Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Geordi La Forge
3. "Shards Of Night-Night"
When asked by a journalist from Gizmodo's io9 why he felt the time was right to return to Star Trek, LeVar Burton replied, "Terry Matalas"… twice. Burton then went on to praise Matalas for his openness to input from the actors on their character's development prior to Star Trek: Picard's third season.
In The Shuttlepod Show, Burton stated that the only character request he'd made of Matalas for Star Trek: Picard was to move away, as he put it, from the "hackneyed" trope that "the engineer is awkward around women." Burton wanted Geordi to have a healthy relationship and a family. Matalas and the writers certainly provided him with that in the best possible way. In an interview for Entertainment Weekly, Matalas revealed that he and Burton even shared a tearful moment over Zoom when they first discussed Geordi's arc for the season. Art then followed life as Burton's daughter, Mica Burton, was cast to play Alandra La Forge.
In March 2023, father and daughter appeared together on The View, hosted (in part) by none other than Whoopi Goldberg. 30-some years ago, Goldberg had given a baby Mica an embroidered cashmere blanket that came to be called "Night-Night." Symbolic, perhaps, of both the permanence and change that was balanced so brilliantly for all the TNG characters in Picard's third season, Mica still holds on lovingly to what is now the "shards of Night-Night."