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Did you catch the ’12 Monkeys’ Easter eggs in the latest episode of ‘Picard’?
The Star Trek universe is making some fun connections to an old SYFY series.
The mastermind behind SYFY’s 12 Monkeys series, Terry Matalas, is now calling the shots on the bridge of Star Trek: Picard. But thankfully, he’s not above a nice Easter egg nodding back to his days on the acclaimed SYFY original series.
The 12 Monkeys series was an adaptation of the acclaimed 1995 sci-fi film from director Terry Gilliam that starred Bruce Willis as a man sent into the past to try and avert a mysterious virus that leads to the apocalypse. The SYFY series that ran from 2015-2018 followed a fairly similar track, but built out its own mythology and mysteries along the way.
As for how all that connects to Picard on Paramount+? Matalas already staged a mini-reunion with the addition of Todd Stashwick as the gruff Capt. Shaw on the final season of Picard. Stashwick was a fan favorite in 12 Monkeys as the scavenger gang leader Deacon.
RELATED: Our favorite time travel shows, from ’12 Monkeys’ to ‘Timeless’
In the second episode of Picard’s third season, when they’re running down some known aliases of the renegade character Jack Crusher, the name “James Cole” pops up as one of his many identities. As 12 Monkeys fans are well aware, that’s also the name of the main time traveler in 12 Monkeys (with Aaron Stanford taking over the role from Bruce Willis in the small screen adaptation). Digging a bit deeper, a drug used in the outskirts in the galaxy is called a “splinter,” which is also the name of the time travel method used in 12 Monkeys.
But there was one more Easter egg you might’ve missed, even if you were looking closely for it. Stanford actually showed up in Episode 2 of Picard playing the Ferengi criminal Sneed. You could be forgiven for not realizing it was Stanford under all that makeup and prosthetics — but yes — he’s also made the jump over to the Star Trek universe as part of Matalas’ well-placed Easter egg hunt. Now we can’t wait to see what other little 12 Monkeys nods he’s going to sneak into this show as Picard’s third and final season keeps barreling ahead on Paramount+.
If you want to catch up on 12 Monkeys, you can find the entire series run streaming on Hulu, or the original film from Universal Pictures. If you're looking for deep space action in the vein of Trek, check out SYFY's latest original series, The Ark.
