Star Trek: Picard—Jeri Ryan, Jonathan Del Arco discuss the Borg’s return

The Borg are back, baby! We’re only three episodes into the inaugural season of Star Trek: Picard, and while the show has presented its fair share of mysteries, one thing is clear: The story will have to pass through that decommissioned-yet-still-ominous Borg cube the Romulans have turned into a reclamation site.

One of the happy side effects of showrunner Alex Kurtzman dusting off one of Star Trek’s scariest villains for Picard is that Trekkies get to enjoy the return of Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco) from The Next Generation and Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) from Star Trek: Voyager. Hugh is the executive officer of the Romulan reclamation site, while Seven of Nine is working with an independent peacemaking organization. However, they still want the same thing: To have the former assimilated Borg welcomed back into society.

“Seven’s reaction to the world we’re in is not the same as Hugh’s; they’re both contributing to change or support the world in a really different way,” Del Arco told Space.com. “They’re both on very different journeys, but with the same intentions.”

Ryan notes that, in their time away from the spotlight, Hugh and Seven have evolved into different people, free from the Borg Collective. “They’re very different,” she said. “It’s been 20 years. They are 20 years more mature, with 20 years’ more life experience.”

"For Seven, she had [only] four years outside of the collective the last time we saw her, and all of it was on [starship] Voyager, basically."

In the first episode of this season, we see a dejected Jean-Luc Picard still reeling from the Federation’s decision to abandon the Romulan people to be destroyed in the explosion that disintegrated the planet Romulus. Do the Borg have anything to do with that? I’m sure we’ll find out.

“[Seven and Hugh] have been through a lot of bad stuff,” Ryan continued. “They’ve seen darkness, which has affected them. Seven holds Starfleet and the Federation, at least in part, responsible for the mess the galaxy is in right now — and sees Picard as partly representative of those institutions, at first.”

I find it very interesting that Seven of Nine partly blames Picard for why the galaxy looks like it does, 20 years after his retirement from Starfleet, and I’m excited to see if Hugh feels the same way. I mean, Picard will likely cross paths with his old friend once again during his search for Soji (Isa Briones), who is working closely with Hugh on the now-dead Borg ship.

Find out what happens next when Star Trek: Picard Episode 4, “Absolute Candor,” airs on CBS All Access on Thursday.

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