Warning! The following contains SPOILERS for the Star Trek: Picard episode "Bounty." Read at your own risk!
Star Trek: Picard made a ton of references in the episode "Bounty," but few were as exciting as the reappearance of the classic villain from The Next Generation, Moriarty. Actor Daniel Davis reprised his role for a brief scene and was kind enough to speak to CinemaBlend about returning to the character after decades away.
I spoke to Daniel Davis about his return as Moriarty and learned that even he didn't fully understand it until a couple of days before we spoke. Davis explained what all went down after he agreed to return and how he wasn't entirely sure what was happening with the character in Star Trek: Picard all throughout filming:
All I saw were the pages that I was on, and I read the scene and thought, Well, this is not exactly the Moriarty from Next Gen.’ It’s a different take on it…So by the time I got to L.A. I still didn’t have a complete script, and I didn’t know what happened after my scene and what I was doing, really…It made sense to me after I saw it, but not so much sense to me when I was doing it. But somehow or another it worked out ok.
As mentioned, Daniel Davis finally got a chance to see the episode and learned that his Moriarty was actually a clue provided to Riker from Data, who was in the facility. Davis definitely had a greater appreciation for the scene and what it was trying to accomplish compared to when he filmed the Star Trek: Picard scene without any context.
For those who don't remember, Moriarty was a hologram program based on the Sherlock Holmes character created to challenge Data. In “Elementary, Dear Data,” Moriarty became self-aware, and Picard promised to find a way for him to live outside of the holodeck.
Moriarty returned in Star Trek: The Next Generation's “Ship In A Bottle" upset that Picard lied about finding a way to remove him from the holodeck. That actually wasn't true, but the villain couldn't be convinced otherwise. The crew then had to trick Moriarty into believing he'd left the Enterprise, but in actuality, he was trapped in a simulation within a simulation, which was contained inside a memory module.
Daniel Davis admitted that, prior to receiving his scene, his mind was buzzing with possibilities about what his Star Trek: Picard arc might be about. The actor talked about the storyline he'd hoped to be a part of, which would've tied back to his story in The Next Generation:
I created my own little scenario in my head about what the episode might be about. My hope, or what I fantasized, was that there would be some sort of resolution between Picard and I about the fact that he does not break promises. And he promised he would find a way to get me off the holodeck, and he never did. So, I thought, ‘Ok, the whole Star Trek: Picard series is about revisiting his mistakes from the past and blah blah blah,’ But that was in my mind.
Daniel Davis didn't get the reunion with Patrick Stewart that he hoped for, and I'm sure there are a few who watched with their Paramount+ subscription who felt the same way. Unfortunately, Jean-Luc Picard was elsewhere working on a rescue plan to save Riker, Worf and Raffi, so there wasn't an opportunity for the two to meet. Of course, it wouldn't have really mattered if they did, because again, this wasn't the actual Moriarty.
While Daniel Davis didn't get the chance to properly reprise his role, he's certainly open to the possibility if it presents itself in the future. Davis mused about the possibility of appearing in another upcoming Star Trek series or even another season of Picard if that's in the cards:
Even though it’s supposedly the final season of Star Trek: Picard and Patrick has said in one place that he’s done with Picard and another place he says, “Never say never,” there’s always a possibility. One of the producers said to me Moriarty is one of those characters who can show up anywhere. And so, there’s so many incarnations of Star Trek right now. I might pop up on Strange New Worlds! What could be more strange than that?
I would've pointed out that it'd be hard for a holodeck character to make an appearance in the TOS era of Star Trek, but Daniel Davis does have a point. Hell, Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds are having a crossover in the upcoming season, so is it really that hard to believe something like this could happen?
More realistically, it seems far more likely we'd see Davis on one of the other shows or even a Picard spinoff. While there isn't anything definitive in the works at the moment, there are plenty of folks in the cast campaigning to see the story continue past this. There are definitely more stories to tell if it does, but we'll just have to wait and see.
Catch new episodes of Star Trek: Picard Thursdays on Paramount+. With the season officially past the halfway point, now is as good of a time as any to revisit the best episodes so far and speculate where the rest of this season is headed.
