Picard Season 3 Borrows Abrams’ Star Trek Captain Trick (& It Works)

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Star Trek: Picard season 3 borrows J.J. Abrams' unusual Captain's trick from his 2009 Star Trek movie, and it worked. Star Trek: Picard season 3 is designed to be the Star Trek: The Next Generation movie that never came to be after Star Trek: Nemesis, albeit 10 hours long. Along with its sweeping cinematic scope and its action-packed, yet character-driven story, Picard season 3 contains numerous odes to past Star Trek movies, and the unusual way William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes) became Captain of the USS Titan-A in episode 3, "Seventeen Seconds," is pure J.J. Abrams.
In Star Trek 2009's alternate Kelvin reality, the Starship Enterprise ended up with three Captains during its two-hour runtime. The Enterprise launched with Captain Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood) in command, but he made his First Officer, Spock (Zachary Quinto), the acting Captain when Pike was forced into Nero's (Eric Bana) Romulan starship. James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) eventually took over the Captain's chair and led the Enterprise to victory over the time-displaced Romulans. Kirk's reward for saving the Earth was to become the permanent Captain of the Enterprise. Star Trek: Discovery played its own game of musical Captain's chair in seasons 1 and 2 until Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) became the USS Discovery's Captain at the end of season 3.