Star Trek: Picard

In June 2018, after becoming sole showrunner of the series Star Trek: Discovery, Alex Kurtzman signed a five-year overall deal with CBS Television Studios to expand the Star Trek franchise beyond Discovery to several new series, miniseries, and animated series.[30] One of these new series was reported to star Patrick Stewart, reprising his role of Jean-Luc Picard from the series Star Trek: The Next Generation.[31][32] Kurtzman and Akiva Goldsman (who worked on the first season of Discovery) were attached to the project.[32] When CBS had first approached him about making more Star Trek series, Kurtzman included a series featuring Picard on his wish list as he believed the character was the greatest Star Trek captain.[3] This was despite Stewart having previously said that he did not want to return to the franchise.[14]

While developing ideas for the short form companion series Star Trek: Short Treks, Kurtzman and his team developed a story that would have featured Nichelle Nichols reprising her role from Star Trek: The Original Series as Uhura. The short would have seen a young Picard visit Uhura in hospital and receive a mission related to the Borg. The short did not move forward, but it led to discussions of a short starring Stewart as an older version of Picard.[33][34] The team soon decided that they had enough material to pitch a full series focused on the character to Stewart.[34] Kurtzman and Goldsman contacted the actor before January 2018 to discuss this idea, and met with him along with Discovery writer Kirsten Beyer at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.[3][34] Stewart took the meeting with the intention of turning the project down, but after Beyer convinced him to reconsider he agreed to read a four-page document outlining their ideas.[3][34] At that time, Goldsman invited novelist Michael Chabon, a friend, to work on the project as well and the four ultimately produced a 35-page document that they sent to Stewart.[3][34] Stewart asked to meet with the group again in March 2018, where he expressed his approval of their pitch.[3] Stewart said the pitch felt like "something very unusual, and I was intrigued".[35] While deciding whether to join the project, Stewart asked Kurtzman that the series be "so different" from previous Star Trek stories, "both what people remember but also not what they're expecting at all, otherwise why do it?"[3]

On August 4, 2018, Stewart made a surprise appearance at the annual Las Vegas Star Trek Convention to officially announce the series and confirm that he would star in it. He explained that after last portraying the character in the 2002 film Star Trek: Nemesis, he felt his role in the franchise "had run its natural course", but in the years since he was humbled by stories of the impact the character had on the lives of fans. He was now happy to bring back Picard's "comforting and reforming light [to] shine on these often very dark times". In addition to starring, Stewart was also set to executive produce the series alongside Kurtzman, Goldsman, Chabon, Discovery's James Duff, Heather Kadin of Kurtzman's production company Secret Hideout, and Rod Roddenberry (the son of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry) and Trevor Roth of Roddenberry Entertainment, with Beyer as supervising producer.[14]

The series was initially expected to premiere in 2019.[37] Kadin revealed in October that it was intended to be ongoing rather than a limited miniseries, and said that its release dates would not overlap with Discovery or any other new Star Trek series. Kurtzman added that the Picard series would be "its own thing",[38] later elaborating that where Discovery is "a bullet", the Picard series is "a very contemplative show" with its own rhythm and more of a real-world feeling.[39] CBS CCO David Nevins confirmed in December 2018 that the series was intended to debut on CBS All Access at the end of 2019, after the full release of Discovery's second season and several Star Trek: Short Treks shorts.[40] Stewart revealed a month later that the series would consist of 10 episodes, and reiterated that the intention was for it to continue for multiple seasons,[35] adding in February that "we are set up for possibly three years of this show".[41] A production listing in March gave the series' title as Star Trek: Destiny, which CBS had trademarked in 2018.[42] However, the official title was announced to be Star Trek: Picard at CBS's upfront presentation that May.[43] At that time, Kurtzman said the series was being "shepherded" by a larger creative team rather than having a traditional showrunner.[44]

Chabon was named sole showrunner in June, working on the day-to-day production with Kurtzman and Goldsman.[45] A month later, the series was scheduled to premiere in January 2020.[17] It was reported to have a budget of $8–9 million per episode.[46] In October, Kurtzman said a second season was "already in the works".[47] Chabon signed an overall deal with CBS Television Studios in early December to create several new series for the studio, which meant he would be exiting as showrunner of Picard in 2020. He remained an executive producer and writer for the series.[48] CBS officially announced the second season a month later and revealed that Terry Matalas had joined the series as an executive producer to fill the void that would be created by Chabon's departure.[49] Goldsman and Matalas took over as co-showrunners once Chabon left.[24] The series was also reported to have an informal green-light for a third season that would be developed at the same time as, and filmed back-to-back with, the second. This was to save costs and simplify scheduling,[49] and was officially confirmed in September 2021.[50] By then, CBS All Access had been expanded and rebranded as Paramount+.[51] Goldsman said the producers had discussed a three-season plan and a five-season plan for the series, but would ultimately keep making it as long as Stewart was happy to do so.[52] In February 2022, Goldsman confirmed that the third season would be the last.[53] Matalas served as sole showrunner for the third season.[10]

Kurtzman's mandate for the series was that it be a psychological character study about Picard in his "emeritus years". He noted that it was rare for a television series to star an actor of Stewart's age.[44] Goldsman said the series would not be a direct sequel to The Next Generation and would be more character-focused than that series, describing Picard as "slower, more gentle, more lyrical" than previous Star Trek stories.[17] He contrasted Picard with Discovery by describing the latter as a sci-fi action-adventure series while Picard is a sci-fi drama series that tells dramatic stories within an otherworldly setting.[5] Stewart was assured by the creative team that the series would not be "jokey",[35] and compared Picard to when he reprised his X-Men role of Professor X in the film Logan (2017), where he was the same character but the franchise's world and tone was "blown apart".[4]

Goldsman said each season tells a separate story, but he saw the three seasons as being "of a piece".[54] Matalas elaborated that the series was a three-part story about Picard, with each season exploring different aspects of the character. In addition to having different stories and themes, each season also has a different tone and visual approach,[55] making the series "a kind of an anthology" with each season following the respective visions of Chabon, Goldsman, and Matalas.[56] The first season finds Picard deeply affected by the death of his android colleague Data in Nemesis,[4] and Kurtzman saw it as a redemption story for the character, who must face the consequences of his choice to abandon Starfleet and the Romulans following the destruction of the planet Romulus in the film Star Trek (2009).[15] The second season continues to explore issues that come up in the last stage of a person's life, especially Picard's past relationships,[57] and other elements of his life that have been preventing him from moving forward.[55] Goldsman felt that the first season was about resurrection and the second season was about redemption,[58] while Matalas said the third season was designed to be a "send off" for Picard and the rest of Next Generation's main cast.[56]

Patrick Stewart reprises the series' title role from previous Star Trek media

With the series announcement in August 2018 came confirmation that Stewart would star as Picard.[14] At the start of March 2019, Santiago Cabrera and Michelle Hurd were both set to co-star in the series, with Cabrera being one of the most sought-after actors during the 2019 television pilot season and choosing this series over other offers.[59] Later that month, newcomer Evan Evagora was cast in another series regular role.[60] In April, Alison Pill, Harry Treadaway, and Isa Briones joined the cast.[61] Characters for the new cast members were announced in July, with Pill as Agnes Jurati, Cabrera as Cristobal "Chris" Rios, Hurd as Raffi Musiker, Treadaway as Narek, and Evagora as Elnor.[17] Briones portrays several androids, including Dahj and Soji Asha.[18]

While developing the series, the creative team discussed not bringing back any other characters from The Next Generation to allow Picard to stand alone and not become reliant on nostalgia. Part of this was to allow newcomers who had not seen the previous series to enjoy Picard. However, the writers wanted to be respectful to longtime fans of Star Trek and felt they were missing opportunities by not including certain characters, so they decided to add some returning guests who organically served the new story.[62] Several actors from previous Star Trek series were announced as guest stars for Picard in July 2019, including The Next Generation's Brent Spiner as Data, Jonathan Del Arco as Hugh, Jonathan Frakes as William Riker, and Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi, as well as Star Trek: Voyager's Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine.[17] In January 2020, Stewart said it was his hope that all of the main cast of The Next Generation would appear on Picard before the end of the series,[63] while Kurtzman said if Michael Dorn reprised his Klingon role Worf in Picard he would appear as he did in The Next Generation and not be changed to match the new Klingon designs in Discovery.[64] At that time, Whoopi Goldberg agreed to appear in the second season of the series as her The Next Generation character Guinan.[65]

In June 2020, the entire main cast of the series was confirmed to be returning for the second season, except for Treadaway.[66] In April 2021, Ryan, Spiner, and first season guest star Orla Brady were revealed to also be main cast members for the second season, with John de Lancie appearing in the season as his Star Trek character Q.[24] That July, Voyager's Robert Duncan McNeill revealed that he had been in discussions to reprise his role as Tom Paris in both seasons of the series, but scheduling conflicts had prevented this.[67] In April 2022, the main cast of The Next Generation were confirmed to be starring in the third season with Stewart: LeVar Burton as Geordi La Forge, Dorn, Frakes, Gates McFadden as Beverly Crusher, Sirtis, and Spiner.[10] Another Next Generation cast member, Wil Wheaton, appeared in the second-season finale, reprising his role as Wesley Crusher,[68] but did not return for the third season. After the second-season finale's release in May 2022, Ryan and Hurd confirmed that they had returned for the third season, but Cabrera, Pill, Evagora, and Briones did not.[69]

Several members of the design team from Star Trek: Discovery returned for Picard, including production designer Todd Cherniawsky and creature designer Neville Page of Alchemy Studios.[70][5] Christine Clark served as costume designer.[71] Acknowledging that the series would be set further in the future than any previous Star Trek film or series, Kurtzman explained that the production was aiming for a "grounded" approach rather than having things like "crazy floating skyscrapers and all the cliches of science fiction".[72] The opening title sequence was created by Prologue, the company that created the Discovery opening sequence.[73]

The series was filmed at Santa Clarita Studios, California, under the working title Drawing Room.[42] It received large tax credits from the California Film Commission for the production to take place in California, rather than in Toronto, Canada, where Star Trek: Discovery is filmed.[74] Filming for the first season took place from April to September 2019,[75][76] with location shooting around California, including at Sunstone Winery in Santa Ynez Valley to depict Picard's French vineyard,[77] at long-time Star Trek filming location Vasquez Rocks in the Sierra Pelona Mountains in Los Angeles County for Raffi's home,[78] and in the Malibu area for the planet Coppelius.[6]

Despite reports that the second and third seasons were intended to be filmed back-to-back,[49] the producers were just planning to film the second season on its own when the COVID-19 pandemic began to impact film and television productions in early 2020. Due to the scheduling requirements for the series, the subsequent pandemic-induced delays meant the second and third seasons did need to be filmed back-to-back.[79] Filming for the second season began in February 2021,[80] with some third-season scenes being filmed at the same time.[81] Location filming took place around Los Angeles for the second season, which is mostly set in that city during the year 2024.[82] Filming for the season ended in September, with the production then segueing fully into filming the third.[83] The two seasons had one of the largest television series crews at the time with more than 450 crewmembers.[84] Filming for the series wrapped in March 2022;[85] Stewart stated that continually filming the series for nearly 14 months was "thrilling and exciting much of the time", but also difficult for the actor who was in his 80s.[79]

Visual effects for the series are provided by Pixomondo,[86] DNEG,[87] Crafty Apes,[88] Ghost VFX,[89] Gentle Giant Studios, Technicolor VFX, and Filmworks/FX.[90] with Jason Zimmerman returning from Discovery as visual effects supervisor.[91] Pixomondo worked with the series' production design department to help flesh out their designs into 3D assets, and then shared those assets with the other vendors. For the first season, these digital models included the Borg Cube, La Sirena, and the Romulan ships.[89]

Star Trek: Discovery composer Jeff Russo was revealed to be composing the score for Picard in July 2019.[92] Russo's relationship with Star Trek began as a fan of The Next Generation, and he asked Kurtzman if he could work on Picard after seeing Stewart's announcement of the series at the Las Vegas Star Trek Convention. Russo wanted his music to remain truthful to previous Star Trek scores without repeating them, and especially wanted to avoid his music for Discovery. Russo felt that Picard was a more intimate story and wanted to take a more personalized approach by featuring more solo instrument performances than he did for Discovery.[93]

Russo wrote several iterations of the main theme for the series before settling on a more emotional and stirring version.[93] It is bookended with a piccolo, which Russo felt sounded similar to the fictional Ressikan flute that Picard played in the Next Generation episode "The Inner Light".[94][93] The second season features an "up-tempo rearrangement" of the main theme.[7] Additionally, Russo used Jerry Goldsmith's theme from Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) to connect to The Next Generation, as that series used Goldsmith's theme for its main title, and he also referenced Alexander Courage's original Star Trek theme to "evoke the idea of Star Trek in general".[93] A soundtrack album for the first half of the first season was released on February 7, 2020,[95] followed by an album for the full season on April 3.[96][97] An album for the second season was released on April 29, 2022.[98]

Stephen Barton replaced Russo as composer for the third season, after working with Matalas on the series 12 Monkeys.[99] They took inspiration from the work of Goldsmith and James Horner for the Star Trek films.[56] Craig Huxley contributed performances on the blaster beam, an instrument that he invented and previously played on the soundtrack of The Motion Picture.[100]

A week after the series premiere, CBS said that Picard had set a new record for the total streams of a CBS All Access original series by its subscribers, with 115 percent more total streams than the previous record set by Star Trek: Discovery. CBS also partly attributed the premiere of the series for the month of January 2020 breaking the service's record for the most new subscribers in a month, helped by the week of Picard's premiere being the second-most new subscribers in a single week for the service.[108]

Star Trek: Picard has an 86% approval rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes,[113] while Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, has assigned a score of 75 out of 100 based on reviews from 34 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[114]

For the first season, Rotten Tomatoes reported an 87% approval score with an average rating of 7.6/10 based on 253 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Anchored by the incomparable Patrick Stewart, Picard departs from standard Starfleet protocol with a slower, serialized story, but like all great Star Trek it tackles timely themes with grace and makes for an exciting push further into the final frontier."[109] Metacritic assigned a score of 76 out of 100 based on reviews from 27 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[110] Rotten Tomatoes reported a 85% approval score for the second season, with an average rating of 7.95/10 based on 94 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Picard gets some backup from franchise fan favorites in a sophomore season that charts a course towards recapturing more of the classical Star Trek spirit and makes it so."[111] Metacritic assigned a score of 69 out of 100 based on reviews from 7 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[112]

In September 2019, CBS announced a novel written by frequent Star Trek author Una McCormack to be published by Simon & Schuster in February 2020. Titled The Last Best Hope, the novel introduces several characters from the first season and leads directly into its events.[129] A three-issue comic book titled Star Trek: Picard – Countdown was also set to be released beginning that November by IDW Publishing. Written by Mike Johnson and Picard supervising producer Kirsten Beyer,[129] the comic is set in 2385, and depicts Admiral Picard's actions during the evacuation of Romulus.[130] A second novel, Dark Veil by James Swallow, was published in January 2021 and follows Riker and Troi aboard the USS Titan a year after Picard retires from Starfleet.[131] Rogue Elements by John Jackson Miller was released in August 2021 and tells the backstory of Cristóbal Rios.[132]

Another three-issue comic by Johnson and Beyer, Star Trek: Picard – Stargazer, is set between the second and third seasons. Published by IDW beginning in August 2022, it features art by Angel Hernandez and tells a story in which Picard returns to helm the USS Stargazer.[133] McCormack's second Picard novel, Second Self, centers on Raffi Musiker between the first and second seasons.[134] It is set to be released in September 2022.[135]

In January 2020, CBS All Access announced that The Next Generation actor Wil Wheaton would host a new season of the Star Trek aftershow The Ready Room, to stream after the release of each Picard episode. Wheaton replaced Naomi Kyle, who hosted the series for its first run after episodes of Discovery's second season.[136]

After the series premiere on January 23, 2020, Deadline Hollywood released the first episode of the Star Trek: Picard Podcast, a weekly podcast sponsored by CBS All Access and hosted by Deadline's senior editor Dominic Patten and genre editor Geoff Boucher. Each episode of the podcast features interviews with the series' cast and creative team.[137]

Simon & Schuster announced an audio-exclusive story, titled No Man's Land, in January 2022. Written by Kirsten Beyer and Mike Johnson, the story is set after the series' first-season finale and follows the characters Raffi and Seven of Nine, with Michelle Hurd and Jeri Ryan reprising their respective roles from the series. Fred Tatasciore, John Kassir, and John Cutmore-Scott also star in the drama, which was released on February 22, 2022.[138]

When the first season of the Discovery companion series Star Trek: Short Treks was being released in December 2018, CBS CCO David Nevins said there would be more shorts released before the premiere of Picard.[40] In February 2019, Kurtzman said future shorts could tie directly into series other than Discovery.[139] At San Diego Comic-Con 2019, Kurtzman announced that the second season of Short Treks would include a "teaser" for Picard set 15 years before the start of the series.[140] Titled "Children of Mars", the short was released on January 9, 2020, and depicts the synthetic attack on Mars from Picard's backstory from the perspective of two school children.[141][142]

In January 2022, Goldsman said there were elements of Picard that could be explored more in a spin-off series, and Matalas expressed interest in continuing to explore the time period of the series beyond its three seasons. He added that, in his opinion, "Star Trek: Picard is the present day of Star Trek. And what's going on in that particular world is very important to me."[143] In May, Matalas said he was "spearheading" the idea of a spin-off series starring Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine and Michelle Hurd as Raffi, with both actresses also expressing interest in the idea.[144]