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.[14] 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.[15][16] Kurtzman and Akiva Goldsman (who worked on the first season of Discovery) were attached to the project.[16] When CBS had first approached him about making more Star Trek series, Kurtzman believed Picard was the greatest Star Trek captain and included a series featuring the character on his wish list,[3] despite Stewart having said that he did not want to return to the franchise.[8] 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 original Star Trek role of 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.[17][18]

After developing the older Picard story, the team decided that they had enough to pitch a full series focused on the character to Stewart;[18] 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][18] 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][18] 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][18] 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."[19] 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] He was also concerned that the series would be "jokey", but received assurances from the project's creative team that it would not be.[19]

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 and so was now happy "to research and experience what comforting and reforming light he might 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. Beyer also remained part of the creative team, serving as supervising producer for the series.[8] The series was set to premiere in 2019.[20]

Kadin revealed in October that the series 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",[22] 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.[23] 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.[24] 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,[19] adding in February that "we are set up for possibly three years of this show".[25] A production listing in March gave the series' title as Star Trek: Destiny, which CBS had trademarked in 2018.[26] However, the official title was announced to be Star Trek: Picard at CBS's upfront presentation that May.[27] At that time, Kurtzman said the series was being "shepherded" by a larger creative team rather than having a traditional showrunner.[28]

In late June, Chabon was named sole showrunner of the series, to work closely on the day-to-day production with Kurtzman and Goldsman.[29] A month later, the series was scheduled to premiere in January 2020.[10] In October, Kurtzman said a second season of the series was "already in the works".[30] In early December, Chabon signed an overall deal with CBS Television Studios to create several new series for the studio, which meant he would be exiting as showrunner of Picard at some point in 2020, though he would remain creatively involved in a potential second season as an executive producer.[31] CBS officially renewed the series for a 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 planned departure. Matalas was expected to take over as showrunner for the series once Chabon left. Also at this time, the series was reported to have an informal green-light for a third season that would be developed at the same time as the second so the two could be filmed back-to-back to save costs and simplify scheduling.[32] The series has a reported budget of $8–9 million per episode.[33] Goldsman said in May 2020 that the series' creative team had discussed a three-season plan and a five-season plan for the series, but ultimately they would just keep making it until Stewart wanted to stop.[34]

The series is set 20 years after Stewart's last appearance as Picard in the film Star Trek: Nemesis (2002).[2] Kurtzman revealed that the series would find the character "radically altered" by the destruction of Romulus several years after the events of Nemesis, as depicted in the film Star Trek (2009),[3] and explained that the mandate for the series was to make it "a more psychological show, a character study about this man in his emeritus years". He noted that it was rare for a television series to star an older actor like Stewart. In the series, the character must find his way back to Roddenberry's original optimistic vision for the franchise, which Kurtzman hoped would reinforce that original vision while allowing the character to "go through deep valleys".[28] In July 2019, Goldsman said the series would not be a direct sequel to The Next Generation and would be more character-focused than that series. He described Picard as "slower, more gentle, more lyrical" than previous Star Trek series,[10] and specifically compared the tone of Picard to that of 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.[35] Stewart compared the series 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]

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.[8] 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.[36] Later that month, newcomer Evan Evagora was cast in another series regular role.[37] In April, Alison Pill, Harry Treadaway, and Isa Briones joined the cast.[38] Characters for the new cast members were announced in July, with Briones as Dahj, Pill as Agnes Jurati, Cabrera as Cristobal "Chris" Rios, Hurd as Raffi Musiker, Treadaway as Narek, and Evagora as Elnor.[10] The series reveals that Briones portrays several androids: Dahj, who dies in the first episode; her twin sister Soji Asha;[11] and Sutra, an older android model.[12] In June 2020, the entire main cast of the series was confirmed to be returning for the second season except for Treadaway.[39]

While developing the series, the creative team discussed not bringing back any other characters from The Next Generation to allow Picard to standalone 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.[40] 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.[10] 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,[41] 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.[42] At that time, Whoopi Goldberg agreed to appear in the second season of the series as her The Next Generation character Guinan.[43]

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.[44][35] Christine Clark served as costume designer for the series.[45] 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".[46] The opening title sequence for the show was created by Prologue, the company that created the Discovery opening sequence.[47]

The series is filmed at Santa Clarita Studios, California, under the working title Drawing Room.[26] 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.[48] Location shooting for the first season also took place around California, including at Sunstone Winery in Santa Ynez Valley to depict Picard's French vineyard,[49] at long-time Star Trek filming location Vasquez Rocks in the Sierra Pelona Mountains in Los Angeles County where Raffi's home is found in the series,[50] and in the Malibu area for the planet Coppelius.[51]

Visual effects for the series are provided by DNEG,[52] Pixomondo,[53] and Crafty Apes,[54] with Jason Zimmerman returning from Discovery as visual effects supervisor.[55]

Star Trek: Discovery composer Jeff Russo was revealed to be composing the score for Picard in July 2019.[56] 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. Kurtzman took time to consider this before officially asking Russo to score the new series. Russo noted that his prior work on Discovery served as his audition for Picard. Russo wanted his music to remain truthful to previous Star Trek scores without repeating them, and especially wanted to avoid his music for Discovery to differentiate the two series. Russo felt that Picard was a more intimate story than Discovery and wanted to take a more personalized approach by featuring more solo instrument performances in his score for Picard.[57] Russo's music for Picard is recorded at the Eastwood Scoring Stage at Warner Bros. Studios in California, where his score for Discovery was also recorded.[58]

Russo had several ideas in his head when he began work on the main title for Picard, but the first melody that he played became the idea that he associated with Picard and the series.[59] He then had to fashion this into a theme that matched the tone of the show, and went through several different iterations: a "swashbuckling" version, a "'space' show" version, a darker and more contemplative version, and finally a more emotional and stirring version which became the actual theme.[57] 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", while the main melody is played on a cello which Russo often uses since it "fills that same harmonic space as the human voice".[59][57] Additionally, Russo uses Jerry Goldsmith's theme from Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) to connect the story back to The Next Generation, as that series used Goldsmith's theme in its main title, while Russo also references Alexander Courage's original Star Trek theme to "evoke the idea of Star Trek in general". He felt that using these previous themes was "not technically necessary" but appreciated how meaningful they are to fans.[57]

A soundtrack album for the first half of the first season was released on February 7, 2020,[60] followed by a complete soundtrack album covering the full season on April 3.[61][62]

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.[65]

For the first season, the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an 87% approval rating with an average rating of 7.82/10 based on 62 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." The average rating for each of the first season's individual episodes is 85%.[66] Metacritic, which aggregates reviews using a weighted average, assigned a score of 76 out of 100 based on reviews from 27 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[67]

When the first season of the Discovery companion series Star Trek: Short Treks was being released in December 2018, CBS CCO David Nevins stated that there would be more shorts released before the premiere of Picard.[24] In February 2019, Kurtzman said future shorts could tie directly into series other than Discovery.[68] 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.[69] The episode, titled "Children of Mars", was released on January 9, 2020, and depicts the synthetic attack on Mars from Picard's backstory but from the perspective of two school children.[70][71]

In September 2019, CBS announced a new three issue comic book titled Star Trek: Picard – Countdown, to be released beginning that November by IDW Publishing. Written by Mike Johnson and Picard supervising producer Kirsten Beyer,[72] the comic is set in 2385, and depicts Admiral Picard's actions during the evacuation of Romulus.[73]

In September 2019, CBS announced a new 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 leads directly into the events of the series and introduces several new characters that are featured in the first season.[72]

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.[74]

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.[75]