What is Star Trek: Picard?
Star Trek: Picard is a new Star Trek TV series: the second of recent years following Star Trek: Discovery. It follows a surprise new adventure for Star Trek: The Next Generation's (now much older) Jean-Luc Picard, still played by Patrick Stewart.
"Patrick threw down an amazing gauntlet," says showrunner Alex Kurtzman. "He said, 'If we do this, I want it to be so different, I want it to be both what people remember but also not what they're expecting at all...'"
When is Star Trek: Picard set?
Star Trek: Picard takes place in the late 24th century, twenty years after 2002 film Star Trek: Nemesis. Canonically, this will be the first time we've encountered Captain Jean-Luc Picard since we left him walking the corridors of the Enterprise-E at the end of that film. Dozens of tie-in novels and comics have continued his story in the intervening years, but if you're familiar with those you'll need to put them from your mind. Picard's post-Nemesis future officially starts here.
We also glimpsed a possible Picard future in The Next Generation's finale, All Good Things. That episode ended with present-day Picard making some personal changes, however, so we already knew his subsequent life was going to play out differently. There shouldn't be any contradiction there. It'll actually be what's the same that's interesting. He eventually did retire to that French vineyard, for example. But he didn't grow a beard.
What is Star Trek: Picard's story?
Officially there's been no synopsis or detailed premise, but it's possible to put together a few bits and pieces. Trek honcho Alex Kurtzman has said that Star Trek: Picard finds its title character "radically altered by the dissolution of the Romulan Empire". Picard's history with Romulus is a long one, encompassing attempts to reunify the rogue nation with Vulcan (see the Next Generation episode Unification), and that business with the Romulan-created terrorist Picard clone (Tom Hardy's character in Nemesis). As revealed in the 2009 Star Trek, Spock ultimately failed to prevent Romulus' complete destruction, meaning a significant portion of Picard's life's work ended in massive disaster.
There's also the business of Picard's ongoing PTSD having been assimilated by The Borg in The Next Generation's The Best of Both Worlds double-episode (and subsequent Borg encounters on TV and in First Contact). The first trailer for Star Trek: Picard shows a Romulan facility where imprisoned Borg are apparently being experimented on, and a battle-damaged – captured? – Borg cube surrounded by Romulan warbirds. Whatever the surviving Romulan Empire is up to, it's clearly not good. Picard, it seems, is drawn out of retirement to intervene, even if he has to do so without Starfleet's approval. And the catalyst for that action is the mysterious Dahj (see below).
Who stars in Star Trek: Picard?
Isa Briones is Dahj. We don't know much about Dahj yet, but it would appear from the first trailer that she's a former Borg (who's possibly managed to escape from the Romulans' facility). She also seems to have impressive parkour/ninja skills and some huge, ominous, destiny-type significance. Voices in the trailer call her things like "the destroyer". Picard says, "If she is who I think she is, she's in serious danger." Who does he think she is? Fan theories so far: she's Data's daughter; she's Shinzon's daughter; she's the Borg Queen. Maybe she's all three. Or none of them.
Patrick Stewart, obviously, is Jean-Luc Picard, former captain of the USS Enterprise and now a retired admiral. He has a dog called Number One.
Jeri Ryan is Seven of Nine. Originally born Annika Hansen, Seven was assimilated by the Borg as a young girl, but rescued by Voyager and made part of its crew from the fourth season onwards. We last saw her standing doing nothing on Voyager's bridge as the ship flew into San Francisco in that series' weirdly abrupt finale. Since both are de-assimilated Borg, we might infer that Seven and Picard have connected back on Earth in the meantime. Maybe they were in the same ex-Borg support group.
Brent Spiner is Data, the erstwhile android Commander on the bridge of The Next Generation's Enterprise. Data, you might recall, was destroyed aboard the exploding starship Scimitar at the end of Nemesis. But, it was revealed that, prior to that, he'd uploaded a copy of his mind into an earlier prototype of himself called B-4. The implication was that Data's personality and memories would reemerge in B-4 given time. Looks like that worked.
Michelle Hurd is Raffi Musiker, who has a past connection to Picard (but not one we've seen on screen). She's a "genius strategist" with a background in intelligence and a history of substance abuse.
Santiago Cabrera is Cristobal "Chris" Rios, a skilled thief and member of Picard's impromptu new crew. He's the ship's pilot.
Alison Pill is Dr. Agnes Jurati, a "researcher" of some sort.
Harry Treadaway is Narek, a sword-carrying member of Picard's new gang. It's currently unclear whether Narek is Romulan or Vulcan.
Jonathan Del Arco is Hugh, another Borg. He was given the name "Hugh" by the Enterprise crew; to the Borg he was Three-of-Five. Del Arco reprises his role from the Next Generation episodes I, Borg and Descent.
Evan Evagora is Elnor, a seventeen-year-old Romulan martial artist with a "fierce" loyalty to Picard.
Jonathan Frakes is William Riker, Picard's former "Number One" in The Next Generation.
Marina Sirtis is Deanna Troi, The Next Generation's Betazoid counsellor aboard the Enterprise. As of Nemesis, Troi and Riker were married.
Who is directing Star Trek: Picard?
The directors we know of so far are Hanelle Culpepper, Maja Vrvilo and Jonathan Frakes. Culpepper is a prolific television director whose previous credits include Sleepy Hollow, GRIMM, Gotham, Lucifer, The Flash, Supergirl and Star Trek: Discovery. Vrvilo also has Gotham and Discovery episodes (among many others) to her name. And Frakes is a Star Trek veteran, having starred as Will Riker for seven seasons of The Next Generation and four movies, and scored dozens of directing gigs including episodes of TNG, DS9, Voyager and Discovery, plus the films First Contact and Insurrection. And, er, Thunderbirds.
Who wrote Star Trek: Picard?
As with most series, Star Trek: Picard has a "writer's room" containing more people than we know about. But the principal architects of the new Picard are certainly Alex Kurtzman, Kirsten Beyer, Akiva Goldsman and Michael Chabon.
Kurtzman's previous hits include the Transformers and Amazing Spider-Man movies, and he's been a writer and executive producer on Star Trek since the 2009 reboot. He has a five-year deal with CBS to take Star Trek beyond the launching pad of Discovery.
Beyer is an author of tie-in novels (including several for Star Trek: Voyager) and part of Discovery's team.
Goldsman is a prolific screenwriter who won the Oscar for A Beautiful Mind (although everyone always beats him over the head with Batman Forever and Batman & Robin).
And Chabon is the Pulitzer, Hugo and Nebula award-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and Wonder Boys, among others. His other screen work includes John Carter and the upcoming Netflix series Unbelievable.
When is Star Trek: Picard released?
Star Trek: Picard is expected to arrive during the first quarter of 2020 and run for ten episodes. Like Star Trek: Discovery, Picard is a product of CBS All Access in the US, but unlike Discovery, it'll play internationally on Amazon Prime rather than Netflix.
Trailer
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