The second season of the American television series Star Trek: Picard features the character Jean-Luc Picard in the year 2401. He and his companions are trapped in an alternate reality by the extra-dimensional being Q as part of the ultimate trial for Picard, and must travel back to 2024 Los Angeles to save the future of the galaxy. The season was produced by CBS Studios in association with Secret Hideout, Weed Road Pictures, and Roddenberry Entertainment, with Akiva Goldsman and Terry Matalas serving as showrunners.
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, Jeri Ryan, Michelle Hurd, Evan Evagora, Orla Brady, Isa Briones, Santiago Cabrera, and Brent Spiner also star. A second season was in development for months before being officially announced in January 2020, with Matalas and Goldsman replacing first-season showrunner Michael Chabon. Matalas suggested the time travel story to save costs after the expensive first season, and returned to the visual style of The Next Generation with new production designer Dave Blass. Delayed from a planned June 2020 production start by the COVID-19 pandemic, filming began in California in February 2021 and lasted until September with location shooting around Los Angeles. During filming, Matalas switched focus to showrunning the third season, which was shot back-to-back with the second. The second season features special guest stars returning from previous Star Trek media, including John de Lancie as Q and Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan.
The season premiered on the streaming service Paramount+ on March 3, 2022, and ran for 10 episodes until May 5. It was estimated to have high viewership and audience demand, and received positive reviews from critics. The season was nominated for four Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards and several other awards.
Episodes
Cast and characters
Main Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard Alison Pill as Agnes Jurati and the new Borg Queen Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine Michelle Hurd as Raffi Musiker Evan Evagora as Elnor Orla Brady as Laris and Tallinn Isa Briones as Soji Asha and Kore Soong Santiago Cabrera as Chris Rios Brent Spiner as Adam Soong
Recurring
John de Lancie as Q Madeline Wise as Yvette Picard Annie Wersching as the original Borg Queen Sol Rodríguez as Teresa Ramirez Ito Aghayere as young Guinan Penelope Mitchell as Renée Picard
Notable guests
Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan April Grace as Sally Whitley Kirk Thatcher as the punk on the bus James Callis as Maurice Picard Jay Karnes as Martin Wells Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher
Production Development Executive producer Heather Kadin revealed in October 2018 that Star Trek: Picard was intended to be an ongoing series rather than a limited miniseries; the producers knew from the time Patrick Stewart signed on to star in the series that a second season would definitely be made. Stewart reiterated this in February 2019 and added, "We are set up for possibly three years of this show". That September, Stewart said filming for a second season could begin as early as March 2020. Co-creator Alex Kurtzman confirmed a month later that a second season was "already in the works" ahead of the first-season premiere in January 2020.
In early December, co-creator and showrunner Michael Chabon signed an overall deal with CBS Television Studios to create several new series for them, beginning with an adaptation of his novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Chabon was expected to remain with Picard as showrunner until he had to shift focus to Kavalier & Clay at some point in 2020, at which point he would still be creatively involved in Picard as an executive producer. A week later, the series was informally green-lit for a second 10-episode season after being allocated $20.4million in tax credits by the California Film Commission for the production to continue filming in California. This was the most any television series had been awarded by the program since its expansion in September 2014. An official renewal from streaming service CBS All Access (later rebranded Paramount+) was expected once a showrunner for the second season could be confirmed.
In January 2020, CBS officially announced the second season renewal and revealed that Terry Matalas had joined the series as an executive producer to fill the void that would be created by Chabon's departure. CBS had moved Matalas, who began his career working on Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise, from MacGyver to Picard because the latter was considered a high priority for the studio. Matalas had been working with Chabon and the second season's writers for "some time" before the official announcement, and he was expected to take over as showrunner once Chabon left the series. Picard was also 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. Chabon expressed regret at having to leave the series, but said he was "every bit as involved" in the second season's development as he had been on the first, and he would be writing for the second season as well as remaining an executive producer. The difference, he explained, was that he would not be running the series day-to-day once filming began.
Journalist Marc Bernardin, who began his career working as an intern on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, joined Picard as a supervising producer in March 2020. By the end of that month, filming was set to begin in mid-June. These plans were made before the COVID-19 pandemic began. Executive producer and co-creator Akiva Goldsman said in May 2020 that if filming could not begin in June due to the pandemic, it would begin as soon as possible after pandemic restrictions were lifted. That September, after a deal was made between major studios and Hollywood unions regarding safety measures for productions during the pandemic, director Jonathan Frakes said filming could begin in January 2021 and added that Stewart was eager to begin as soon as possible; filming began in February. Goldsman and Matalas were revealed to be co-showrunning the season that April, and did so until Matalas switched focus to the third season around half-way through filming the second. Goldsman continued running the second season. Matalas's change in focus happened later than planned because of the pandemic and issues with writing the second season.
Writing Following the first-season finale, Chabon and Goldsman said the second season would not ignore the fact that Picard's consciousness was transferred into a synthetic body during that episode. They added that the season would further explore the personal lives of the series' supporting cast, the first season's Romulan refugee storyline, and the technology and culture of Starfleet. Goldsman said the season would continue to explore issues that come up in the last stage of a person's life. One lesson learned by the writers during the first season, according to Goldsman, was to plan out the full story and ending of the season before they began filming.
The writers began by asking questions about Picard's role in the first season, such as "Why is he on a vineyard by himself with a dog? Why did he never marry Beverly Crusher and have a family?" This led to them deconstructing Picard in different ways from the first season, putting an emphasis on his past relationships, romance, and "the puzzle-pieces of his past that are stopping him from embracing his future". After joining the series, Matalas suggested they feature the extra-dimensional being Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation. He felt Q's relationship with Picard was important to the latter, and said Q was "the figure you introduce when your heroes need to face their truest selves". He wanted to tell a dramatic story with Q rather than just use him for "Loki-esque shenanigans" as with the character's previous appearances. Matalas, who is known for the time travel series 12 Monkeys, also suggested the season's time travel plot. This was inspired by the film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), and was a way to save money after the expensive first season. He said "all good time-travel tales are emotional at their core, and speak to something that's happening with your main character", and the season explores Picard's trauma from his mother's death by suicide when he was a child. Stewart brought his own experience of childhood domestic violence and subsequent trauma to this storyline. Matalas praised Goldsman for developing these ideas into a "really fascinating and heartbreaking psychological exploration of Picard".
The second and third seasons tell separate stories, despite being developed together. Before the end of 2019, Chabon and Goldsman met with Stewart to pitch the season's story, and Kurtzman said in January 2020 that the writers were confident in it. Kurtzman did want the option to adjust the story based on responses to the first season, but Chabon said the second season would not be affected by fans who criticized the first for not meeting their expectations. The full story for the second season was broken by March 2020 and writing had begun. The story features Q sending Picard and his companions to an alternate timeline where humanity has formed the xenophobic "Confederation of Earth" instead of the United Federation of Planets. They have to travel back in time to the 21st century to prevent that dark future from happening. Production delays caused by the pandemic allowed more episodes to be written upfront than usual, which meant earlier episodes could subsequently be revised based on later ones. After nine episodes had been written, Paramount+ asked for rewrites to remove some of the heavier science fiction ideas that they felt were too "in-Star Trek". This included subplots featuring the Romulans and a secret area of Guinan's bar for different alien species who are in hiding on Earth, the latter taking inspiration from Rick's Café Américain nightclub in the film Casablanca (1942). Another change made during rewrites was to condense two episodes that Chabon wrote, exploring the dark alternate timeline, into one.
The season introduces a new Borg collective that Matalas acknowledged caused some confusion for audiences. He said the new collective is separate from the Borg seen in previous Star Trek media and had not retconned prior Borg storylines. Exposition-heavy scenes were written for the second and third seasons that would have clarified this, but they were not filmed because the producers felt they would be uninteresting to audiences. The anomaly that the new collective discovers was added late in production to give the finale some action. There were suggestions that this could be expanded on in the third season, but the third-season scripts were too far along at that point for it to be added. Writing for the second season was completed after filming began in early 2021. Goldsman said it would not be clear if they had been successful in crafting the full story until editing was done.
Casting By June 2020, most of the main cast from the first season were expected to star in the second, including Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard, Alison Pill as Agnes Jurati, Isa Briones as Soji Asha, Evan Evagora as Elnor, Michelle Hurd as Raffi Musiker, and Santiago Cabrera as Cristobal "Chris" Rios. Harry Treadaway, who portrayed Narek in the first season, did not return for the second.