Picard Teases The Real Origin Of Star Trek: TNG’s Enterprise Bar

Star Trek: Picard season 2 teases a different explanation behind the name of Enterprise-D’s Ten Forward bar. Whereas Star Trek: The Original Series scenes stuck to the bridge, engineering, sickbay, and those endless gray corridors with red handles, Star Trek: The Next Generation added a new key setting for Enterprise-D – a bar area. Devised by Gene Roddenberry for the purpose of mingling crew members in a more informal setting, Ten Forward became the Enterprise-D’s communal gathering place. Its name, logic dictates, comes from being located on Deck 10, forward section. We can only be grateful it wasn’t situated on Deck 8, rear section.

In Star Trek: Picard season 2’s premiere, Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc visits Whoopi Goldberg’s Guinan at her Los Angeles bar. Located in Forward Avenue Historic District, the establishment has a number 10 over the door, and viewers are left to assume this is Guinan’s poignant tribute to her time on the Enterprise. That’s certainly how Picard interprets the coincidence as he chuckles to himself wryly upon spotting the number. But while Guinan’s stint on the Enterprise-D’s Ten Forward looks to have influenced her bar on Earth, the opposite may be closer to the truth…

Hunting for The Watcher in 2024, Star Trek: Picard season 2 takes Jean-Luc to the very same drinking hole he visited in 2401… and he’s delighted to find a young Guinan running the place. Centuries before Goldberg’s character began tending the Ten Forward lounge in Star Trek: The Next Generation, therefore, she owned a bar on 10 Forward Avenue, Los Angeles. Picard, realizing the coincidence, places head in hands, motioning as if his mind has just been blown. Did Guinan’s original Earth bar somehow inspire the Enterprise’s Ten Forward?

One possibility is Guinan having a hand in naming Enterprise-D’s social hub. The setting first appears in Star Trek: The Next Generation season 2’s “The Child,” which is the same episode Guinan debuts, so it’s plausible she insisted the establishment be located on Deck 10’s forward section in homage to her roots upon joining Picard’s crew. Alas, that explanation doesn’t quite fit within Star Trek canon. Guinan boards the Enterprise in 2365, but when Picard mentions his welcoming ceremony in Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s series finale, Troi remembers, “There was a reception in Ten Forward.” Picard became captain of the Enterprise in 2364, the year before Guinan joined, so Ten Forward (the name included) predates her arrival.

More likely, then, the coincidence is some kind of temporal anomaly specific to Guinan’s El-Aurian biology. El-Aurians are a mysterious species in Star Trek lore, aging very slowly and suffering a unique sickness called Af-kelt whenever changes in the timeline occur. Since El-Aurians are so sensitive to time, it would make sense if small details subconsciously bled through. Maybe 2020s Guinan picked that specific gin joint in all the world because something deep down in her soul felt an affinity for the term “Ten Forward.” Though she couldn’t yet understand why, Guinan was compelled to purchase the property at 10 Forward Avenue over all the other places should could’ve bought instead.

While the temporal specifics are left deliberately vague, Q’s history-changing moment is still 3 days away, so Guinan’s bar in 2024 is definitely part of her canon Star Trek continuity. The only events erased at this point are those from Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s “Time’s Arrow,” since Q’s Confederation timeline means Picard and co. never traveled back to the 19th century (hence why Guinan’s younger self doesn’t recognize Jean-Luc in Star Trek: Picard season 2’s “Watcher”). Whether the Enterprise-D’s Ten Forward was named after Guinan’s previous bar, whether the link is down to El-Aurian temporal sensitivity, or whether the detail is nothing more than an inconsequential in-joke is largely left to the audience’s discretion.

Star Trek: Picard season 2 continues Thursdays on Paramount+.

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Craig Elvy
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Craig first began contributing to Screen Rant in 2016, several years after graduating college, and has been ranting ever since, mostly to himself in a darkened room. Having previously written for various sports and music outlets, Craig’s interest soon turned to TV and film, where a steady upbringing of science fiction and comic books finally came into its own.
Craig has previously been published on sites such as Den of Geek, and after many coffee-drenched hours hunched over a laptop, part-time evening work eventually turned into a full-time career covering everything from the zombie apocalypse to the Starship Enterprise via the TARDIS.

Since joining the Screen Rant fold, Craig has been involved in breaking news stories and mildly controversial ranking lists, but now works predominantly as a features writer.
Jim Carrey is Craig’s top acting pick and favorite topics include superheroes, anime and the unrecognized genius of the High School Musical trilogy.

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