Alex Kurtzman: Picard Faces A Gauntlet In Psychological New Star Trek Series

Today was the PaleyFest LA Star Trek: Discovery panel, and TrekMovie was there. During the panel Alex Kurtzman, who is overseeing the expanded Trek on TV franchise, shared a few details of the highly anticipated Picard series, which will begin filming in mid-April.

Alex Kurtzman and producer Heather Kadin with the Discovery cast at PaleyFest LA (Emily Kneeter for The Paley Center for Media)

Kurtzman was moved upon hearing Stewart read first episode

After being prompted by the moderator to share something about the upcoming Picard series, Alex Kurtzman revealed something recent and personal about the development of the show:

I had an amazing experience yesterday. I sat at Patrick’s kitchen table and heard him read the first episode and I almost cried. It was quite something. He is at an amazing place in his life. He is so excited.

Kurtzman picked up on this theme later and gave a bit of an update on the status of the show:

I think we are thrilled with what we are going to deliver. I know that Patrick is really excited. The cast is coming together beautifully.

Things are different for Picard

While he wasn’t giving up plot details, Kurtzman revealed how the show has a different approach:

It’s going to be a very different show from Discovery. The only way that this universe I think works correctly, is if each show is really different and speaks to a different part of Star Trek. This is going to be a very thoughtful, psychological portrait in a lot of ways.

Alex Kurtzman with Heather Kadin, Sonequa Martin-Green and Doug Jones at PaleyFestLA 2019 (Emily Kneeter for The Paley Center for Media)

Picard faces a gauntlet

The executive producer reaffirmed that some things are fundamental to the character of Picard, but in the new show we will see the character face a journey to rediscover himself:

We all know Picard means to you. And why he—like so many legendary characters in Star Trek—have endured what they have represented in. He in some ways has to go through a gauntlet in order to find that. Things have changed for him and changed him in some ways, and yet he is so deeply and fundamentally Picard.

Starting production soon

Filming for the yet-to-be-titled Picard series will start on April 15 in the Los Angeles area. In addition to Sir Patrick Stewart, three cast members have been announced so far, but their characters’ names and descriptions are being kept under wraps. It has been reported that the show will be highly serialized with an expected ten-episode first season premiering at the end of the year.

More from PaleyFest LA

TrekMovie will have a report on the Star Trek: Discovery panel, plus red carpet interviews. So stay tuned.


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Hope they keep as much Herman Zimmerman-inspired aesthetic as they can.


I doubt that will be the case — designers love to redesign things and make their mark. But yes, it would be nice if they sprinkled in some callbacks to that era. I’m hoping for some familiar ships /designs/props in the background at least.


Yeah. What’s the point of getting fresh new designers to copy other people’s work?


Anything they do needs to be firmly set with Herman Zimmerman’s aesthetic as the *baseline*, and they can deviate from there if there’s some semblance of natural progression in the changes.

What’s the point in telling stories in the same continuity if they can’t even keep up the pretense of keeping something like visual continuity consistent from product to product? This would be different if we were talking about a show that was set 70+ years after Nemesis, but it’s not. For instance, if a Sovereign-class vessel shows up in the show, it really should look exactly like what we’ve seen in the TNG movies, unless they can explain away the changes due to a “refit” or something.

Of course there are some notable exceptions prior to Discovery where they’ve deviated radically from established “visual canon” in Star Trek and people went along with it (Klingons in TMP is probably the biggest one everyone can point to and maybe something like the Trill between TNG and DS9), but most of the time the changes were minor or a natural progression over time and often due to real-world advancements or were inconsequential continuity issues like small changes in Bajorian nasal ridges or changes to the layout of the TOS-era bridge from film-to-film that only the most eagle-eyed person would notice.

I know people want to “make their mark” but then they should do something new and unique that has absolutely no history behind it.


Sorry but it doesn’t work that way.


Never said that’s how it worked. How it should work is another matter.

Years of terrible costumes and set design in “historical” films is proof of that. People want to do their own thing.


The thing is, if anyone wanted to redesign the Trek universe, THIS is the show to do it! It is further down the line. Things change. I fully expect this show to look very different from the TNG feature films and certainly from their show. It would be foolish to expect otherwise.


You saw how much they kept the TOS aesthetic in tack for Discovery. In other words, don’t hold your breath too much. It would be nice to see some updated LCARS though which people have spotted a few on Discovery.


Don’t forget they’re designing this show post season one of Discovery. Therefore I’m optimistic that we’ll get a show that looks stunning but has its DNA in TNG.


The last TNG movie didn’t even look like the TNG show.


I would be disappointed if it does look like the TV show. Like you say the movies had already evolved beyond it so that gives them a lot of creative freedom. It never hurts though to have a few callbacks in there to show a design lineage and evoke that feeling of nostalgia.


Maybe they will put something colored Beige on the show.


I’m more than sure they will do a few call backs wherever they can. I think they learned their lesson with Discovery and its not a great idea to avoid practically everything but pretend its in the same universe.

But as you said, the movies were already looking different from the show because by the time Nemesis came around it had been 15 years. In fact time had passed longer in the movie era vs the show era. Seven years during TNG but eight years during the films so there is just a natural progression and they changed things up as they went.

In this case time has now passed longer than TNG’s entire era on air, 17 years now. So they can basically change whatever they want and make it look as advanced as possible. Ten years had only passed between TOS and TMP and yet things had looked vastly different by then. Of course it was mostly due to TMP just having a real budget lol but no one really questioned how different it looked because so much time had passed. Even Kirk had a new brunette toupee, so we were in a new era now. ;)

I’m completely open to whatever they do. If they change everything from the aesthetics down to the uniforms I’m OK with that. But if they keep some of it as well, even better!


Learned what lesson? That star trek fans complain about everything? I think they knew that long ago. The new Picard show is going to look like a show made in 2019 and not the 1980’s.


The lesson learned from the Discovery changes mostly won’t apply to the Picard show as it is the furthest forward set Star Trek show yet. Therefore they have way more freedom to make sweeping changes. I would think if they do another “period” show like Discovery, they may make attempts to make it look more in line with when it is supposed to be. That is the lesson learned.


They can make all the changes they want. Fans will still find something to complain about.


Some fans, sure. Most understand the realities and will generally only complain if the quality of the show is not good or there are some sort of glaring mistakes that go against the established universe.


Then the fans should really hate TOS. There’s glaring mistakes in each episode. I had to get into MST3K mode just to watch those TOS episodes.


Except the episodes are good. Thus making less important the minor glitches found in said show.


They are really not good in my opinion. I get why older people like them, but I would never subject myself to watching TOS again as long as I live.

Fred Javelina

Agreed. We saw some future designs with episodes like DS9’s The Visitor and TNG’s All Good Things (25th century), Voyager’s Relativity (29th century), and hints of Enterprise’s 31st century via Daniels.

The designers aren’t bound to those by any means and it’ll likely have a more cinematic look overall, but we could see references to all of those.

Costume-wise, maybe a return to those primary colour tops, maybe a new commbadge, but probably not the high-waisted pants and bolero jackets.

Debatable if they will go for whizzy transparent OLED screens everywhere or decide to declutter the tech? TNG’s bridge was arguably the sleekest, and that was partly a technical limitation that turned into a creative choice. You had the hint of powerful tech behind black panels, but because there weren’t real flat touchscreens in 1987 (and it was time-consuming to sync CRTs to 35mm film), and managing light bleed / light sources etc, they literally just had backlit graphics. It wasn’t until later seasons that they could even have live video on the rear bridge stations.

If I were them, I’d show progress by making the tech disappear or be more integrated. Borderless, superwide main displays, cleaner infographics, simpler controls, a more ‘zen’ experience. Double down on the ‘light soft curves’ of TNG rather than the hard, dark angularity of the TNG movies.

Support Your Local Salt Vampire

I’m curious what they are going to do with the Klingons. Will they try and apply the Discovery “improvements” to the classic TNG Klingon aesthetic? It seems likely that Worf will show up at some point. Will he gain more nostrils?


Maybe Klingons won’t even show up and they won’t have to even deal with that.

El Beau

Worf might show up, it depends on whether Michael Dorn can get someone to cover his shift at Chipotle.




I know designers. They love to change things!

Professor Spock

They should honor and respect TNG in a new way.




PS it’s supposed to take place 20 years later.

(Still not sure if that’s 20 years after Nemesis or 20 years after TNG.)

In any case, how many offices look like they did in 1999 or 1989?

Design norms, colour palettes, materials etc. change a great deal in that amount of time. Clothes and hair fashion too…

Think of the changes between TOS and the original series movies.

Now please be ready to be surprized.


…since post-TNG is an open canvas in terms of the timeline, I say bring on the surprises!


Yep. This is wide open. There is no previously set “look” here. They are free to do anything they want. Unlike Discovery who was in a specific time frame that already had an established look. I almost fully expect this team to make it hearken back to the TNG aesthetic.


I want to be surprised TG47 too. Discovery looks stunning I expect the Picard series to as well. I’m of the opinion that you can honour TNG withoutbadhering slavishly to it.


“In any case, how many offices look like they did in 1999 or 1989?”

Depends largely on when they were built or how big the company is. Aside from bringing back the terrible open concept office in the mid-2010s (which is just a rebirth of the “bullpen”, secretarial pool), offices look largely the same since at least the late 80s or early 90s.

Biggest differences I generally see in offices are carpeting/flooring and better lighting in most offices today compared 20 or 30 years ago.

The next biggest differences are probably in how things are decorated. Maybe a bit more sleek than in the past with less bulky desks, more plants, artwork but largely the same. More glass, maybe less glass depending on the year. Offices haven’t evolved all that much in 20-30 years.

At any rate, for all changes there is almost always a natural progression from what came before, especially in real-world aesthetics. They need to take what came before in TNG, VOY, DS9 and the TNG movies) and adapt *that* so it could presumably flow into the new show’s setting.

If you read up on the history of the art design of Phase II (which later became TMP), there were a lot of proposed designs that were radically different from the original show. What we ended up with is actually pretty close to what came in the TV show. You can see the natural progression. TNG was far enough into the future that things were very different, but enough was still the same. They made it a point that when they introduced the Enterprise C to make the ship and sets “bridge” the gap between eras.

If they don’t want to respect any design evolution, that’s fine, but they will hopefully just admit as such so we can prepare ourselves for something radically different.

I’m not asking for them to recreate the Enterprise-E bridge. Though if they did, it should look just about the same, which is part of my point I’m trying to make here.


Furniture and lighting design have changed along with textural aesthetics, but in the last 20 years designers have been fascinated with recreating the 1950s and 60s in their own image. In fact classics like the Eames chair and others have returned as they originally appeared.

If we see a mix of old and new that would be great, but I sure would hate to see a return of Hilton Hotel Beige.


I never advocated a specific way of honouring TNG so I’m not entirely sure why you would object to something as vague and nondescript as I suggested. Unless of course you’ve never seen any Trek prior to discovery and assumed that ships with a saucer section, a bridge and nacelles was something they thought of just for this show then you’d know that they already have designs that are rooted in what has come before.


I hope not. We need new stuff.


It will be the future at this point and design changes – as we’ve seen so often in Trek eras. It’d be easy if it wasn’t a Zimmerman landscape but had Zimmerman nods here and there. Would love to see an updated LCARS interface


LCARS is that horrible looking GUI that they use in the show right? I hope they get rid of that.


To be honest LCARS probably has had its day. You wouldn’t have a show set in 2019 with everybody using Nokia 3310’s and Windows 95.


Actually I’d love to see a future show where they had the old gold characters against the green-black screen, just because I dig the contrast levels. Do it with a unique font though, so nobody thinks you’re using old Symantec Q&A. Of course I’ve always wanted to see displays that used fractals in place of bar graphs too, because the displays would be showing potentialities and trends based on math (but still look groovy like an update on Spock’s goofy moire.)


Same! I have no issues they change whatever they want but I do like to see an updated version of the LCARS. If not, I’ll live.


In the DS9 episode about future Jake Sisko, Dax says something about starfleet using holographic controls.


Never been that bothered about visual continuity. Scripts and characterisation are the beginning and the end of it when it comes to what makes good Trek. So long as the nail that they can change the lot for all I care.


I tend to agree. If we had great stories with compelling categories the production design becomes less important to me. However, it would be nice to see that the production people paid attention and created something that reminds the audience of when the show is supposed to be set. And the worse the stories and characters are, the greater and more important the design mistakes become.


The problem is that era of Star Trek is long gone. It was gone after the first TNG movie.


The era of Star Trek making interesting stories with compelling characters was over after TMP?


Like the episode where Dr Crusher had sex with a candle ghost?


Or like Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan?


I always found that movie boring. Into Darkness was better in my opinion.


And that still came after TMP.


Generations is not that highly thought of but it is the movie that is truest to the quality of the TV show. Thoughtful and contemplative. I’m guessing this hard edged Picard will not be channeling any of that, sadly.


The production design influences should be 80 percent STD, 20 percent TNG, similar to the way STD is with TOS.

And the TNG elements should be TV series (not movie or spinoff) because that’s where the pop culture recognition factor is.

Klingons (including Worf) have four nostrils and everything is retroactive.

This is how I believe they’ll do it, and it’s also how I would do it.

We’re in third generation now. STD, Lower Decks, S31, the Kelvin movies are all third generation. All the Berman/Zimmerman stuff (including ENT) is second generation, and a full parallel universe removed from a design standpoint. You can’t get there from here.

Professor Spock

The scripts sound amazing I guess. I’m really looking forward to to watching the first episode myself. Alex Kurtzman knows what he’s doing. I trust him. He is the Kevin Feige of Star Trek. That guy manages the Marvel Cinematic Universe for Disney and Marvel Studios. The keepers of canon.

Captain Neill

I wish I had faith in Kurtzman, but compared to Damon Lindelof and Roberto Orci and JJ Abrams I guess he is lesser if two evils.

Douglass Abramson

He certainly sounded sincere about protecting the franchise while modernizing how it tells it’s stories while he was speaking at the Paley Fest panel today.



Denny C

“Well, that’s funny, because I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here.”


I almost made the same joke!

Denny C

“If life were only like this.”

Lt. Commander JJ

At some point we need to cut Kurtzman some slack. I was a fan of season 1 though I had numerous criticisms. Many of those critiques were addressed in S2 and this season generally has been well received, though some will never come around.

For those of us who notice the improvement you have to attribute that to Kurtzman who came into a tricky situation and delivered. To me that speaks very well to his ability to lead this project.

Also the premiere to S2 he directed is one of my favorite premieres episodes in Trek.


Thats how I try and look at it too.

Even if you still hate the show you HAVE to admit they looked at all the complaints and really tried to turn it around as best they could given the overhaul they have done (within reason).

They will never say it but the criticisms over the show clearly hit them hard and yes to be fair the first season was based all on one guy who wasn’t around long enough to see the actual production happen, so they were stuck between a rock and a hard place. And while I don’t think his replacements were that great they obviously contributed to the changes in season 2 in a big way. They should get credit for at least the first few batch of episodes.

I used to be very hard on this show and I have no problems being just as hard if it falls back to its old ways but they have improved it so much in my eyes, even the episodes I didn’t love this season I have a hard time saying that because I know they are desperately trying to get it right.

But the show just comes off so much better and I think season 2 has some of the best episodes Trek has ever done. At least a few.


Hi, Tiger,
Fwiw, I agree with almost all your postings, but I do wonder if you’re exaggerating the influence of fandom a bit. Three reasons occur to me at the moment: it seems to me that rarely is there a unanimous fan opinion on much of anything; the producers know that the audience base has to expand beyond existing fans; and we learn from the piece about the Enterprise redesign that the writers planned to bring the iconic starship into season 2 from back in season 1 — they just moved it up for a brief few seconds in the first year’s final episode. With the Enterprise on the scene there must be a Pike, probably a Spock, etc., etc. it seems likely that the broad trajectories of each season are pretty well set long before fans learn much about them. Details get worked out subsequently.

Anyway, thanks for your always thoughtful posts!


They knew Enterprise would be in season 2 but they did not know that before season 1 even streamed to the public. This all came about AFTER the show debuted and I’m pretty darn sure they saw the fan reaction. Hence the decision to involve the Enterprise. They saw the writing on the wall and immediately dove into their safety net for season 2.


I think you’re supposing that all fans had the same reaction to the debut, which was not the case.


I would think that it was more the lack of subscribers than anything else. However, the overall fan response probably didn’t help. Sure, a number of people liked season 1 it seems more were turned off to it than liked it. So enter the USS Enterprise into the Discovery season 2 story line to help bring in more subscribers!


If that was true the Enterprise would be in every episode. The truth is Discovery is standing very well on it’s own.


It was in every episode by the presence of her captain, Chris Pike. And later Spock. Because of those additions I think if foolish to think Discovery is standing well on its own. Why would they need the crutch of more familiar, and more popular, characters to show up if what you said was true?


Pike was a footnote until Discovery.


Pish-posh. Remember how many fans said, “OMG the Enterprise, now they’re going to spoil my childhood”?

Fan “consensus” doesn’t seem to exist in some ways, and yet in other ways there are very loud voices complaining. I’m glad for some of the changes made for S2, and I think Pike, Spock, and Nhan are great additions [and strongly cast enough for a show of their own]. #PikesEnterprise

However I want to see the spore drive used! For heaven’s sake, yes, it’s different/weird, and it’s new, but it can also be a great plot element. When they sounded “Black Alert” a few episodes ago I almost swooned.

In that case and a couple of others I think there’s been a bit too much re-tooling. That’s JMO though. OTOH the sound design callbacks are great, although if I were captain I’d find the whooping Red Alert [a la TOS] annoying as hell.

And I do hope to see Jason Isaacs return. He’s positively magnetic. [That’s an unintentional pun.]


They need to find a way to use the Spore Drive without endangering Stamets.

Love to see Isaacs return also. Need to watch the new season of The OA btw.


To be clear I’m not saying every change they did was strictly due to fan input alone. I’ve said in the past (and alluded in the post) but some of them were probably things they wanted to do on their own as well but they couldn’t last season because they were following Fuller’s playbook and didn’t have the time for any major changes. I’m sure they wanted changes too and of course they are going to recognize issues themselves on the things that simply didn’t work and could improve on.

I’m really talking about just the bigger complaints like the look of the Klingons for example (which Kurtzman admitted in an interview was changed partly due to the backlash), the show being too dark, lack of exploration, there isn’t enough TOS aesthetics and so on. These were really the biggest stuff fans hated the most and moaned all year about. I think they heard those type of complaints loud and clear and created a story line to specifically tackle a lot of those issues directly.

And I don’t know if having stuff like the Enterprise and Pike/Spock had anything to do with the fan complaints, at least directly. I’m pretty sure that’s stuff they either wanted to do on their own or that maybe CBS themselves suggested. But clearly it was to get more TOS fans on board and who may not like DIS much on its own.


Tiger, the Enterprise appearance and the Spock-Pike stuff was CLEARLY a dive into their safety net. The Burnham relationship to Spock was created solely for that purpose. Discovery did not make the splash they were hoping it would make at all. So they it was decided to add some familiar elements.


I really came to like the “new look” Klingons, except for the excessive prosthetics on the lips [which interfered with their dialogue and kudos to each Klingon actor] and super-extended crowns of the skulls, I thought for the first time in Star Trek they truly seemed alien.


The second season is really great, but … I think they really bent over backwards to please the fans. I would like to see Pike get his say as captain more. Perhaps they can bring in Prime Lorca next season to bring more authority back to the center chair. [Which I am sad to note, from the title graphics, appears headed for the silly blocky design of TOS, UGH.]

I’m really disappointed by how many times characters say in response to Pike giving an order: “I’m sorry Captain I can’t do that…” The prevalence of this is almost as bad as the technobabble problem-solving methods on some episodes of Voyager. It seems like it happens in every episode. I hope I’m wrong about that, but criminy.

Denny C

What he should be aspiring to be is the Greg Berlanti of Star Trek. Greg Berlanti started with Arrow using Smallville as a blueprint and that resulted in The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow and Black Lightening with Batwoman up next. The CW is having a good run with these shows and if CBS AA can achieve that level of success Star Trek should be fine, even if it reaches a smaller audience.


Yeah, that’s kind of what I see them doing with Star Trek eventually, especially since CBS partly owns CW. The Arrowverse is probably the strongest TV shared universe at the moment (but I don’t think Black Lightening is part of that canon) and they have done all crazy things on those shows lol. I’m excited for Batwoman too.

I would love if Star Trek can get to the level of the 90s again with multiple shows (and films) all playing at once. With Picard coming soon this will be the first time we gotten anything close to two shows in productions since DS9 ended in 2000.


They have flat out said Black Lightning is not a part of the Arrowverse. But so far I have seen nothing to preclude them from becoming a part of it if they want to. But Supergirl’s Earth is just another Earth in the Multiverse. Nothing stopping Black Lightning from being one of those, either. There just has been no mentions of anything from the other shows yet.


I agree! Since DC established long ago they live in a multiverse that doesn’t exclude ANY show or film being connected that way. The DCEU itself is just in a different universe from the TV shows but technically can all be connected. That’s the beauty of comic book stories, you can make it as sci fi or fantasy you want to explain anything.

Legate Damar

Is Black Lightning part of the Arrowverse. I thought it was its own thing.

Denny C

It is but it’s still Berlanti’s show.

Professor Spock

Denny C the arrowverse is not good like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. MCU is better.

Denny C

It’s not about which is better, it’s about which most closely corresponds with what they’re attempting to do with Star Trek. It’s the CW and the Arrowverse, not the MCU.


Apples to Oranges. Arrowverse is episodic television. MCU is movies. Even the Netflix and other Marvel TV shows are only kind of part of the MCU, but that would have been a closer analogy. MCU has a much bigger budget and access to bigger talent.

Both comic book franchises are very derivative in general. I won’t spend money to catch a superhero movie in the theater, waiting for one to turn up on Netflix is just fine for productions that are a touch better then ‘made for tv’ movies.


You’re comparing a few $200 million movies a year to TV shows, of course MCU is going to be better on that basis alone. But I actually love the concepts they do on Arrovwverse shows and they are a lot of fun. And frankly I think DCTV shared universe is MUCH better than DCEU although it looks like that is finally improving at least.

Denny C

I agree on all counts and it seems the DCEU managed to figure out a formula that worked with Wonder Woman. Aquaman is absolutely bonkers but, man, people loved it and Shazam looks like it’s going to deliver as well.


I think DCEU is getting its groove back after JL tanked. Wonder Woman was a great film before that one and I think they realized that direction is the better way to go. Aquaman (which I honestly thought was going to bomb lol) turned out to be a really fun and exciting movie. It had its flaws but boy it exceeded my expectations on every level and made Aquaman a serious superhero.

And I had NO interest to see Shazam but with so many people now singing its praises I can’t wait to see it now and overall I’m a much bigger MCU fan. But it would be great if DC can get its movie universe working and now ow have TWO good comic book franchises to look forward to every year.


In my younger days I always preferred DC to Marvel. Not sure why. Maybe because my first exposure as a tot was to the silly Super Friends. My take on why the DCEU crashed is that was solely because of Zach Snyder and his take on things. Now I actually liked Man of Steel. But BvS was just long, silly and boring. JL would have been better if Joss Whedon had handled it from day one. Instead they got a tonal mess. But I understand why they went with Snyder’s dark view. They feared copying what Marvel had done. They wanted something different. Trouble is, that different thing was simply not as popular nor was it appropriate for the genre. It seems now that Snyer is out of the picture, the DC films are picking up some steam. Hopefully we can eventually get a GOOD JL feature one day. But I’m not holding out a ton of hope for that.

I’m curious about what has become of the supposed Superman cameo in Shazam. I heard that since Cavil is out that we only see him from behind. Would rather the idea be scrapped if they do THAT. But we shall see.


This all sounds very appealing. I’m curious how Picard will handle aging. Of course, by the turn of the 25th century one would hope that biological age of a 90-year-old will be much lower than his/her chronological age. I wonder if and how that will be portrayed.

Lt. Commander JJ

I’ve been harping to everyone who expect Picard to be on the bridge of a ship somewhere that we have to remember he’s 94 at the beginning of this series. It’s clearly going to be a much different Picard then we’re accustomed.

You bring up a good point though about the fitness (physical & mental) of a 90-year old in the 25th Century. Star Trek always either lacked imagination (due to the time) or felt the rigors of age to be compelling for story.

If you look at the development of medicine in the real world, our lifespans and quality of life will will be much improved before we ever even have the ability to travel to other planets outside our solar system.

I know the Trek universe has a stigma on gene editing but a 94-year old Picard in the 25th century could plausibly be as fit as a 30-40 year old.

That’s one thing I like about the Expanse. The technological advancement is more plausible because medicine seems to outpace interstellar travel to the point were they don’t even need doctors on ships for complicated procedures.

Hat Rick

@Elrond , something about this reminds me of how CBS has modernized the Sherlock Holmes ethos (“Elementary,” CBS). Picard most likely is not a recovering drug addict in this series, but his memories of his times aboard the Enterprise don’t always bode well for him in this setting.

Recall that he saw his “future” in “All Good Things” (TNG); recall that many of his fellow crew persons have gone on to new things (Riker moved on to the USS Titan, apparently (NEM)). All of his close family died on Earth in a tragic fire, as we already know.

Is he back on Earth? I would venture so. I think he feels most comfortable around his family’s vineyards. But there is so much that would or could continue to haunt him from his past.

Picard was extremely affected by his experience as part of the Borg Collective. He knew what it was to be part of the hive, and he knows that in some ways, he is responsible for the deaths of thousands in the war against the Borg, as well as the death of vile enemies such as the Borg Queen, and the first death of LTCDR Data.

I think we will see a contemplative Picard who will question what it means to be a retired Starfleet officer, and whether the whole Federation thing is really worth it, after all.

Above it all (or underneath, as one could say), is Q.

At least, these are some ideas I would expand upon.

Hat Rick

Correction to my own post: Data died in the 19th Century and was revived, so his death in NEM was his second death.

Professor Spock

Elrond Picard won’t be in Starfleet anymore so who is captain of any starship on the show is the big question.


Maybe we won’t even see a starship playing much of a role.


Is STAR TREK: GUANTLET going to be the title? Sounds nice.

But based on the little leaks we are hearing about the series calling it Gauntlet seems about as relative as calling it Star Trek: Ample Nacelles.


I like a ship with ample nacelles.

Spock Jenkins

I still think “STAR TREK: PICARD” would be a fine name for the Picard series.

Such a title could lend itself to further iterations such as “STAR TREK: PIKE” , “STAR TREK: KIRK”, “STAR TREK: ARCHER”, etc.

Professor Spock

Spock Jenkins Star Trek: Picard is not the official title anyway tho.


But that’s what I DON’T want personally. I don’t want Star Trek to focus on a single individual even if the Captain will always be the main star in some ways. It really should be about the crew or and the story at large. To me that seriously limits what Star Trek is. TOS was more of a star vanity show but it was also the 60s. From TNG on, they all been ensemble shows even if the Captain gets the brunt of the story lines but not one character gets the sole focus.

Discovery did have a bigger character lead in its first season with Burnham which was done on purpose since the entire season was about her redemption. But this season its much more of an ensemble show again and other character like Pike and Spock has just as much of the lime light as she does and they are not even permanent cast members.

I imagine that’s what they will do with Picard. First season will be mostly his story but then other seasons they will give it an ensemble feel.


I am glad they’re expanding outward from Burnham to make it more of an ensemble show. I love Michael Burnham, but when someone said in “The Red Angel,” “Michael, it’s all about you,” I nearly laughed, because it seemed like they were hanging a lantern on something a lot of people complained about. And I was fine with it for season 1 and part of season 2, but I hope that some other characters get featured in some week’s episodes. We have seen that with Spock, and to a lesser degree, with Stamets and Culber this season, and Airiam and Tilly.

I like that Pike is more open to consulting with others about problems, but at times we have winced at how inconsistently he can be written, and how often he is ignored by officers who supposedly respect him.

Someone on Twitter mentioned how great it would be to meet more alien races instead of diving so deep into personal anguish; I think a mix of these kinds of stories is fine.

I think they’re getting there! This season is an improvement in many ways, but I long for the return of Lorca. Less autocratic than Mirror Lorca, but a guy with his own issues to deal with.


Assignment: AARP?


Very much looking forward to this. I hope the writing is tight and something that resonates enough emotionally and visually to prompt multiple viewings. Something…groundbreaking, that will take the franchise to another level.


I’m on board with the concept of very different Trek shows running concurrently.

And I’m enthused about a show set towards the end of the 24th century, although in my case it have to be Picard to make it interesting.

I’ve got a lot of confidence in knowing Kirsten Beyer and Michael Charon are among the creators.

My only negative is that it sounds as though it might be yet another Star Trek that won’t be suitable for our middle graders. So my spouse and I will likely be watching it without them as we do Discovery.

It’s getting tough to explain to them why there is new Trek they can’t watch. They see Discovery characters in Star Trek Timelines …

Most Trek tie-ins are multiseries. I’m not sure that the marketing side has this all thought through.

And I’m not really seeing a new product that will be targeted at the middle grade market — which is ironically the historical entry age for Trek.

The Nickelodeon animated series sounds like it will be targeted at a younger age, and our kids haven’t found Nickelodeon’s products very interesting in general. If it is intended to be like Star Wars Resistance, they’ll watch it …but not more than once.


Ugh. This sounds ponderous, man. Really ponderous.


My suggestion. Let Discovery be for the new kids and Picard show for the OG’s. PLEAAAAAASE. Thanks. Bye.


I’m not too fussed with how the show looks at the end of the day, they can take the creative liberties that they shouldn’t have taken with Discovery because the show’s moving forward.

Disco breaks the immersion a bit and personally I believe it went too far with modernising the look of things. That said I don’t think it should’ve looked exactly like TOS, but you can respect the old aesthetic while modernising, I think Enterprise struck the right balance.

It’s all a matter of opinion at the end of the day.


Having worked for many years on DS9 I’m glad to see another ST series in LA. I hope they bring in some great directors like they did in the past. I can see myself back in prosthetic makeup again.

The Recursion King

Make it so!

Why can’t we pay as much attention to the scripts (which are the key to any show’s success or failure) as we do to what the sets look like? The visuals are just there to support the storyline. I can use my imagination watching TOS to pretend I’m not seeing papier-mache rocks and exteriors obviously shot in a studio. My perceptions travel back to the 12-year-old boy I was watching those stories for the first time.