New Star Trek series: 10 Characters who could return with Patrick Stewart

Guinan played by Whoopi Goldberg

With the new series centering on Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard, no other ancillary character from Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG forthwith) is as significant to what Picard became than Whoopi Goldberg’s Guinan.

The Yoda to Picard’s Luke, the character of Guinan acted as a spiritual (and also trans-dimensional) being who, through the course of the series, provided Picard with sage advice and creative solutions to tricky Captain-of-a-starship problems. Guinan’s wisdom helped Picard through difficult periods of his life, like that time he was kidnapped and ‘brainwashed’ into becoming Locutus of Borg or through the Enterprise’s various encounters with another non-human entity Q. More on him later.

Picard & Guinan’s relationship also pre-dates most others in the Star Trek universe, having first met back in the 19th Century in a time travel episode.

Whoopi Goldberg has been a lifelong Trek fan, having talked her way into being Guinan in the first place. Goldberg also wanted to make a cameo in the new Star Trek: Discovery, however, those plans didn’t materialize. Adding her to the cast of the new show, even in a briefly limited capacity, would be a great nostalgic throwback, but also be able to move the show forward by having this existing dynamic between the characters factor into the new storylines.