The music of Star Trek has always been an important part of the experience, and the third and final season of Picard was not only no different but much like the season itself, recognized its past. Stephen Barton and Frederik Wiedmann injected their lavish score with plenty of references to the franchise's history of over 55 years.
From Alexander Courage’s original series theme from 1966 to Jerry Goldsmith’s for Star Trek: The Motion Picture which The Next Generation took on eight years after the film and his Voyager and First Contact themes are omnipresent for character and plot reasons, there are also inclusions from The Final Frontier, James Horner’s music in The Wrath of Khan, Leonard Rosenman’s work for The Voyage Home, Cliff Eidelman’s The Undiscovered Country, and Dennis McCarthy’s Generations, it's all in that final season, which saw a more complete reunion of the The Next Generation cast in the previous 20 years since Nemesis.
Barton scored seven of the 10 episodes, while Wiedmann did two before uniting on the finale. Barton has said that the idea came from the season's showrunner Terry Matalas. "From the very beginning, we chatted a lot about the Star Trek we grew up with. This was a moment in the franchise to take a step back, look at the whole picture, and say, how can we honor this?" Wiedmann called Matalas's “amazing, vast knowledge” of Trek music and shared enthusiasm for film scores "extremely helpful" and commended him on having such a clear direction on where to take things.
Of course, the entire score can't be samples and incorporations, Orchestras ranged from 70 to 82 players every session to produce the season's original music. Wiedmann called it a massive endeavor because everything had to be composed and recorded with them every two weeks. Barton had written four and a half hours of music for the first six episodes and was completely spent when Wiedmann was brought in.
Among what Barton composed includes themes for the USS Titan, the ship that Picard, played by Patrick Stewart and William Riker, played by Jonathan Frakes, commandeer to confront the enemy changelings threatening Starfleet; a family motif for Picard, Gates McFadden's Beverly Crusher, and their "mysteriously empowered" son Jack, played by Ed Speleers; and a darker-hued piece to set the tone for the conspiracy. Wiedmann is responsible for a seven-minute neoclassical piece for Amanda Plummer's villainous Vadic, as well as new Borg music and a motif for Jack and Picard. While brought on for three of the last four episodes, it almost didn't happen at all, because the email bringing him on went to spam. All in ,all it amounted to seven hours of music in four months, career peaks, and a high honor for both, as both grew up fans of the franchise.
Not only is Paramount+ the streaming home of all Star Trek series, with Picard being one of several original series in the franchise made for the service, but all the movies made within the continuity, from The Motion Picture to Nemesis, cycled their way back to Paramount+ on June 1 after stints on other streamers.
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