Why Star Trek: Legacy Will Never Happen, According To TNG's Marina Sirtis

Most Trekkies can tell you the story of "Star Trek: Legacy" by now, but I shall reiterate to make sure we're all on the same page. The third season of "Star Trek: Picard" was a reunion show, bringing back most of the cast of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and allowing them to interact on screen for the first time in many years. The characters were all in their 80s, 90s, or 100s, but thanks to the advanced medicine in "Star Trek," all looked and behaved 20 years younger. The bulk of the season took place on the U.S.S. Titan-A.

The season then ended with Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) taking command of the U.S.S. Titan-A, which was then re-christened the Enterprise-G. Her first officer was her ex-girlfriend, Raffi (Michelle Hurd), and Picard's son, Jack (Ed Speleers), was an ensign. Throughout the third season of "Picard," showrunner Terry Matalas introduced the Titan-A's crew in the background, subtly setting up a backdoor pilot for an Enterprise-G-based series he wanted to call "Star Trek: Legacy." Although ambitious, the series was never actually greenlit, and it's 100% unlikely that it will ever be made. Trekkies will have to make peace with the comic books that IDW will be putting out. 

Actress Marina Sirtis, who played Deanna Troi on both "Next Generation" and "Picard," recently appeared on stage at Star Trek: The Cruise (an event covered by ComicBook.com), and she reiterated that "Legacy" is dead and buried. She also added that neither she nor any of her "NextGen" co-stars would be welcomed back to such a project because of plain-faced ageism. There's no way a modern studio would greenlight a show whose selling point is potential cameos from actors in their 70s and 80s.

Marina Sirtis was quite certain on the matter, being quoted as saying, "First of all, 'Legacy' is never gonna happen." This might disappoint many Trekkies, who have kept their fingers crossed and hoped against hope that Paramount+ would actually greenlight the series. Personally, I attended a "Star Trek" convention recently, and there were still clipboards and petitions circulating, asking for people's signatures in hopes of convincing Paramount to launch the series. 

Paramount, however, is a business in flux, and the future of "Star Trek" was already uncertain back in 2022. These days, it's even less stable, what with the cancellation of "Star Trek: Starfleet Academy." Some might think that the legacy of "Legacy" would be a good selling point for the series, and that cameos from the cast of "Next Generation" would draw in millions. Sirtis, however, feels that no studio could possibly look at a gaggle of actors in their 70s and 80s and see it as a selling point. In her (harsh) words: 

"You know, you hate hearing the truth. There is not a single studio in America that is gonna make a series where most of the leading actors are over 70 years old. I'm sorry, but that's just the truth. It's just Hollywood." 

And that's that. Not only is the "Star Trek" franchise in an unstable spot, but the allure of a septuagenarian cast of potential cameos won't be appealing to studios, at least by Sirtis' estimation. The comics will have to do, because it's all we're ever going to get. "Star Trek: Picard" can, at the very least, be rewatched on Paramount+.