If you consider yourself a Trekkie, you’ve no doubt caught wind that Sir Patrick Stewart – the Sir Patrick Stewart – is returning to Star Trek as Jean-Luc Picard.
He’ll be getting his own series on CBS All Access as part of the network’s plans to radically expand its Trek universe, with Discovery showrunner Alex Kurtzman in the driving seat.
Further details on Picard’s long-rumored second coming are being kept under lock and key, far away from the prying eyes of Trekkies, though over on YouTube, the Powers That Be have dropped footage of Stewart springing his surprise on the attendees of the 2018 Star Trek convention in Las Vegas – the surprise being that, for the first time since The Next Generation, Patrick Stewart is officially headed back to Starfleet HQ.
That wasn’t always the case, mind you; as Stewart admitted this past weekend, he made a promise never to return to the Star Trek series, perhaps in fear that his involvement would be misinterpreted as some glorified ego stroke – especially if it only involved a fleeting cameo.
But with Kurtzman’s new drama, that’s simply not the case. Patrick Stewart’s world-famous captain will be headlining a series that’s set to explore Picard’s next steps. And for this reason, a Star Trek return was simply too good to turn down.
But something has happened and it’s not only the impact of the people I have been talking to and working with for the past almost six months now, but it’s also because i have spent a lot of time recently watching The Next Generation … gradually it became clearer and clearer to me the power [and] the success of that show.
It’s fair to say that the stars aligned for CBS and Patrick Stewart, then, and we’ll be bringing you all the details on Star Trek‘s new era as they emerge.