originated on Star Trek: Voyager, Ryan returned as an older, more nuanced version of Seven starting in 2020 in Picard Season 1. It’s in this series that Seven was depicted as explicitly gay, and also became a more complicated character who found her way to Starfleet in a roguish, unexpected way. Her status as a former Borg drone was also highlighted in a bigger way in Picard Season 3, showing the prejudices she still faced, even among supposed allies. All of this, Ryan has said, is leaps and bounds better than her character’s origins in 1997.
“[Voyager] was a tough four years,” Ryan told CinemaBlend in 2020. “So this continuation of her story [on Picard]...I love it. I love everything about the way she's been developed.”
Clearly, Ryan is making a point to fans with her recent comments about the other, secret Captain Seven show. She’s ready to come back to the character, and boldly continue as the captain of the newest Enterprise. But she’s only going to do it if it’s the show that she believes will honor the fans and what she believes is right for the character. “There has been talk,” she said at Spacecon. “And if there is one thing I have learned with this franchise it is: never say never. You never know.”
