The first season of the American television series Star Trek: Picard features the character Jean-Luc Picard after he retired from Starfleet following the destruction of the planet Romulus. Living on his family's vineyard in 2399, Picard is drawn into a new adventure when he is visited by the daughter of android lieutenant commander Data. The season was produced by CBS Television Studios in association with Secret Hideout, Weed Road Pictures, Escapist Fare, and Roddenberry Entertainment, with Michael Chabon serving as showrunner.
Patrick Stewart stars as Picard, reprising his role from the series Star Trek: The Next Generation as well as other Star Trek media. Alison Pill, Isa Briones, Harry Treadaway, Michelle Hurd, Santiago Cabrera, and Evan Evagora also star. Stewart announced the series in August 2018, after being convinced to return to the role by creators Akiva Goldsman, Chabon, Kirsten Beyer, and Alex Kurtzman. Chabon was named sole showrunner ahead of filming, which took place from April to September 2019 in California. The producers focused on differentiating the season from previous franchise installments and rehabilitating the Romulan and Borg species. The story and setting take inspiration from the political landscape of Brexit and Donald Trump, as well as the Syrian refugee crisis. The season features special guest stars reprising their roles from The Next Generation and other Star Trek media.
The season premiered on the streaming service CBS All Access on January 23, 2020, and ran for 10 episodes through March 26. It was released to new viewership records for the service and generally positive reviews from critics who highlighted Stewart's performance and the focus on character over action. However, they criticized the season's slow pace and complex story, and its darker tone than previous Star Trek series was controversial with critics and franchise fans alike. The season won a Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards for its Prosthetic Makeup, and received several other awards and nominations. A second and third season were ordered in January 2020, before the first season's debut.
Episodes
Cast and characters
Main Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard Alison Pill as Agnes Jurati Isa Briones as Dahj, Soji Asha and Sutra Harry Treadaway as Narek Michelle Hurd as Raffi Musiker Santiago Cabrera as Chris Rios Evan Evagora as Elnor
Recurring Brent Spiner as Data and Altan Inigo Soong Orla Brady as Laris Jamie McShane as Zhaban Sumalee Montano as Dahj and Soji's "mother" Tamlyn Tomita as Commodore Oh Peyton List as Narissa Jonathan Del Arco as Hugh Rebecca Wisocky as Ramdha Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine
Notable guests John Ales as Bruce Maddox Casey King as Icheb Jonathan Frakes as William Riker Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi
Production Development 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. 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. Stewart had previously said that he did not want to return to the franchise, but was convinced to join the project after a pitch by Kurtzman, Akiva Goldsman, Michael Chabon, and Kirsten Beyer. Stewart officially announced the series in August 2018, and revealed in January 2019 that the first season would consist of 10 episodes. Kurtzman said the series did not have a traditional showrunner and was instead being "shepherded" by a larger creative team, including himself, Goldsman, Chabon, and Beyer, but in June CBS named Chabon as the sole showrunner of the series. This decision was made by Kurtzman and CBS ahead of filming and despite Chabon's lack of production experience (his background is in writing novels rather than television series). Chabon worked closely with Kurtzman and Goldsman on day-to-day production of the season.
Writing
The creators began writing the series by the end of September 2018, working alongside Stewart for two weeks. Chabon said Stewart's input was priceless, with the actor discussing his memories of the character, what he wanted to see in the series, and what acting challenges he wanted to face and avoid. They created the overall plot for the season, before expanding to a full writers room to break the episodes and write scripts. The stories for eight episodes were broken by December, and all scripts for the season were completed by August 2019. Chabon re-wrote most of the other writers' scripts to ensure consistency of tone, and found the collaborative writing process to be the biggest difference between his work on Picard and the shorts series Star Trek: Short Treks. Chabon also compared Picard to his work on the film John Carter (2012), for which he felt constrained by having to adapt the source material. In contrast, writing Picard allowed him to expand the franchise in new directions. Chabon wanted the series to focus on a retired Picard's life on his vineyard, potentially solving local mysteries, with no spaceships or gun fights. He acknowledged that the Star Trek fandom was probably not prepared for such a radical departure, and he had to balance these ideas with a more plot-driven approach.
The series tells a single serialized story, beginning 20 years after Stewart's last appearance as Picard in the film Star Trek: Nemesis (2002). It finds Picard deeply affected by the death of his android colleague Data in Nemesis, which Chabon and Goldsman felt had ended Data's character arc prematurely. They wanted to complete his journey with the first season of Picard, and it ends with Picard saying goodbye to the consciousness of Data before allowing him to "die" for good. Chabon began writing this scene early in development and did not complete it until the night before it was filmed. The season introduces new androids derived from Data's consciousness, referred to as synthetic beings or "synths". In the series' backstory, synths have been banned, and Picard fights for their right to exist. He gives his life to save the synths, and his consciousness is transferred into a synthetic body which the writer felt made him the "living embodiment" of the theme. This storyline builds off a terminal illness that Picard is diagnosed with in the season; since Picard is 94 years old, the writers had wanted to discuss relatable issues like this that people face at the end of their lives. Chabon unintentionally incorporated his personal experiences into this storyline after his father died during the making of the season.
The series takes place following the destruction of the planet Romulus as seen in the film Star Trek (2009), and reveals that Starfleet has abandoned the Romulans. Stewart wanted the series to depict the Federation as more isolationist than it was in The Next Generation to acknowledge the politics of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. He felt that The Next Generation was "too perfect and too protected ... a safe world of respect and communication and care" that did not reflect the real world. Chabon wanted to rehabilitate the Romulans in a similar way to how The Next Generation rehabilitated the Klingons by "open[ing] them up a little bit beyond the mustache twirling". This meant explaining why the species is so secretive and revealing a distrust that they have for synthetic life. Beyer, a long-time Star Trek writer and novelist, believed that the season's explanation for the Romulans' secrecy did not contradict the species' previous appearances in the franchise. Chabon wrote many pages of mythology about the Romulans as background for the season's story, including a history for the newly introduced Qowat Milat, a sect of warrior nuns. The season depicts many Romulans as refugees using imagery reminiscent of the Syrian refugee crisis, which Kurtzman said would be a difficult subject to approach if he was not confident in Chabon's writing. Initial director Hanelle Culpepper compared the Romulans to Muslims in the way that "the actions of a few can drive people to stereotype the whole bunch".
Stewart was reluctant to include the Borg in the series due to not wanting to repeat stories from The Next Generation, but was convinced by the "very unique" story that the writers wanted to tell with the group. Chabon had first questioned the franchise's antagonistic portrayal of the Borg while watching the film Star Trek: First Contact (1996), believing that it was wrong for Starfleet to treat them as less-than-human when Picard had already been shown to have regained his humanity after being assimilated by the Borg and becoming Locutus of Borg in The Next Generation. Because of this, the season depicts the Borg as victims, focusing on former Borg drones that have had their implants removed and are now trying to regain their former identities. Picard eventually visits a Borg Cube in the season and is forced to face the trauma of his time as Locutus of Borg, which is backstory that Chabon thought could not be ignored by Picard. When doing research for his role in the series as a former Borg drone and protector of a group of other former Borg drones, guest star Jonathan Del Arco listened to hours of interviews with Holocaust survivors, researched the psychology of abuse survivors, and drew on his own experience of having friends die during the AIDS crisis.
Casting Patrick Stewart stars as Jean-Luc Picard, which he confirmed when announcing the series. The rest of the cast was hired in March and April 2019: Alison Pill as Agnes Jurati, Isa Briones as Dahj and Soji Asha, Evan Evagora as Elnor, Michelle Hurd as Raffi Musiker, Santiago Cabrera as Cristobal "Chris" Rios, and Harry Treadaway as Narek. In the two-part season finale, Briones is revealed to also be portraying Sutra, an older model of android with a similar appearance to the twin androids Dahj and Soji.
In April 2019, several of Stewart's co-stars from The Next Generation, including Wil Wheaton, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, Gates McFadden, and Marina Sirtis, were asked whether they would reprise their roles for Picard. McFadden said she had not been contacted about it, while Sirtis said the group did not know anything about the series. That July, Spiner, Frakes, and Sirtis were revealed to be reprising their roles in the first season, respectively as Data, William Riker, and Deanna Troi. Also announced as returning were Jonathan Del Arco as Hugh, a guest star from The Next Generation, and Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine, a regular cast member on Star Trek: Voyager. Despite Seven of Nine never meeting Picard in the franchise before, the writers felt that she was the perfect character to include in the series due to her being a former Borg drone like Picard.
In January 2020, Kurtzman and Stewart explained that the writers did not want to "just throw people in" to the series because they had been in The Next Generation. Spiner was included after it became clear that Data would be important to Picard in the series, and Frakes and Sirtis were added halfway through the season when the writers came up with a story idea that required them. In addition to returning as Data, Spiner also portrays Altan Inigo Soong, the son of Data's creator Noonien Soong whom Spiner also portrayed in The Next Generation. In March 2020, Spiner said the season was a "gentle sendoff" and fitting end to Data's story, and would be the last time he reprised that role.