Matalas told EW that he wanted to make the third season of “Picard” work in the same way for “The Next Generation” crew that the 1991 film “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country” did for the crew of the original series, giving them a proper send-off. He also didn’t feel like the post-“Deep Space Nine” books and comics about Worf really worked, because he couldn’t picture Worf as a starship captain. (For the record, I can’t either.) Instead, he saw Worf as more of a wandering samurai, a lone ronin with his bat’leth strapped to his back. When he told Dorn about his idea for a very different version of Worf than the one from the comics and books, the actor didn’t think of samurai, he thought of one seriously cool kung-fu sensei: Gordon Liu’s Pai Mei from “Kill Bill Vol. 2.”
The showrunner confirmed that a Pai Mei kind of vibe was definitely in the right direction, and Dorn apparently said, “I love it.” How could he not? Worf had a tendency to be a bit solitary and stand-offish, and he’s also always followed a rigid set of personal beliefs and rules pretty similar to Pai Mei’s own code. In “Kill Bill,” Pai Mei teaches people how to be efficient assassins through ancient martial arts, and he’s a tough teacher but a total badass.
We still have to wait and see how exactly Worf comes back and what these cryptic comments about samurai and kung-fu sensei vibes are all about, but from what we’ve seen in the trailers, it’s going to be amazing.
“Star Trek: Picard” returns for the final season on Thursday, February 16, 2023, with new episodes every Thursday.