Although Star Trek's big-screen prospects aren't looking particuarly great at the moment, the franchise is thriving on the small-screen once again. Star Trek: Discovery wrapped up its second season last month and is already slated to come back for a third, and we've got two other live-action Star Trek shows in the works as well, one of which focuses on Section 31 and will star Michelle Yeoh, and the other which will find Patrick Stewart returning to the role of Jean-Luc Picard.
The as-yet-untitled Jean-Luc Picard series is currently filming, but we don't know all that much about the series other than it will take place after the destruction of the Romulan Empire and that Picard's life has been radically altered by the event. Franchise producer Alex Kurtzman recently spoke with The LA Times and dropped a few more hints about the series.
The mandate was to make it a more psychological show, a character study about this man in his emeritus years. There are so few shows that allow a significantly older protagonist to be the driver… It’ll be very different than ‘Discovery.’ It’ll be slower, more meditative. It speaks to the rainbow of colors we’re playing with in all these different shows.
"What happens when circumstances have conspired to not give him the happiest of endings? Hopefully, it’s a reinforcement of [‘Trek’ creator Gene] Roddenberry’s vision of optimism," Kurtzman explained. "He’s going to have to go through deep valleys to get back to the light." Although Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon has typically been seen as the driving force behind the series, Alex Kurtzman says that there's not really a showrunner at the helm; instead, the Picard series is "being shepherded by a communal effort" from six different writers, including Chabon and himself. In addition to Patrick Stewart, the series also stars Alison Pill (The Newsroom), Harry Treadaway (Penny Dreadful), Isa Briones (American Crime Story: Versace), Santiago Cabrera (Big Little Lies), Michelle Hurd (Daredevil), and Evan Evagora (FANTASY ISLAND). It's hard to form any real opinions about the series at this early stage, but knowing that Patrick Stewart is excited is enough to get me onboard. Fingers crossed that we end up with something very special.