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Star Trek: TNG Actor Teases Tasha Yar's Return In Picard Season 3
tar Trek: The Next Generation actor Denise Crosby teases Tasha Yar’s return in Star Trek: Picard season 3. Crosby was an original cast member of the Star Trek reboot series TNG when it debuted in 1987. But her character Tasha Yar’s stint on the Enterprise would prove short as she was killed off of the show before the end of season 1.
Crosby famously attributed her desire to leave TNG to the show’s writing, which failed to find interesting storylines for her character. But Crosby would continue to have an occasional home on TNG as she would later return several times, reprising the role of Tasha Yar in the classic season 3 “Yesterday’s Enterprise” episode, and also playing Yar’s half-Romulan daughter Sela on two occasions. Crosby’s last TNG appearance came in the show’s series finale “All Good Things…” in which Yar was encountered by a time-hopping Picard.
Picard has of course himself returned to the Star Trek fold thanks to the Paramount+ streaming series Star Trek: Picard. And season 3 of Picard will go deeper into the TNG well by bringing back all the show’s regulars, including LeVar Burton’s Geordi La Forge, Michael Dorn’s Worf and Gates McFadden’s Beverly Crusher. Now it appears there’s another bit of casting news to reveal as Crosby let it drop during an appearance at the 56-Year Mission Star Trek convention in Las Vegas that the much-lamented Tasha Yar will also appear in Picard season 3 in some capacity. Crosby told the crowd (via TrekMovie.com):
Quote:
Oh. I don’t want to give away too much. But I’m going to tell you that you will see Tasha Yar, but I’m not going to tell you how. You’ve got to watch.
That vague tease indeed leaves a lot of room for speculation about exactly how the long-dead Tasha Yar manages to appear in Star Trek: Picard season 3. In the TNG episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” a rift in spacetime is responsible for an earlier version of the Enterprise arriving in the future, bringing Tasha Yar with it. Such crossing over of timelines could be in the offing again in Picard season 3, explaining Yar once again being resurrected. Indeed, the destroyed Enterprise-D is already confirmed to be appearing in the new Picard season, so it seems that some timeline-related acrobatics are in the offing (an arguably tiring proposition after the time travel story that was tackled in season 2).
Another possibility for a Yar return is that she doesn’t actually appear physically at all, but only in holographic form. As Star Trek fans remember, Yar left behind a holographic message after her TNG season 1 death that was viewed by the crew at her memorial service. Star Trek: Picard season 3 is intended as a sendoff for the TNG crew, and perhaps Yar will be included in that, via a replay of this message somewhere during the season.
However Crosby’s Tasha Yar is worked into the action in Star Trek: Picard season 3, it’s certain that many TNG fans will still feel that the character was done a disservice by the way she was killed off in season 1. Efforts to bring the character back in a meaningful way later were of course appreciated, but even Yar's memorable return in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” wasn’t enough to clear away the bad taste left by her absurd season 1 demise at the hands of a sentient oil slick. While it’s too late to right the wrongs done to Tasha Yar in Star Trek: The Next Generation all those years ago, at least the character can still get a chance to say goodbye along with her former shipmates in Star Trek: Picard season 3, and hopefully that farewell will be at least a little gratifying.
