It’s been 17 years since they last served on the Enterprise together but Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes have finally reunited for the production of Star Trek: Picard, the much-anticipated return of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. While Frakes won’t be reprising his role as Cmmdr. Riker on the series, he will be serving as director for one block of episodes which has allowed him to share some time with his old Next Generation co-star.
Frakes took to Twitter this week to post a snap of himself and Stewart, along with the caption: “Back on the floor w[ith] this guy.” This tells us that Frakes is just beginning work on the second block of Picard‘s first season, after Hanelle M. Culpepper kicked off the series for its first two episodes. You can see the photo that’s sent fans into a meltdown on social media – Frakes’ post has currently racked up over 31,000 likes – in the gallery below:
Obviously, the sight of Stewart and Frakes together makes us want to see Picard team up with his former first officer in front of the camera as well in the new show. As far as we know though, this is unlikely, as the series will be very much its own thing and move the titular character far away from his TNG days. Frakes has previously directed episodes on both Star Trek: Discovery seasons 1 and 2 as well, so it’s not like his hiring suggests he’ll appear on the show.
Producer Alex Kurtzman has said that Picard – whose title was only finally revealed last week – will be more of a “psychological” story than Discovery and a “character study” about Jean-Luc and where he is now. Chronologically, we know Picard follows on from the destruction of Romulus in the opening of 2009’s Star Trek.
Aside from that, details have been hard to come by, but Star Trek: Picard will likely hit CBS All Access, and Amazon Prime for the rest of the globe, in early 2020.