Every Major Character In Star Trek: Picard Season 3, Ranked Worst To Best

Now that we finally got a proper "Next Generation" season, is it okay to admit that in the first two seasons, "Picard" was absolutely terrible at creating new characters? The highlights were always returning characters or actors: Riker and Troi, every version of Brent Spiner, Q, both Guinans, Seven of Nine. There are probably fans out there whose favorite character is Irish Romulan Servant Lady, Cigar Ego Captain, or Dr. Neurotic-Turned-Borg, but we haven't met them yet. Adolescent Ninja Mutant Romulan was cool, and they killed him. Raffi somehow managed to be the dullest of the lot, and she's still around.

That's not a slight at actress Michelle Hurd, who seems to have been given just one note to play, and that note is "addict." Here's where the aspirational nature of "Star Trek" comes into play: on the one hand, it's a show for everyone, and recovering from addiction is a human, relatable condition. On the other, "Star Trek" is supposed to be at least a little utopian, and by any reasonable assessment, the level of nano-molecular medicine the Federation can achieve should be able to cure the chemical aspect of addiction as easily as it does massive headwounds. So withdrawal pangs as key character traits are an awkward choice; more than that, they're a repetitive one. Raffi's so dull the show even broke up one of the most prominent same-sex couples in "Trek" because she was making Seven of Nine more boring by association. Also, she'd never beat Worf.

With a few exceptions, most of them in the final season, Troi is the dullest character in any given "Star Trek: The Next Generation" story. It's unfortunate, given that Marina Sirtis routinely gives some of the best interviews around, with zero filters. However, as an actor, she's stuck looking at viewscreens saying stuff like, "Captain, I'm sensing they're hiding something." Her obnoxious, unfiltered mother Lwaxana had more interesting character-centric episodes than she did.

In "Picard" season 3, Deanna shows up late in the game, and goes from being a shrewish wife like her mom, to a damsel in distress, to a convenient plot device to figure out the enemy's plan. Everything she does furthers someone else's arc rather than her own. That's unfortunately par for the course for Deanna, who ought to be more than Riker's motivation or Jack's exposition. After 35 years, the most interesting things she's ever done are fall for Worf and take the command test in which she learned to give life-threatening orders. Those ought to build character, but "Trek" writers still seem to have very little idea what to do with her.

Hiding in plain sight throughout the season, as a voice in Jack's head and a melting meat mask projection on the Shrike, the Borg Queen is arguably now more classic a big bad than Khan, having been Picard's arch-nemesis across one movie and now two series, and Kathryn Janeway's in one too. "Picard" Season 2 made it look like the Borg would follow in the footsteps of Klingons and Ferengi, as the former arch-enemies turned into Federation allies. Apparently, somebody realized they're just too good as villains to wholly convert, so it seems the Agnes Jurati Borg were mere outliers. The original Queen (Alice Krige), repeatedly previously destroyed, just won't stay down. 

As if to underscore her nightmarish plans to hurt Picard by putting his son through the worst thing he ever experienced, the Queen now sports a frightening, H.R. Giger-esque body that resembles nothing so much as the twisted Ripley clones in "Alien Resurrection." A grotesque semblance of a descendant is what she is, and what she wants to make Jack. And like so many fascists on the Internet these days, she knows how to take a once-fatherless young man's loneliness and twist it, giving him a feeling of belonging and connection, and a group hatred of the wrong enemies.

True love saves the day in the end, rather than the narcotic effect of interconnection. The Queen has come back from total annihilation before, though, so eternal vigilance remains the price of freedom from her clutches.

Now a Commander, Ro Laren is a perfect Starfleet intelligence officer because her past as an infiltrator-gone-native has given her years of practice at making the ultimate poker face. Originally intended to assume the Major Kira position on "Deep Space Nine," Ro got replaced as a character when actress Michelle Forbes decided she didn't want to be typecast. Canonically, however, the tempestuous defector to the Maquis would definitely have seen some sort of action in the Dominion War, and since Kira already showed up on "Lower Decks," it's a nice bit of symmetry to have Ro back, and busting some Changelings.

Perhaps more importantly for her existence in the show, her presence allows Patrick Stewart to play a different note; that of a 30-year grudge-holder. As they vent their pent-up feelings and disappointments with one another on the holodeck, we realize they're playing out the truest test of what a Changeling cannot replicate: a complex emotional history. It's just too bad she never addressed that whole "being lovers with amnesia" episode with Riker from back in the day. Regardless, her troubled upbringing, anger management issues, and divided loyalties make her an ideal handler for Worf, whose own Deep Space 9 experience makes him well-suited to orders from a Bajoran, regarding Changelings.

It's too bad she came back only to get killed off, but showrunner Terry Matalas revealed a way she could survive, and it holds up — note the split second of blackout before her shuttle exploded.

It's good to see Worf back for many reasons: mainly because he is the most prolific "Star Trek" character, having been a regular on both "The Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine." He's also very welcome because he represents the return of "Trek" to familiar Klingon designs, and not the horrendous 'Enemy Mine" rip-offs introduced in Season 1 of "Discovery." It's not just Klingons — they revised designs for Andorians and Ferengi as well.

Worf's return ends that experiment. Fans want the classic aliens to look the way we remember them, and his undercover mission with Raffi also brought us classic Andorians and Ferengi just to emphasize the point. Thanks to streaming and a lack of network TV restrictions, we also got to see Worf deliver a full-on beheading. That's the kind of thing we knew he could do and probably did, but now it's confirmed. By partnering him with Raffi, "Picard" also rescues Season 3's worst subplot, making her more interesting by osmosis.

Michael Dorn seems to have either forgotten Worf's voice or simply gotten tired of doing it. Maybe older Klingons simply start to sound more like human actors. He hasn't forgotten the character, though, and his newfound peaceful side feels like a parody of those movies where Steven Seagal claims to be a Buddhist. His pining for Troi? Also aces, though Jadzia's ghost needs to slap him for that. Neglecting his secret phaser because "swords are fun"? This Klingon's more of a Jedi than we realized.

Yeah, we can blame Patrick Stewart for not getting the gang back together sooner, but even if he didn't want to do it in the beginning, he's made it work now. Picard's got an android body and a retirement, he survived a terminal disease, and along with that he's old enough to be like honey badger and give no [expletive]. After years of seeing him be the mature adult in the room, presenting him as the reckless grandpa is an entertaining evolution... sometimes.

The show probably gave Picard a long-lost son just so Stewart would have something different to play than before, and therefore persuade himself it's not a nostalgia tour. (It's totally a nostalgia tour.) Even though Picard acts like he missed out on so much with Jack, longtime viewers know that part of his joy in coming across an adult son is that he hates kids, and can skip to the good part. Jack dodged a bullet there, really. Based on Wesley's experience, his childhood could have been a whole lot of "Shut up, Jack!" instead of the Space Doctors Without Borders adventures he got to go on instead.

Naturally, Stewart also closes out the show reciting Shakespeare, but we do have to wonder what happened to Laris a year later. Did he dump her to get back with Admiral Beverly Crusher? Did he marry her but hide her from his friends? This Picard is kinda jerky, and he swears. It's fun.

As a second-generation "Star Trek" villain, Amanda Plummer manages to upstage her late father Christopher's Shakespeare-loving Klingon. She undoubtedly relishes being a baddie as Vadic, captain of the spiky, scary spaceship called the Shrike. Years ago, the movie "Thank You for Smoking" made a joke about tobacco product placement in space; Vadic brings it to fruition, but in a way that ultimately makes sense. As a Changeling who can actually grow replica organs, her lungs will appreciate the sensation unprecedented amongst her people.

While she gives gloriously sadistic ham for the first part of the season, her righteous anger and brutal backstory as the victim of Federation torture experiments make her a similar kind of karma alongside the best "Star Trek" villains, like Khan or Lore. "Deep Space Nine" constantly wrestled with the morality of war and the terrible choices that must be made sometimes to win it. Vadic embodies the shame and the stain that remains afterward, and the only thing better than her coming after Picard would be if she came for Benjamin Sisko instead. Alas, Avery Brooks seems to have retired from acting, but this will definitely do.

Vadic's death is also an all-timer. After killing and tormenting innocent victims, she gets sucked into space and shattered into pieces. Considering how Changelings work, it's possible one of those pieces could still regenerate later. Let's hope so. She's too good to lose. Finding out she was just a Borg pawn was a bummer.

TV hunks often become more interesting as they age. From Bruce Boxleitner in "Babylon 5" to Lee Majors in "Ash vs. Evil Dead," their generic smiles and magazine-worthy good looks are only enhanced by age lines and a more experienced vibe. Jonathan Frakes was the stereotypical TV leading man in the original "TNG" series, but now he's a man with a past and a character built from many previous choices. He lit up the screen in his Season 1 cameo as Riker, and he dominates in Season 3. Marred by tragedy and his inability to properly hash things out with Deanna, he has grown into the captain's role even as he's fallen away from a familial one.

Back in the day, Riker's impulsiveness contrasted nicely with Picard's reason and inherent pacifism. Now, the roles are reversed: Riker is the more considered one, while Picard's age has taken away much of his patience. Riker still clearly holds an inherent level of deference to his old commanding officer, but there's also an unmistakable relief in being able to shout him down without sanction.

As a lead in the '90s, Frakes felt a little like a Dollar Store Jim Kirk knockoff. As the captain in the 2020s, he's the man, and the best character in "Picard" Season 3. 

The show did miss an opportunity to have him lift his leg over the back of a chair one last time, though. Arthritis is a beast.