Worf's Zen-Like Shift In Star Trek: Picard Came From An Unproduced Spin-Off Script Written By Michael Dorn [Exclusive]
This post contains spoilers for season 3's third episode of "Star Trek: Picard."
Worf is back! And he's a changed Klingon (kind of). We saw a glimpse of him in last week's episode of "Star Trek: Picard" when he removed a Ferengi drug dealer's head from his shoulders, but this week we got lots more of Worf, played as always by Michael Dorn, as he helps Raffi (Michelle Hurd) recover from her drug trip with some ... chamomile tea.
That's right, Worf is now really into meditation and decaffeinated hot beverages, and when I talked to Dorn in the lead-up to the season 3 premiere, he told me the idea to give his character this backstory came from him. "I had written a screenplay or pilot where it was a spin-off of the Worf character," he said. "And part of that was he has gone back to this planet, like a martial arts place, and they taught him about meditation and what is the mark of a true warrior. And he has really gone further in that realm, because it's more in keeping with who he is and his journey."
It turns out that the creatives behind "Picard" were open to Dorn's suggested turn with Worf. "I told the producers that, 'Yeah, he still is very dangerous, but he has tempered that with a wisdom that his meditation and his teachings has kind of added to who he is.' And they were very good with that," Dorn said.
A bat'leth and a cuppa
In "Picard," it looks like Worf will be teaming up with Raffi in at least the short term, which Dorn said was an addition he appreciated. "It's sort of like they gave me a student [Michelle Hurd's Raffi], but she's not a student," Dorn said before adding:
"She's not like somebody who just walks up and goes, 'Oh, I want to be taught.' She has her own thing and it just happens to be, our lives are coinciding in a way, and she can look at me and I can look at her and we get something from each other. And I think that was their doing, the writers and the producers. They understood that. And I've always had, I would say, good luck. I've always said, 'Hey, look, this is what I think,' and they'll take off with it. And I never had to really go up and yell and scream about parts and stuff like that."
What Dorn didn't share was the status of that Worf spin-off script. We know that the "Star Trek" universe will expand with new shows in the pipeline — could a Worf-centered series be part of that? I'm sure I'm not the only one who would love to watch Worf in say, a show with a detective bent, where the Klingon gets zen on chamomile as he solves murders.
In the meantime, we'll get to see how chill Worf remains when new episodes of season 3 are released every Thursday on Paramount+.