At long last, we finally have some concrete info about the much anticipated new Star Trek series which will center on Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard. It’ll be the beloved actor’s first time playing the Enterprise-D captain since 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis and understandably, the Trek fandom went nuts when it was revealed that the iconic character was making a return back in the summer.
Now, Entertainment Weekly’s caught up with executive producer Alex Kurtzman to get the scoop on the upcoming show. Among other things, he was quick to stress that this will be a whole different beast than Star Trek: Discovery, saying:
“It’s an extremely different rhythm than Discovery. Discovery is a bullet. Picard is a very contemplative show. It will find a balance between the speed of Discovery and the nature of what Next Gen was but I believe it will have its own rhythm.”
Following that, he briefly outlined the premise, explaining that the show will answer many of the questions fans have about Picard.
“Without revealing too much about it, people have so many questions about Picard and what happened to him, and the idea we get to take time to answer those questions in the wake of the many, many things he’s had to deal with in Next Gen is really exciting. ‘More grounded’ is not the right way to put it, because season 2 of Discovery is also grounded. It will feel more … real world? If that’s the right way to put it.”
Finally, when asked where they were in the production process, Kurtzman revealed that about eight episodes have been written so far, saying:
“The writer’s room has broken about eight episodes and we’re moving quickly and I couldn’t be more excited about it.”
Unfortunately, the producer couldn’t spill much more than that, but Stewart himself offered an intriguing tease back in the summer, hinting that Picard may not even be a Captain when we catch back up with him.
“He may not be a Captain anymore,” the actor said. “He may not be the Jean-Luc that you recognize and know so well. It may be a very different individual.”
That’s certainly intriguing, but since it seems like CBS is playing this one pretty close to the vest – no title, no release window… nada – we don’t imagine too many more details about Patrick Stewart’s Star Trek return will emerge until early 2019. As always, though, watch this space for more.
