One of the main pleasures that Trekkies have had with the arrival of the many new Star Trek series is spotting Easter eggs, references and seeing cameos from the older Star Trek series. In Picard especially, there have lots of call-backs to Star Trek: The Next Generation, as that is of course the series that Patrick Stewart’s Star Trek Captain Picard starred in from 1987-1994.
One such moment came in the most recent episode. There’s a scene in Star Trek Picard season 3 episode 9 where we see the fleet arranged all together via a screen, for the celebrations at Frontier Day, and we see a ship on the screen called the USS Pulaski.
This is a reference to Katherine Pulaski (Diana Muldaur), who was a character in the TNG main cast in season 2, as the chief medical officer before leaving at the end of the season. She joined the Next Generation cast to replace Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) because McFadden had fallen out with the producers. However, fans campaigned for McFadden to return and she came back in season three, and Pulaski was booted out.
Fans have been wanting Muldaur’s Pulaski to come back in Star Trek Picard and join in on the reunion. However, it looks like this little reference is the best fans are going to get. Pulaski is liked by loyal Trekkies because she had an interesting relationship, and arc, with fan-favourite Star Trek character Data (Bret Spiner).
The demonstration of the new advancement of fleet synchronisation in episode 9 revealed that it allows the ships to act in unison, acting as one in a mass formation. As Riker and Picard pointed out, it’s very Borg-like. And the Borg is going to be critical to the upcoming finale.
While we wait for the finale, check out our guide to the best Star Trek starships.