'Star Trek: Picard': How Jean-Luc Picard's dog Number One got his name and why he is an Easter egg on the show
'Star Trek: Picard' took off on January 23 and wasted no time in explaining why the revered captain of Starfleet, Jean-Luc Picard, was cut off from all action and was living out the rest of his life in beloved France.
After a Romulan rescue mission went disastrously wrong, Picard lost faith in the Federation and believed that it didn't hold true to its ideals anymore. He returned to La Barre in France, with two Romulan staffers and his dog, Number One.
Why the name Number One?
Talking to Wil Wheaton on the show 'The Ready Room', series showrunner and Executive Producer Michael Chabon revealed that the new Number One was there from the beginning. "Pretty early on," Chabon said when asked when the choice was made to give him that name.
"As soon as the first draft was getting written I think it appeared at that point. It's meant to be...it's an Easter egg, and it's cute and charming, but there's something also kind of poignant about it, to me at least. He doesn't have a Number 1, those days are behind him," he shared.
"William Riker's long gone in his life and there's almost something sort of touching that he's trying to recreate in the form of a dog, which is not a bad thing to try to do. [There's] so much that he's lost, so much that he's left behind," he added.
As 'Star Trek: Next Generation' fans remember, Number One, is what Picard used to call William Riker, to emphasize his role as the Enterprise's First Officer.
While Picard's wounds about the disastrous Romulan mission haven't healed, there's a part of him that still holds on to his old glory days. Number One is also a symbol of all the pain and his yearning for past glories that Picard has carried around with him for the last two decades.
'Star Trek: Picard' airs on CBS-All Access on Thursdays.