‘Star Trek: Picard’ Creators Say Every New ‘Trek’ Show Will Be Different [TCA 2020]
CBS All Access presented a Television Critics Association panel forStar Trek: Picard. The long-awaited streaming series features Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard again. Co-stars Brent Spiner, Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis have been confirmed, along with Jeri Ryan and Jonathan Del Arco too.Executive producers Alex Kurtzman, Akiva Goldsman, Heather Kadin and showrunner Michael Chabon sat behind Stewart and his new co-stars during the panel. Much of the panel focused on how each iteration ofStar Trekon CBS All Access will be a unique experience, withPicardas the most demonstrative example.Star Trek: Picardpremieres January 23 on CBS All Access.
This isn’t syndication anymore
WhenStar Trekwas at its syndicated height in the ’90s, there wasThe Next Generation, VoyagerandDeep Space Nine. Each one had its unique aspects,but they shared a consistent aesthetic.Kurtman wantedPicardto be an example of how different concurrentStar Trekstreaming series could be.“I think the proposition is that every time you watch aStar Trekshow, it has to feel and look totally very different from every other show,” Kurtzman said. “What you get fromDiscoveryis not what you’re going to get fromPicard, and certainly not what you’re going to get fromLower Decks.That’s the beauty of what we’re trying to build. If you’re looking at the show and you’re thinking, well, I could just get that on another show, then we’ve failed.“Some of the differences Kurtzman promises include spending more timeon Earth, and focusing on Picard’s private life.“The look of this feels more grounded,” Kurtzman said. “If you look at the season, you’ll see kind of functions and chapters. The first chapter is really earthbound. It’s very rare that you see a lot of time spent on the planet Earth in the world ofStar Trek, and we did not want to rush that. We wanted to take the time to show the condition of Picard’s life, and to watch him evolve to taking off into the stars, and we were not in a hurry to do that. So I think the look and the tone and the feel of the show is different by design.”
Some aspects will always be consistent in Star Trek shows
The beauty of the world that Gene Roddenberry created is that it has room for several different approaches and tones. However, you’ll still always know you’re watchingStar Trek.“All the shows are connected because they are ultimatelyTrek,” Kadin said. “They’re all coming from the point of view of hope for a better future, a quality for a better future, and those same tenets apply across the board. But I think what’s been so special about building up the franchise is we have these amazing different voices focused on each one. We have Michael Chabon and Akiva on this show, and then we have Mike McMahan doing a comedy onLower Decks, and then we have the Hageman brothers doing a show for Nickelodeon. So all of the shows on one hand on face value feel very different, but you should be able to watch any of them and all of them and feel like, wow, that’s aStar Trekshow told from a specific point of view.“That makesStar Trekmore like a movie franchise likeMission: ImpossibleorAlien, where different directors would come in with their own stamp.
All Star Trek shows have to address a timeline now
Thanks to Kurtzman’s own 2009Star Trekmovie, there are now multiple timelines inStar Trek. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) tried to use red matter to save the Romulan sun, but ended up going back in time and starting the separate “Kelvin timeline.” LikeDiscovery, Picardis back in the Prime timeline.“We are in the Prime timeline,” Kurtzman said.That makes sense. Picard never existed (at least not yet) in the Kelvin timeline, so this series would followThe Next Generationin the Prime timeline. However, it also follows the events of the Romulan sun explosion.Picarddeals with the aftermath of the event.“Events from the Kelvin timeline impactedPicard, but if you look at that movie, the destruction of Romulus was in the Prime timeline,” Kurtzman said. “It is what enabled the Kelvin timeline jump to happen. So that is very consistent with canon.”
This Star Trek is more for new Trekkers
If everyStar Trekshow can be different, there could conceivably be the ultimate die hard Trekker show that’s completely impenetrable to anyone who hasn’t seen every episode of every series. That’s notPicardthough. Although it will be rewarding toNext Generationfans, they want new Trekkers to enjoy it too.“Many of us have very deep, longstanding relationships toStar Trek,“Goldsman said. “Our storytelling came from watchingStar Trek, the original series or the original series in syndication or later iterations. So that’s really important to us. We areStar Trekfans. We also believe thatStar Trekis a universal communication. We admire it the way fans admire it with those kinds of aspirations for it. So we wanted to show, and you’ll tell us whether we succeeded or not, to be equally enjoyable for us if we were to watch it and for you who had never seen an episode. So we relied on the things that we think made good storytelling: drama, character, conflict, loss, yearning, the things that move us through our days. And those things are not unique toStar Trekby any means. So given the gift of Patrick Stewart and this cast, we would tell a story that we hoped would resonate with anyone, andStar Trekbecame the vehicle for which we could do that.“That’s not to say Chabon didn’t try to get some uber nerdy Trek terminology in there.“Sometimes I might try to slip a little in, and usually I was encouraged to take it back out, because it’s not meted very often,” Chabon said. “This series is very much character based and character driven. The technology that is represented in the show, we tried to make things as self-evident as we could, or as self-explanatory as we could. There is a huge storehouse ofStar Trektechnology already established that we could draw on, and I think in terms of actual technobabble, we didn’t really do it very often. Pretty light.“Goldsman called out one of Chabon’s attempts. “Somebody says, ‘Engage the inertial dampers’ somewhere.“Chabon denied it. “No, we didn’t shoot that,” he said.
