CBS All Access
Patrick Stewart is going where no Starfleet captain has gone before: into his very own series decades after wrapping up his original Star Trek run. And he'll have a furry companion.
Star Trek: Picard is a CBS All Access streaming show. It follows on the heels of Star Trek: Discovery, but the two series take place at very different points in the Trek universe.
A new trailer and release date are expected Saturday out of San Diego Comic-Con. There, a detailed Picard exhibit called Jean-Luc Picard: The First Duty lets conference-goers get up close with original Starfleet uniforms and classic artifacts tracing his life.
A teaser trailer beamed in on May 23, giving us an early hint at what's to come. We find out Jean-Luc Picard, who was promoted to admiral, led a rescue armada on a mysterious mission 15 years prior to the show's events. He then left Starfleet, leaving us to wonder what prompted his exit and why he's reappearing now.
CBS first revealed the official Star Trek: Picard name on May 15 and posted a look at the show's shiny new logo. The Starfleet logo takes the place of the "A" in Picard. (Disclosure: CBS is the parent company of CNET.)
A pupper for Picard
Stewart and CBS revealed the key art for the show on July 10, just ahead of the star's scheduled appearance at Comic-Con.
CBS' version teases the Comic-Con appearance with a GIF sweeping in on Picard wearing a long jacket, looking out over a field of grape vines with a dog at his side. Stewart tweeted out a poster version of the same visual.
The dog is particularly notable. It appears to be a pit bull or bully mix. Zoom in on its ears. They may have been cropped, but they also look a lot like pointy Vulcan ears. Stewart is known for his work fostering rescue dogs. His most recent foster, Emma, is a pit mix with cropped ears.
Stewart shared a photo of Emma along with his hidden Picard rehearsal script in April. The dog in the poster sports a Starfleet emblem tag on its collar. Here's hoping it's named "Pupper One."
Revisiting Jean-Luc Picard
Stewart has a long history with the Star Trek franchise. He first warped into the iconic role of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise with the debut of Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987. That means Stewart will be back in Picard's shoes more than 30 years after originating the role. He last appeared on screen as Picard in the 2002 movie Star Trek: Nemesis.
He's been plenty busy in the meantime, continuing his role as Professor X in the X-Men movies, up through a farewell performance in 2017's Logan. He has a lot of voice acting credits to his name, including Poop in The Emoji Movie. Fans will be able to catch him in theaters as Bosley in a new 2019 version of Charlie's Angels.
Stewart announced the new Picard series in August 2018 at the Official Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas. He called his return "an unexpected but delightful surprise" and said he hopes "to research and experience what comforting and reforming light [Picard] might shine on these often very dark times."
Who's making Picard?
Stewart is doubling as an executive producer along with Alex Kurtzman, the creator of Star Trek: Discovery. Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon is on board as an executive producer and writer. Chabon described Picard as "the hero we need right now."
Stewart shared a behind-the-scenes photo in September 2018 from a Picard meeting where he's sitting with Chabon and other members of the show's production staff. Stewart has been involved with the writing for the show from early on.
Hanelle Culpepper will make history as the first woman to launch a new Star Trek television show. Culpepper signed on to direct the first two episodes. She has an extensive TV resume, which includes Star Trek: Discovery, The Flash and Gotham.
Jonathan Frakes, who Trek fans know as TNG's Commander Riker, has a long career as a director that includes multiple Star Trek franchise entries on both the big and small screens. He revealed he would be directing some episodes of the new series. Frakes posted a photo of himself with Stewart to Twitter on May 21 and tagged Star Trek on CBS.
The Picard plot
CBS and Stewart had kept pretty quiet on the details of the show's plot until the teaser trailer arrived. We already knew it takes place around two decades after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis.
The teaser lays out a big plot point when a voiceover says Admiral Picard led a rescue armada that "led us out of the darkness" 15 years before the series picks up. It asks the questions: what did it cost him and why did he leave Starfleet? That's a huge cliffhanger to contemplate ahead of the show's debut.
James Dimmock/CBS
The teaser starts in a vineyard, which is a callback to the final TNG television episode in 1994, All Good Things that showed one possible future Picard working in a vineyard in France. That Picard had become an ambassador. We know the Picard in the new show was promoted to admiral at some point.
A poster for the series shows a vineyard with the Starfleet logo formed out of grapevines along with the catchphrase "The end is only the beginning."
Chances are good all of this ties into the Romulans. "Picard's lRead More – Source
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