Jonathan Frakes talks Riker’s return in Star Trek: Picard
Jonathan Frakes, who played fan-favorite character Commander William Riker on Star Trek: The Next Generation, reprised the role for Star Trek: Picard. We learned that Riker and his wife Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) retired from Starfleet to the planet of Nepenthe in order to find a cure for their son Thaddeus, who later died from a fatal illness.
When last we saw him, Riker had come out of retirement to captain the starship USS Zheng He, the lead ship in a squadron sent by Starfleet command to protect Coppelius, the homeworld of the Synthetics.
Speaking to ComicBook.com, Frakes praised Picard screenwriter/showrunner Michael Chabon for how he wrote Riker’s past into the show. “I think the first thing to mention is what an addition to the family Michael Chabon has been as a writer. The thoughtfulness and the depth of character and the sense of irony, just everything that he’s brought. I mean, he’s a fanboy to start, but he’s a genius in the mix. So, his hand on the tiller, if you will, has really been exciting.”
When Picard found them, Riker and Troi were raising a daughter named Kestra (Lulu Wilson). “I was really glad that Troi and Riker were living in the mountains in a big house,” Frakes continued. “It felt wonderful and different and somehow logical that they would have done what they could. I love that they had kids, and one has died and that they had gone somewhere to try to save his life.”
"All that I thought was spectacular. And frankly, watching Marina’s work with Lulu, who played our daughter, who was also spectacular, which didn’t hurt. The whole experience was great, and as you saw in the social, I’m sure, Dorn came to visit, and LeVar came to visit. It has been, without getting too corny or Pollyanna, it’s really been great to be back in the Star Trek fold. It was great to be back on Star Trek: Discovery. I feel very privileged to have been part of that family, but this is really our family, the Picard show."
LeVar Burton came to visit, huh? Is that a preview of Geordi La Forge showing up in Picard season 2? We can hope.
Image: Star Trek: Picard/CBS All Access
Frakes also served as a director on Picard, even helming the season finale. “That was a really different experience because I was alone,” he said. “I was self-directing. I was in a captain’s chair. I had a spacesuit on. I had my beard trimmed, my Riker hair put back on, my bald spots covered up. It felt very familiar, and it was like a flashback. Because of how well ‘Nepenthe’ went, I was less nervous and, I got to say, thrilled to have been asked back, to be perfectly frank.”
Now that Picard season 1 is over, Frakes is up for playing in another sci-fi sandbox. What about, say, The Orville, the Star Trek-adjacent comedy from the mind of Seth McFarlane? “I keep waiting for a phone call,” he said. “I am available. I’ve got a beard. I would just like to be, just like I hoped and dreamed of being on [The Big Bang Theory], there’s certain things, the absurdity factor, like the Pez dispensers and the garden gnomes, certain benchmarks we all want to reach.”
Frakes will return to direct episodes of Picard season 2, but we don’t yet know when production will begin. Darn coronavirus.
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