Star Trek: Picard Season 2 – First Teaser Trailer Arrives And Goes Q
tar Trek: Picard Season 2 is a go, officially greenlit even before season 1 premiered.
This article is more than 2 years old
Star Trek: Picard has one season in the books and the 10-episode season has been overall well received. Now Star Trek: Picard Season 2 is a go, officially greenlit even before season 1 premiered.
At the time, CBS All-Access’ executive VP of originals Julie McNamara had this to say to The Hollywood Reporter, “The energy and excitement around the premiere of Star Trek: Picard has reached a magnitude greater than all of us at CBS All Access could have hoped for. We’re thrilled to announce plans for a second season before the series’ debut, and we are confident that Star Trek fans and new viewers alike will be captured by the stellar cast and creative team’s meticulously crafted story when it premieres on Jan. 23.”
Obviously it is no longer debuting on January 23rd. But we do have a teaser trailer for Star Trek: Picard season 2. Watch…
JOHN DE LANCIE RETURNS AS Q IN STAR TREK: PICARD SEASON 2
It’s official, John de Lancie will return as Q in Star Trek: Picard season 2. The announcement was made official during a video chat with de Lancie and Patrick Stewart on First Contact day. Here it is…
STAR TREK: PICARD’S RETURNING CAST
Either Sir Patrick Stewart will be back as Admiral Jean-Luc Picard or the show will be cancelled. There’s no middle ground here. Even though he’s 79-years-old the actor seems able to work and the production seems willing to work with the frailness of his age.
Santiago Cabrera seems like a lock to return as Chris Rios, captain of the La Sirena. Rios and his identical holograms were the real breakout new characters of the previous season, expect his role to be expanded in Star Trek: Picard season 2, if the show’s writers have any sense.
Isa Briones isn’t going anywhere, and she’ll be back as the android Soji. At the end of the previous season, Soji joined the crew of the La Sirena on a permanent basis. In season 2 she should be able to focus on simply playing Soji, instead of jumping between so many other roles for physically identical characters.
Michelle Hurd will most likely be back as Raffi Musiker in Star Trek: Picard season 2. The show seemed to figure out how to use her towards the second half of the season, dropping her bizarre drug-addiction plotline. Here’s hoping they stay on that path.
Alison Pill’s Dr. Agnes Jurati should be in a Federation rehabilitation facility for the criminally insane, but the last we saw of her in the season 1 finale she was sailing happily off into the sunset as a member of the La Sirena crew. Hopefully they won’t sweep under the rug the fact that she’s a murderer should her character return.
Evan Evagora was fun as Elnor in the previous season but the show never really figured out what to do with him. He’s likely to return for Star Trek: Picard season 2, though if they can’t figure out what his actual purpose is I’d rather have them drop him off at home with his nun-moms.
Jonathan Frakes as Riker and Marina Sirtis as Troi were great, but it’d be surprising to see them back in another season. Frakes is busy working as a successful television director these days and there really isn’t a lot more to do with Marina’s Deanna Troi at this point.
SEVEN OF NINE FOR SEASON 2
Jeri Ryan was not part of the regular Star Trek: Picard cast in season one. But at the end of the season all indications were that her Seven of Nine (aka Annika Hansen) had joined the La Sirena crew on a permanent basis. But, we haven’t really gotten an official confirmation that she’ll be back for Star Trek: Picard season 2.
So fans, eager to find out if they’re getting more Seven, went to Star Trek: Picard showrunner Michael Chabon and asked him if she’ll be back. Here’s what he said: “I can, but I’m not supposed to… I want to say yes, but people keep telling me not to. So, no... I hope that I don’t get in trouble for saying… yes. If I do get in trouble, it’s your fault!“
Though his answer starts out a bit confusing, it ends with a definitive yes. There’s a lot more to be done with her character, so take that yes and be happy.
NEW SHOWRUNNER FOR STAR TREK: PICARD SEASON 2
Terry Matalas is the named showrunner for Star Trek: Picard season 2. Matalas is best known for his work on the 12 Monkeys TV series. More recently he’s been the showrunner on the MacGuyver reboot.
But is he really the guy in charge? Akiva Goldsman, who has moved on from serving as one of Star Trek: Picard’s producers to serve as EP on the new show Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, recently made some comments which seem to indicate they all are basically subject to Patrick Stewart’s whims.
When asked how many seasons of Picard they’ll make Goldsman says, “I mean, I think we have discussed it as both a 3 season show, a 5 season show, a “let’s just keep going forever” show… But we certainly… Star Trek: Picard in my view will go as long as Patrick Stewart wants to do it… As I’m sure you know, he was not interested in coming back. And we did a lot of… really good collaborative story breaking and talking and you know and I think he’s particularly delighted in a good way about having come back. And we will rely on that good will until he feels he’s done.“
That was the problem with season 1. They went to Patrick Stewart with an idea for a show and he said no. Then he came back to them and laid out what he wanted the show to be and only agreed to do the show if they did what he wanted. His demands included, among other things, a requirement that he not ever wear a Starfleet uniform and that the story must be about the evils of Brexit (seriously he says that here). They agreed and the result was Star Trek: Picard season 1 which, even if you like it, you have to admit was sort of a mess storywise.
Now that mess seems doomed to repeat. The show’s creative team will go to Patrick Stewart with a story for Star Trek: Picard season 2, and he says yes or no. Then he he will tell them what they should do instead, and since his character’s name is on the show’s title, they have no choice but to say yes.
Patrick Stewart is a brilliant actor but he’s not a writer at all. He admits he’s never been in a writers room. He doesn’t even have a single “story by” credit on IMDB (though he should probably have one for Star Trek: Picard) let alone a writing credit. He has no business deciding what the story of a big-budget show like this should be.
Stewart is also completely unqualified as an expert on Star Trek. He has readily admitted in the past that he hasn’t seen most of the franchise. He recently told Jeri Ryan that he’s never seen a single episode of Voyager, for instance, even though he knew he’d be sharing the screen with her Seven of Nine character.
But here we are, with a Star Trek show’s story held hostage to the whims of a man who knows nothing about Star Trek and who has never had to come up with a story of any kind before, let alone a Star Trek one. Seen in that light, what we got in Star Trek: Picard season 1 makes a lot of sense. We can expect more of the same in Star Trek: Picard season 2, because if they don’t give Patrick Stewart what he wants, he’ll walk.
The showrunner position on Star Trek: Picard has been something of a mess since the beginning. When the show first went into development it didn’t have a showrunner, instead producer Alex Kurtzman was sort of in charge with a creative team of people actually running things.
Halfway through the season they realized that was a terrible idea and Michael Chabon was brought in to try and make sense of the mess they created. He did the best he could in a bad position but he won’t be back for Star Trek: Picard season 2 and Matals is taking over.
Chabon leaves with good vibes towards CBS. He wasn’t unhappy, he just got another job working on the adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, set up as a limited series for Showtime.
BOLDLY GOING INTO POLITICS
Patrick Stewart has an unprecedented amount of control over what happens in Star Trek: Picard season 2. He has final say over every aspect of the show, including what scripts they write and the stories they tell. It’s an unusual situation, particularly when you consider that Patrick Stewart has never before in his career been involved in any part of television production other than acting. But he’s the man navigating this starship and he’s particularly keen to steer it towards politics.
In a recent interview with The Ready Room he had this to say about the importance of his show…
“I always believed, and it was easier to bring this into the work back in the time of Next Generation. That what Next Generation was offering was hope. There will be a future and it will be better. There is that still I think the Star Trek world. But what we’re having to do now is to reflect; gently, subtly, not with a sledgehammer, the world that we are presently living in.
Star Trek always did that. Particularly in the last four or five seasons of The Next Generation, we did that. … With metaphor, we can compare the world of Star Trek to the present-day world. And we need to be doing that in this world because we are in some trouble. And it is the only people who can get us out of this trouble.”
Star Trek has indeed always addressed current events, but part of the show’s genius was that it never told people what to think or took a side. It simply presented situations with modern relevance and asked people to think. Patrick Stewart, however, seems to have a specific agenda he wants Star Trek: Picard to convey. He explains…
“I have little confidence in our politicians. I am talking about the UK as well as about the USA. It is people who are going to improve, how we live, where we live, and the safety in which we live. We’ve seen that recently with controversy over police violence and so forth. But it’s harder in Star Trek: Picard because our world is much more uncomfortable than it was at the time of Next Generation. Starfleet and the Federation, one could rely on 100%.
They were there. They were rock solid. Not so solid now it would seem. There have been shifts in all of that, as there have been shifts in our lives. I hope we can find ways that are not too heavy-handed whereby we can underline the fact that it is people themselves who can make the difference.”
It’s great at least that he wants them to avoid being heavy handed. However if they continue down this path in Star Trek: Picard season 2, it’s sure to be divisive in a way that previous Star Trek iterations were not.
STAR TREK: PICARD SEASON 2 RELEASE DATE
With Hollywood reeling from Coronavirus pandemic delays, we have no idea when season 2 will drop, much less when production will start. As that situation sorts itself out, we should know more. We can tell you it will be some time in 2022.
Like season one, Star Trek: Picard season two will get 10 episodes. Hopefully, they will strike the right pace and balance in season two. As always, season two will remain exclusively on the CBS All-Access platform which, at the moment, is allowing fans to stream Star Trek: Picard for free, all thanks to the man himself, Sir Patrick Stewart.
Jean-Luc’s Android Body
In the Star Trek: Picard season 1 finale Jean-Luc Picard died and had his consciousness copied into an android body. So the Jean-Luc we’ll see on screen in Star Trek: Picard season 2 is actually an android with Admiral Picard’s mind inside it. But apparently, Patrick Stewart doesn’t realize that’s what happened to his character.
In a recent interview with Gold Derby Sir Patrick had this to say about what happened to Jean-Luc: “Brilliantly and wonderfully, they were able to perform surgery on me in such a way that I survived and came back.” That’s not what happened. There wasn’t even an attempt at surgery and he did not survive. He died.
Stewart continues, “But, now with an artificial life inside me – not a subservient cruel one like the Borg, but we shall see.” That’s not right either. There is no artificial life inside him. He is INSIDE an artificial body but there is no artificial life running around inside him. He IS the artificial life.
Stewart further displays that he had no idea what was going on in the Picard season 1 finale saying, “We don’t know how Picard is going to live with this new condition which has become part of his life, which is going to extend his life.” It’s not a condition and it won’t exactly extend his life because he died. Additionally, the android body is programmed to die exactly when his flesh and blood body would have died so it won’t really abnormally extend his life.
There are two possibilities here: One, Patrick Stewart is getting up in years and it just a little confused. I find that pretty unlikely though, all signs point to him being sharp as a tack. Two, what they actually filmed and what the story became in editing are two entirely different things. That fits with what we know about the chaotic process of making the show. Probably Patrick filmed some stuff where they didn’t really tell him what was happening (because they didn’t know) and then they made it all sort of work at the last minute in editing.
So what effect will Jean-Luc Picard’s robot body have on Star Trek: Picard season 2? Given what a mess that entire idea was, here’s hoping none. As they’re doing with Narek, they must move on and pretend none of it ever happened.
Hey, What Happened To Narek?
Harry Treadaway played Narek in Star Trek: Picard season 1 and he was one of the primary castmembes on the show. In a bizarre oversight, Narek never got any kind of resolution in the first season of Picard. So, fans have been hoping that means he’ll show up in Star Trek: Picard season 2 so we can find out what happened to him. However, it looks like now we’ll never know.
Speaking with Gold Derby about Picard season 2, Sir Patrick Stewart had this to say: “We have a dazzling group of actors. No matter who I find myself playing a scene with, it is interesting, unusual, challenging, and always exciting. And every one of us is back. Well, I think we may have said goodbye to Harry Treadaway, which I am disappointed about because I enjoyed working with him so much.”
So Narek won’t be back and the show just sort of dropped his character midway through the finale. Last we saw him he was trying to help the good guys fight to stop the synths, but then he was never seen on screen again. Apparently, he was just a casualty of a really slipshod first season. Showrunner Michael Chabon admitted as much on social media saying, “Yeah. Narek. We know, we know. A casualty of the editorial process, alas. The intention was for him to be taken into Federation custody.”
OTHER NEW CAST FOR SEASON 2
Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan was a pivotal part of Jean-Luc’s character on TNG and Patrick Stewart wants her on Star Trek: Picard season 2. He made the invite live on television. Watch it…
WHAT SEASON 2 IS ABOUT
It’s hard to tell where Star Trek: Picard season 2 will venture off to. The conflict between the Romulans and Synths has been resolved. Jean-Luc’s angst over the death of Data has been resolved. The XB’s storyline seems to be pretty well wrapped up and they’ve been left to do… whatever it is they do with their time.
Basically Star Trek: Picard season 2 is starting from scratch here. Admiral Picard has a brand new android body and a brand new crew. They can go anywhere and do anything.
Michael Chabon was the showrunner for season one and while he will not be in the role for season 2, he still has some visibility on what the show is doing next. When asked where they’re taking Picard going forward he had this to say, “It’s going to be different in some way. It’s definitely going to go in directions that we didn’t see in Season 1. I think we’ve been emboldened in many ways by the popularity of the show. I’ve only done this once, but I would imagine it’s probably true for a lot of television shows especially in this era: Season 1 was in many respects about learning how to make Star Trek: Picard. Both in a production sense, but also in terms of storytelling and who our cast is, how these characters end up forming surprising links and attachments to each other.”
In fact Chabon is making the bold prediction that Star Trek: Picard season 2 will be the season where the show grows its beard. He says, “It’s in a way that I think was probably true back with TNG and what I was talking about — everyone agrees, once Riker grew the beard, the show got better. It was because they learned what they had. Going forward, we’re only going to be doing more of what we did, with greater confidence and with a greater sense of what this show feels like when it’s firing on all engines.”
STAR TREK: PICARD SEASON 2 COMMENTING ON THE PANDEMIC
In the past Star Trek: Picard’s team has been open about their desire to use the show to comment on current events. The biggest current event of 2020 is, without question, the coronavirus pandemic. So, you might be wondering whether they’ll work it in to Star Trek: Picard season 2.
Here’s what Patrick Stewart had to say when asked by CBC if they’d work a pandemic plotline into Picard season 2: “I would not encourage that. This is a disturbing and frightening and sad time for many thousands of people. I would feel feel uncomfortable if we were to make this a theme of the second season of [Star Trek: Picard]. It is too sensitive, too upsetting, too frightening, than some of the other issues that we have dealt with, which are much more of a political nature.”
That said, executive producer Akiva Goldsman has, at least, been thinking about it. He wrote a feature for Vulture on what it would be like if he did write a coronavirus episode for Star Trek: Picard season 2.
Here’s what Goldsman said it would be like…
“Admiral’s Log. The quarantine stretches on. Essential systems continue to fail. And though many of us are used to long periods of isolation, the prohibition on physical contact, not to mention our inability to leave the ship, is beginning to wear on even the most seasoned members of the crew. Remote communication flourishes — still I am reminded there is no substitute for a direct gaze or the reassurance of a friendly touch. I am emboldened by the crew’s resilience.
Despite the hardship, they continue to work their stations; productivity and routine can be an excellent balm on fear. And fear they do, how could they otherwise? The threat we face is real with no immediate end in sight. But that does not make it endless. On the contrary, this period of darkness will end, as surely as it began. Fear will fade to memory. We will survive, stronger, perhaps more aware of the profound connections we have always shared. And a time will come when we once again right this ship and sail forward together into the future, that bright unknown.”
ROMANCE FOR SEVEN AND RAFFI
Star Trek: Picard established earlier in the season that in the time since she left Star Trek: Voyager, Seven has apparently developed a preference for dating women. On Voyager she notably was supposed to end up with Chakotay, but there’s been no mention of him so far on Picard.
However it does seem that Seven of Nine will be in a new lesbian relationship with the Raffi in Star Trek: Picard season 2. Their blossoming relationship was teased at the very end of the Season 1 finale with this brief shot…
Unfortunately for Seven of Nine, it also looks like Raffi has started drinking again. That’s not going to end well.
THE FUTURE OF STAR TREK: PICARD
Even though the show has so far only had one season, word is that CBS is already working on developing a Star Trek: Picard movie. Part of their plan for all their current properties seems to involve moving in the direction of movies, so the idea that this would include Picard is no surprise.
What is a surprise is that it seems the idea revolves around Jean-Luc and his current crew teaming with members of the Next Generation cast, at least according to this report. If that’s what they’re doing, doesn’t that make this more of another Star Trek: The Next Generation movie than a Star Trek: Picard movie? And if that’s what they’re doing, they really should have found a way to resurrect Data rather than murdering him. I don’t want to imagine the Enterprise bridge without Data on it.
Early work has reportedly already begun on season 3. In fact, according to The Hollywood Reporter a writer’s room is already in place for both Star Trek: Picard seasons 2 and 3 and has been up and running for awhile now.
It has also been reported that Star Trek: Picard season 2 and 3 will be filmed back to back, this being based on the cast and crew’s production schedules and as a way to control the cost of the series.
In addition, there are plans underway to create some sort of crossover series involving cast members from Star Trek: Picard meeting up with the crew from Discovery. It’s called Star Trek: Crossover and we have the exclusive details on that here.
