Patrick Stewart Was “Utterly Unprepared” for Star Trek: Picard’s Enterprise-D Bridge Reunion

Patrick Stewart was “utterly unprepared for the emotion” that he experienced when walking onto the recreated set of the USS Enterprise-D bridge in Star Trek: Picard season 3. In Picard season 3, episode 9 “Vox”, the reunited Star Trek: The Next Generation family required the use of an older starship in order to defeat the Borg threat, which had compromised newer Starfleet ships. Commodore Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) had been working on restoring TNG‘s Galaxy-class hero ship, so the crew took their places on the USS Enterprise-D to save the Federation one more time.

Speaking at a screening of Star Trek: Picard for the Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles, Star Trek: The Next Generation cast members Jonathan Frakes and Gates McFadden gave their impressions of walking onto the recreated TNG bridge set, a build overseen by Picard production designer Dave Blass and art director Liz Kloczkowski with immaculate attention to detail. Both Frakes and McFadden had seen the incomplete set while it was being built, but Patrick Stewart admitted that he had purposely avoided seeing the new Enterprise-D bridge until it was complete. Read his quote and watch the video below:

The door was open, to [the Enterprise-D set], and there was nobody there. It was completely empty. So I walked onto the bridge, alone on the stage. And I was utterly unprepared for the emotion and the recollections that overwhelmed me at that time, because those people that I had shared the bridge with all those years — and the years that had passed since — are like family to me. It’s a family that I wish I could have had all my life, because it gave me so much hope, optimism, support, and fun.

Recreating the Enterprise-D Bridge Made the Star Trek: The Next Generation Family Reunion Complete

The Enterprise is Another Main Character, Voiced By Majel Barrett

Star Trek: Picard season 3 was considered a family reunion by the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast, and the inclusion of the USS Enterprise-D bridge made the reunion complete. The Enterprise is a character in its own right, represented by the bridge, and given life by Star Trek legend Majel Barrett Roddenberry, who voiced the Enterprise computer throughout the run of Star Trek: The Next Generation and the TNG films. Barrett returned as the Enterprise-D computer’s voice on Picard thanks to appropriately used archival recordings, a detail pointed out in-universe when Captain William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) said he “missed that voice,” in response to hearing the computer speak again.

The Enterprise-D’s comeback was incredibly special to the TNG cast and viewers alike. The Enterprise-D bridge brought literal light to the set of Picard, especially compared to the darker bridges of the Titan-A and La Sirena, with the warmth of both nostalgia and carpeting further setting the Enterpise-D apart from its modern counterparts. The weight of emotions that overwhelmed Patrick Stewart when he stepped onto the stage proved that the Enterprise-D bridge set on Star Trek: Picard was more than just the highly detailed recreation of a place where Stewart and his cast mates once worked: it was home.

Star Trek: Picard season 3 is available to stream on Paramount+.