Robert Picardo shares surprising reaction on returning to the 'Star Trek' franchise

In Star Trek: Voyager, Robert Picardo portrayed The Doctor, an emergency medical hologram. Now, 25 years later, he reprised his role in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.

At first, the actor recalls his reaction to the offer was surprise. “I would say it was very unexpected — I thought it was a mistake!” he tells PEOPLE.

Earlier, he reprised his role, though in voice only, in an episode of animated Star Trek: Prodigy in 2024. So when the phone rang, he expected a similar role in that capacity.

“They called back and said, ‘No, it's live-action,’” the star remembers. “And then I was really confused! And then my agent, my theatrical agent, [said], ‘Yeah, they want to talk to you about being in the new Star Trek series.’

“Those first three or four weeks waiting for that meeting were really the strangest, that part of knowing they're interested but not knowing what it was,” Picardo continues. 

“And then they laid out the idea they had for the character and how he would fit in and what he would be doing in the future: teaching cadets at a newly reopened Starfleet Academy.”

Picardo also recounts his stunning reaction to the new show Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, based nearly 1,000 years in the future.

“It's mind-blowing,” he admits. “I said to them, 'Wait a minute, you mean I have 800 years of digital memory — perfect clarity — so that an event that happened 792 years and 112 days and this many hours and minutes ago, that moment was not only recorded in here."

'But it was as clear as something that happened yesterday?' [They said], ‘Yep, that's what it means.’ I said, ‘Alright, I'll start trying to wrap my mind around that now!’

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is streaming on Prime Video and Paramount+.