Streaming service CBS All Access is targeting Trekkers, with the goal of premiering new Star Trek content year-round. While some shows, like the animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks, are still in the very early stages, others are further along. This includes the spin-off series following the late-in-life adventures of Jean-Luc Picard, (former?) captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise, with Patrick Stewart reprising the role. On Tuesday, at the Global Media and Communications Conference, CBS Chief Creative Officer David Nivens described when we can expect the Picard series release date.
Trek Movie described Niven as promising "much more robust" programming in 2019, with Star Trek a key spoke in the CBS strategy. "There is huge anticipation for Picard," Nevins said, previewing the 2019 lineup. "That will [premiere] at the end of the year."
Star Trek: Discovery Season 2, which will reintroduce Spock, premieres on Jan. 17, 2019. Even if Season 2 airs in two parts, spread over months, it's still likely to be done well before the end of 2019. This means new episodes of the Picard series and Discovery are unlikely to overlap on CBS All Access.
While CBS has not revealed anything specific about the Picard series, we do know it will be set further into the future of the Star Trek timeline than any series before it, after the events of Voyager and the Dominion War seen in Deep Space Nine.
Picard Series Timeline
"He may not, and I stress may not, be a captain anymore. He may not be the Jean-Luc that you recognize and know so well," Stewart told audiences at the Star Trek Las Vegas convention. "Twenty years will have passed, which is more or less exactly the time between the very last movie—Nemesis—and today."
The Picard show will open on a new century in the roughly 250-year window of time Star Trek series have been set. The earliest point in the Star Trek timeline is 2151, the year the first Enterprise launched after first contact with the Klingons. Picard will take place around 2399. While Picard has previously been depicted, in novels and comics, as serving the Federation in an ambassador role, it's unclear whether the new series will stick to those constrictions. If the new series follows the novels, Picard's United Federation of Planets will have weathered the 2381 Borg invasion and the rise of a rival Typhon Pact, which united the Romulan Star Empire, Breen Confederacy and Tholian Assembly—a deadly combination.
Nevins further confirmed an additional order of the Short Treks series, which have included mini-episodes written by novelist Michael Chabon and Rick and Morty writer Michael McMahan.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
