Patrick Stewart revealed he made some demands before returning to Star Trek as Jean-Luc Picard.
He will reprise the role for Picard’s third and final season, which is the spin-off from the hit series Star Trek: The Next Generation, which ran for seven seasons between 1987 and 1994.
The reunion of Picard and his crew from Star Trek: The Next Generation will delight Star Trek fans. However, Stewart was more than ready to bid farewell to Picard after the show’s second season if showrunner Terry Matalas ignored his wishes.
“What I said to Terry in our initial conversations were: ‘OK, if I do this, then this is what I don’t want to do – and I had a list,” the actor told AV Club.
Stewart detailed what was on his list: “I didn’t want to wear a traditional uniform, or continuously say ‘engage’ or ‘make it so’ for the sake of it.”
Picard won’t be confined to a captain’s chair or an admiral’s desk in the new season, Stewart was pleased to hear. It would be more like a detective mystery, searching for answers as to why someone he hasn’t spoken to in at least 20 years has contacted him in such distress.
After Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) sends an ominous, encoded message warning him not to trust anyone, including Starfleet, the former Enterprise captain boldly returns to space to find his former colleague.
Stewart said the idea of seeing Picard go into detective mode “opened so many doors to me”.
“We’ve never seen Picard like this before,” Stewart said, adding of the show’s writers: “I have to say, they did extraordinary work.”
Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Marina Sirtis, Jeri Ryan and Michelle Hurd also star in the final season.
You can watch new episodes of Star Trek: Picard on Paramount Plus every Thursday.
Season 2 of Picard was dire. It was all over the place. I hope the final season has a better story to tell.