Picard spoilers follow.
Season two of Paramount+’s Picard is boldly going where no fan has gone before. Patrick Stewart’s Starfleet legend is back in action to save the day – just like all those years ago, aboard the Enterprise with Riker, Troi, Worf and all the rest. The show has proved to be a deep dive into Trekkie lore thanks to nods and Easter eggs galore, but now, it’s also bizarrely added Rick and Morty to Star Trek canon.
Apart from both being sci-fi shows where we explore strange worlds, there’s not much that connects the wild and foul-mouthed animated adventures of Rick and Morty with the largely grounded action of Picard or the rest of the Star Trek shows.
It’s only the comedic Star Trek: Lower Decks that shares any DNA with Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland’s adult animation, but as it turns out, they’re all part of the same twisted web.
In Picard‘s ‘Assimilation’, we went back to the future when Jean-Luc and his motley crew were blasted through a wormhole to 2024. A malfunction with Chris Rios’ (Santiago Cabrera) transporter meant he woke up in a facility for undocumented immigrants.
There’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reference where an irate mother scolds her son and says: “– or no Rick and Morty.” We’ve already seen Q meddling in the past, and instead of creating a new timeline, he’s directly altering the Prime timeline.
More than this though, the Rick and Morty nod has even bigger repercussions for the Trekverse. With Rick and Morty already commissioned for multiple seasons, we’re pretty sure the show will still be airing in 2024 anyway.
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Star Trek is known for its wild collaborations, and once there was even a comic-book crossover where Captain Kirk and co met the X-Men. Let’s also remember that Star Trek has been referenced in Rick and Morty, with Morty mocking the way that Michael Dorn’s Worf looks.
Channel 4
Confirmation that Rick and Morty exists in this world is even more mind-blowing and sets up a chicken-and-egg scenario. The creator of Lower Decks is Mike McMahan, who is known for his work as a writer and producer on Rick and Morty. Speaking to CinemaBlend, Picard executive producer Akiva Goldsman confirmed the connection to McMahan and explained: “It is. We are all one big, strange, bizarre Star Trek family, and whenever we can do that, we do.”
It further connects Picard, Rick and Morty and Lower Decks, thanks to the fact the latter was influenced by an episode of The Next Generation. 1994’s ‘Lower Decks’ left Picard and the rest of the officers behind to focus on four young Enterprise ensigns, serving as the premise for McMahan’s cartoon.
This isn’t the first time we’ve had our headcanon blown apart, with NASA’s real-life Enterprise shuttle appearing in the credits of the Scott Bakula-led Enterprise. The thing is, the shuttle wouldn’t have been named that if not for the popularity of Star Trek and fans campaigning to NASA to name a ship after the famed starship.
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We also know characters from Star Trek actually watch Star Trek. In an interview with Inverse, McMahan said, “People in Star Trek watch Star Trek,” citing the finale of Enterprise where Riker took part in a holographic recreation of an Enterprise adventure that happened 200 years before he was born.
Leaning into the idea that some adventures have been serialized for entertainment, McMahan added: “So, that was a big deal for me. It was very helpful.”
CBS
The season one finale of Lower Decks had Riker make a joke about watching “Archer and those guys” on the holodeck – as a nod to his divisive appearance in Enterprise. It’s an odd concept, a bit like Robert Pattinson’s Batman kicking back after a day of saving a rain-soaked Gotham to watch the Adam West series.
The Rick and Morty mention also feeds into the wild theory that Harmon and Roiland’s show itself is just a show that’s being watched on the popular Interdimensional Cable.
In some bizarre way, it makes it actually possible for Rick Sanchez to cross over into an episode of Lower Decks. Due to licensing, we doubt this will happen, but still, it’s a mind-boggling idea to conceive.
Finally, if you remember Rick and Morty was born as a parody of Back to the Future, does this also mean Doc and Marty’s time-hopping adventures exist in Star Trek canon? Considering Christopher Lloyd starred in 1984’s Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, that throws up problems of its own.
It could be time to go for a lie down in a darkened room.
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