‘Star Trek: Picard’ Easter Eggs List: Season 3, ‘The Next Generation’

Episode 1

In the first five minutes of Season 3, we beam aboard the Mariposa medical vessel Eleos XII and quickly realize this must be Dr. Beverly Crusher’s ship. Why? Because we recognize her taste and belongings from The Next Generation: orchids (a favorite flower, also in her quarters in “Cause and Effect”), pearls (“The Big Goodbye”) and drama and comedy masks (representing her love of theater in multiple episodes including “The Nth Degree,” “Disaster,” “Frame of Mind” and “Fistful of Datas”). There’s also a mission plaque honoring her service on Cor Caroli V (a classified case we heard about but didn’t see in “Allegiance”) and an away team kit belonging to her late husband Lt. Commander Jack Crusher (brought out of storage in “Family”). If all that didn’t clue you in, nothing will.

Another Easter egg is far more subtle. It’s a voice, the ship’s computer, warning Beverly of intruders. It belongs to Amy Earhart, wife of showrunner Terry Matalas, and it’s a little nod to Majel Barrett (Gene Roddenberry’s wife, who played Lwaxana Troi, and also provided the voice of most of the onboard computer interfaces). A recording of Barrett’s voice speaks once more at the end of Picard Season 3. Matalas himself provides a voice at the Starfleet Spacedock.

Quick bits to spot during Jean-Luc’s spring cleaning: a Ressikan flute from “The Inner Light,” an artifact from “The Chase” and a ship in a bottle from “Booby Trap.”

Episode 2

Jack Crusher is in so much trouble. Or is it Jack Canby? John Carson? James Cole? Jarlis Carvel? Of all Crusher’s aliases, the last one took him some serious thought — but it’s the next-to-last that gave us pause. James Cole, if you recall, is the name of the protagonist in the 1995 film and subsequent television adaptation of 12 Monkeys, which ran on Syfy from 2015 to 2018. The showrunner for that series? Yes, it was Terry Matalas, who recruited many members of his 12 Monkeys cast (Todd Stashwick, Aaron Stanford, Kirk Acevedo) and crew (co-executive producers Chris Monfette and Sean Tretta) for Picard. Which is why Picard sometimes feels like a 12 Monkeys Easter egg hunt. In addition to the James Cole shout-out, Cole himself — Aaron Stanford — appears as the Ferengi gangster Sneed. Sneed traffics in a drug called Splinter, a reference to splintering, which is what time travel was called in 12 Monkeys.

Beyond that, there are various eggs of note on the rap sheets of (alleged) criminals. Among Sneed’s known associates are Quark, from Deep Space Nine, and smuggler Thadiun Okona, from TNG’s “The Outrageous Okona,” Lower Decks and Prodigy. (This guy gets around.)

There’s also a quick bit to spot during the stop on M’Talas Prime: The name itself is a reference to showrunner Matalas, but it dates back to the Enterprise episode “Dawn,” in which the show’s producers decided to troll Matalas (then an assistant) by naming one of the worst places in the galaxy after him.

Episode 3

Worf saved the day! Introducing himself to Raffi, he lists the highlights of his narrative history: Son of Mogh (his biological father), House of Martok (the Klingon general who sponsored him), Son of Sergey and House of Rozhenko (his adoptive human Earth father from “Family”), Bane to the Duras family (as the killer of multiple heads of House of Duras) and Slayer of Gowron (as the killer of the High Chancellor in DS9’s “Tacking Into the Wind”).

Together, Worf and Raffi track down and interrogate Titus Rikka, who is played by Thomas Dekker. This is a casting Easter egg, as Dekker also played Picard’s Nexus fantasy son in the film Star Trek: Generations, and considering this is the episode where Picard confronts his missed fatherhood opportunity, the placement seems purposeful. (When he was still a child, Dekker also played a hologram in multiple episodes of Voyager.) Here, Dekker is once again a Trek character who is not what he appears to be — a Changeling. (Definitely not a junkie.)

And as a nice nod to our favorite Changeling, Odo, who couldn’t be here for this outing (actor René Auberjonois passed away in 2019), Worf refers to his former colleague as an honorable man.

Quick bit to spot during Beverly’s off-grid explanation: She and Jean-Luc dated on Casperia Prime, the vacation capital of the Horvan sector. You’ll recall another Star Trek couple has romantic history there: Worf and Jadzia picked it as their honeymoon destination in DS9’s “Change of Heart.”

Episode 4

The Ten Forward lounge in Los Angeles (first seen in Season 2 of Picard) is where Picard and Riker like to meet up. Picard sometimes eats there alone, as we see him doing in the flashback. When admiring officers come upon him, he regales them with a story about the Tamarians, who base their language on myth and metaphor, from one of TNG’s best episodes, “Darmok.” (Have you ever tried talking to someone who keeps quoting an impenetrable TV show you’ve never seen? It’s like that.) With much patience, Picard eventually deciphers their meanings. For example, “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra” means “working together.” Eventually, they add “Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel,” or first contact, to their vocab as well.

Attempts to communicate with an alien culture aren’t always so successful. For a brief period, Picard served as the mouthpiece of the Borg and was forced to lead an invasion force. While in the holodeck version of Ten Forward, Captain Shaw reveals that during the Battle of Wolf 359 (seen in DS9’s “Emissary”), he served aboard the U.S.S. Constance — note that a diagram of the starship appears in the closing credits.

Also during drinks at Ten Forward, the Arcanis Lager logo is the same one from the Starfleet bar in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. And one of the photos of Guinan is from a scene in Generations, when she appeared as an echo of herself in the Nexus. (How is there a photo of that moment in this world?)

Episode 5

Showrunner Terry Matalas decided to bring Ro Laren back, he says, because her story “felt like it wasn’t finished.” TNG’s “Preemptive Strike” wasn’t supposed to be Ro’s last appearance. There was a plan in place to have the character be more heavily featured on DS9, but Michelle Forbes declined an offer to join the spinoff, which led to the creation of a substitute Bajoran character, Kira Nerys, as well as a change of direction for Ro’s storyline on TNG. Instead of continuing to work with Starfleet, Ro defected and joined the freedom fighters known as the Maquis. Picard asks Ro if she remembers Guinan to test her identity — but it’s not just because Guinan used to stash weapons behind the bar and he’s reaching for one. The three of them had a special bond; they were accidentally turned into children together in “Rascals.”

The Changeling blood test, however, has never been foolproof. In DS9 episodes such as “The Way of the Warrior” and “Homefront,” it was demonstrated and discussed that Changelings could store real blood within their assumed bodies for such occasions. Also, listen for the little guttural noises that Ro’s two Starfleet officers make, revealing that they are Changelings.

Quick bits to spot during the turbolift ride: Captain Shaw rattles off a list of incidents that happened during the films Generations (the saucer section crash) and Insurrection (ignoring the Prime Directive) and the TNG series finale (the time paradox).

Episode 6

Daystrom Station is basically an Easter egg museum; it’s full of genetically-modified attack Tribbles, a version of the planet-changing Genesis Device and the bodily remains of James T. Kirk (which means that someone dug him up after Picard buried him in Generations), as well as the human corpse of Picard himself. The theme of replacement and resurrection hangs heavily in the air as Riker and company meet a Professor Moriarty hologram and a composite android (Data, Lore, B-4, Lal, in a new vessel). Instead of Moriarty being an adversary to the android, now they are the same. Riker figures this out by referring to key points of his relationship with Data — from whistling together (“Encounter at Farpoint”) to the Sherlock Holmes games they played (“Elementary, Dear Data”). When Data died in Nemesis, Riker struggled to remember what song it was that Data was attempting to whistle. Now, years later, he does. (It’s “Pop Goes the Weasel,” and in the closing credits, you get a glimpse of its musical notation.)

A quick bit to spot during the Fleet Museum tour: The Klingon Bird of Prey was originally featured in The Search for Spock and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Bones gave it the name the H.M.S. Bounty in reference to the 1789 mutiny. And the way the cloaking device is stolen and installed on another ship is a reference to the original Star Trek episode “The Enterprise Incident,” only that one was a Romulan cloaking device.

Episode 7

It’s not exactly the return of Tuvok in this episode — it’s just that a Changeling is pretending to be him. But even the idea of Tuvok counts, since he hasn’t appeared in a live-action Trek since 2001. However, Seven of Nine can tell this isn’t her old Voyager shipmate. First, she refers to their games of Vulcan Kal-Toh, which would hardly be a real test of identity, given that they played in full view of the crew (Voyager’s “The Omega Directive”). The fact that they played, and who won, would be public knowledge. Just to be sure, though, she tries again — and trips up the imposter by mentioning her neural pattern stabilization, claiming it was performed on a planet instead of onboard their ship (Voyager’s “Infinite Regress”). The planet she names has had demonstrations against Kolinahr, the Vulcan practice of shedding emotion on the way to pure logic, first depicted in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. No Vulcan would go there, let alone the real Tuvok, who had previously immersed himself in Kolinahr (Voyager’s “Flashback”).

Speaking of flashbacks, Vadic’s origin story, which takes place during the events of DS9, refers to how, after Section 31 created a Changeling virus, a cure was developed, and Odo brought it to the Great Link (“What You Leave Behind”).

And a last quick bit to spot during Geordi’s Engineering: When Data says, “I’m no longer on the Enterprise,” he’s referring to his final moments in Nemesis.

Episode 8

The Easter eggs are front and center in this episode, in which Data gives his TNG memories to Lore. Some of these are mementos from past leisure activities (a hat and pipe from his holodeck roleplay as Sherlock Holmes from “Elementary, Dear Data”) and his deck of cards and chips for playing poker. Others memories represent the two biggest loves of his life: Spot the cat (who started appearing in “Data’s Day” and was last… spotted… in Nemesis) and Lt. Tasha Yar (who discovered to her delight in “The Naked Now” that Data is “fully functional” in every way and “programmed in multiple techniques”). After Tasha died, the android kept a holographic statue of her (first seen in “A Measure of Man”). But it was Spot — technically female, and a mother, even if Data keeps identifying her as male — who taught Data how to love. She inspired poetry and even tears of joy, when Data got an emotion chip (Generations).

Quick bit to spot during a stint on the Shrike: Another unlikely couple is referenced during Worf’s rescue of Riker and Troi — this being the fact that Worf and Troi once dated. When Worf bursts in, talking about counting the days since he last saw her, Riker says, “Inappropriate,” and then, “Is this a rescue mission or a continuation of the torture?” Of course, Worf wasn’t being romantic; he was thinking of Troi’s empathetic gifts during his sensitivity training. Still, awkward!

Episode 9

Isn’t it ironic? Picard calls it, but doesn’t explain, so we will. Admiral Elizabeth Shelby, onetime top Borg expert (last seen in “The Best of Both Worlds” gunning for Riker’s job as First Officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise) fell for a Borg trap. She didn’t recognize that the synchronistic technology that allows every ship in Starfleet to operate as one is the very definition of how the Borg operates, as a collective. So this is not a fleet formation safeguard, but an opening for fleet-wide incapacitation.

Shelby is in command of the Enterprise-F during the Frontier Day ceremony… so what happened to the Enterprise-E? Everyone looks at Worf. Not my fault, Worf says, referring to something that happened not on screen, but in the novels. “There have been books written about what they have done,” Matalas points out. “There was a whole arc about Worf being captain of the Enterprise-E for a while.” (That was in The Last Best Hope, by Una McCormack.) But the ship’s final mission — involving an “incident” above Kriilar Prime — is listed as classified, according to the Star Trek: Picard logs on Instagram. Other ships in the armada include the U.S.S. Hikaru Sulu and the U.S.S. Cochrane (named for the inventor of the warp drive).

Quick bit to spot during the reunion on the Enterprise: Picard’s order, “Set a course for Earth, maximum warp,” is the same line he says in Star Trek: First Contact.

Episode 10

Matalas considers the TNG series finale “All Good Things” to be a perfect send-off, with the crew and captain playing poker together. So one of the final shots of the Picard series finale emulates that iconic final image, right down to the rotation of the camera hovering over the poker table as Picard deals a hand. Before the game, the characters’ revelry in Ten Forward in Los Angeles includes multiple callbacks. References are made regarding drinks of choice — prune juice for Worf, the “warrior’s drink” (“Yesterday’s Enterprise”). Data tries to recite a limerick that no one ever lets him finish: “There was a young lady from Venus, whose body was shaped like a …” (“The Naked Now”). Picard recites Shakespeare, as both he and Patrick Stewart, a member of England’s Royal Shakespeare Company, are wont to do. So all’s well that ends well… or is it? Q returns and tells Jack Crusher that he is to stand trial for humanity — the same thing he told Jean-Luc Picard in the TNG pilot, “Encounter at Farpoint.”

One last quick bit. Pay attention to the voice, words and name of the President of the United Federation of Planets: Anton Chekov. He’s voiced by Walter Koenig, aka the original Star Trek series’ navigator and weapons officer Pavel Chekov. This new character is named after the rebooted Star Trek films’ version of Pavel Chekov, who was played by the late Anton Yelchin. And his message resembles a similar one in The Voyage Home: “Do not approach Earth.” Not yet, at least.