--- name: "Terry Matalas" canonical: "https://film.one/person/terry-matalas" fi1m_id: "terry-matalas" imdb_id: "nm0558052" tmdb_id: 1252001 wikidata_id: "Q64853354" roles: ["Director","Writer","Producer"] born: "11 December 1975" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_as: "director" average_over: 1 updated: "2026-09-26T14:56:25.712496+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Terry Matalas ## Identity Terry Matalas - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/terry-matalas - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** terry-matalas - **IMDb ID:** nm0558052 - **TMDB ID:** 1252001 - **Wikidata ID:** Q64853354 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Matalas, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q64853354, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0558052/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1252001 Director and writer. Born 11 December 1975 in New Jersey, USA. ## Details - **Work:** Director, Writer, Producer - **Born:** 11 December 1975, New Jersey, USA - **Active:** 2020–present - **Frequently works with:** [Christopher Monfette](https://film.one/person/christopher-monfette.md), [Cindy Appel](https://film.one/person/cindy-appel.md), [Matt Okumura](https://film.one/person/matt-okumura.md) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Matalas, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q64853354, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0558052/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1252001 ## Coming up - *VisionQuest* (2026-10-14), Executive Producer — [page](https://film.one/tv/visionquest.md) - *VisionQuest* (2026-10-14), Director ## Streaming the US now - **Apple TV:** [*Star Trek: Picard*](https://film.one/tv/star-trek-picard.md) (64) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Terry Matalas > Terry Matalas makes science fiction for people who already know the ship. He keeps the time travel tidy and the old crew in frame, and his third season of *Star Trek: Picard* is fond, well made and the least ambitious of the three. In the third season of *Star Trek: Picard* (2023), Jeri Ryan's Seven of Nine finally gets a Starfleet uniform and a chair on the bridge, Ed Speleers walks aboard as Jack Crusher, and Stephen Barton's score leans hard on the old Goldsmith theme. That is Terry Matalas's method in a single sequence. He works out what people who have watched a thing for decades have been waiting for, and he hands it to them, tidily, with the lights on. He came up through the franchise, in production jobs on *Voyager* and *Enterprise* and then story credits on *Enterprise*'s third season (2003), before writing for *Terra Nova* (2011) and *Nikita* (2012–13). The show that made his name was *12 Monkeys* (2015–18), which he co-created and ran with Travis Fickett and also directed, turning a 1995 film into four seasons of time travel that held together. His rule for the writers' room was that if a plot needed a timeline drawn on a whiteboard it was out, and it shows: he keeps the mechanics simple so the feeling can carry the weight. A season of *MacGyver* (2020) followed, then *Picard*, as co-showrunner for the second season (2022) and sole showrunner for the third, on which he wrote and directed the finale. That third season is the one most critics prefer, and we liked it too. It is fond and well made, and we liked it; Ryan had been the best thing in the series after Stewart for two years, and it was a relief to see her at last given a uniform and a chair. But it is also the least ambitious of the three seasons. The first asked what a synthetic person is owed and what Starfleet had turned into; Matalas's season flies a familiar ship down familiar corridors and says nothing further about either question. The reservation about *12 Monkeys* in its early going was that the people were thin and the dialogue too earnest, and it is a reservation we would carry over. Matalas is a builder of plots that close and reunions that land. He is less interested in characters who do not already have a history to honour, and the history, so far, has always been someone else's. Next is *VisionQuest* (2026) for Marvel, which he has created and will write and direct, and which concludes a trilogy connected to *WandaVision*. So: another set of characters the audience already loves, another ending to be got right. He will get it right. We would like, once, to see what he does with a ship nobody has heard of. ## Biography Terry Matalas is an American television writer, director and producer. He attended Emerson College, where he met frequent collaborator Travis Fickett. He began his career as a production associate on Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise, for which he also wrote stories. Matalas co-created and showran the series 12 Monkeys (2015–18). He was showrunner on the fourth season of MacGyver (2020) and on the second and third seasons of Star Trek: Picard (2022–23), writing and directing episodes of the latter. He is creator, writer and director of the series VisionQuest (2026). *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, memory-alpha.fandom.com.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *Star Trek: Picard* (2020), Fi1m 64, Director, Executive Producer, Writer — [page](https://film.one/tv/star-trek-picard.md) ## Complete filmography (13) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *VisionQuest* (2026), series, Executive Producer, Writer, Director, Creator — coming soon, [page](https://film.one/tv/visionquest.md) - *VisionQuest* (2026), Director - *Star Trek: Picard - The IMAX Live Series Finale Event* (2023), Director, Writer, Executive Producer - *Star Trek: Picard* (2020), series, Executive Producer, Writer, Director — Fi1m 64, [page](https://film.one/tv/star-trek-picard.md) - *Nightflyers* (2018), series, Teleplay - *Blood Drive* (2017), Co-Producer - *MacGyver* (2016), series, Writer, Executive Producer, Story - *12 Monkeys* (2015), series, Teleplay, Writer, Director, Executive Producer, Creator - *Terra Nova* (2011), series, Writer - *Nikita* (2010), series, Writer - *Star Trek: Enterprise* (2001), series, Story - *Enemy Mine*, Writer - *Magic: The Gathering*, series, Executive Producer ## Gallery - ![Photography by Dennys Ilic (2024)](https://film.one/media/person/95921/gallery-259d944a3b54.jpg) Photography by Dennys Ilic (2024) — Dennys Ilic, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c2/Terry_Matalas.jpg/1280px-Terry_Matalas.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Terry Matalas](https://film.one/media/person/95921/gallery-4ccad30997c1.jpg) Terry Matalas — Kevin Paul, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/89/Terry_Matalas_at_53rd_Saturn_Awards_2026-01.jpg/1280px-Terry_Matalas_at_53rd_Saturn_Awards_2026-01.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Terry Matalas at GalaxyCon Columbus in 2023](https://film.one/media/person/95921/gallery-46d062a2797a.jpg) Terry Matalas at GalaxyCon Columbus in 2023 — Super Festivals from Ft. Lauderdale, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Terry_Matalas_%2853371313511%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Terry Matalas at GalaxyCon Raleigh in 2023](https://film.one/media/person/95921/gallery-4bfa72c34b41.jpg) Terry Matalas at GalaxyCon Raleigh in 2023 — Pedro Heshike for Galaxy Con, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/Terry_Matalas_%2853189690149%29.jpg/1280px-Terry_Matalas_%2853189690149%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Terry Matalas](https://film.one/media/person/95921/gallery-7906092c7cef.jpg) Terry Matalas — Image via TMDB - ![Galaxy Con Raleigh 2023](https://film.one/media/person/95921/gallery-63083bcd62c2.jpg) Galaxy Con Raleigh 2023 — John Manard, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Terry_Matalas_%2853114335966%29.jpg/1280px-Terry_Matalas_%2853114335966%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Terry Matalas at GalaxyCon Columbus in 2023](https://film.one/media/person/95921/gallery-e4f39eb3bd22.jpg) Terry Matalas at GalaxyCon Columbus in 2023 — Super Festivals from Ft. Lauderdale, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Terry_Matalas_%2853373372279%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/terry-matalas