‘Star Trek: Picard’ trailer: Patrick Stewart’s beloved captain is back
Trekkies just got a silver anniversary present: Captain Jean Luc-Picard.
The trailer for the upcoming CBS All Access streaming series “Star Trek: Picard” dropped Thursday, exactly 25 years to the day after the final episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”
Sir Patrick Stewart, 78, is back as Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the USS Enterprise-D.
The teaser opens with a female voice intoning the many honors earned by Picard during his storied Starfleet career: “15 years ago today, you led us out of the darkness. You commanded the greatest rescue armada in history. Then — the unimaginable.” (Cue the dramatic, pounding music.)
“What did that cost you? Your faith? Your faith in us? Your faith in yourself?” the unseen voice asks, as a man’s booted feet trod through the sun-scorched Château Picard vineyard, a pastoral setting die-hard fans will recall as part of Picard’s earthbound origin story.
“Tell us, why did you leave Starfleet, admiral?” the voice asks, as Picard’s somber visage fills the screen. Just as he seems ready to respond — the scene cuts to black.
It’s no surprise that fans are abuzz about the first-look footage. The seven-season run of “Next Generation” was the longest for any series in the sci-fi franchise, with 178 episodes airing between 1987 and 1994. Series creator Gene Roddenberry’s original “Star Trek” famously consisted of only 79 episodes in its 1966-69 run.
Stewart went on to reprise Picard in four feature films.
The acclaimed British thespian was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1966 to 1982 before gaining fame on the small screen.
He also has the unique distinction of being part of two massive sci-fi brands, thanks to his role as Professor Charles Xavier, the telepathic leader of an upstate New York school for mutants, in Fox’s “X-Men” films.
Executive producers, among them Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Chabon, have teased the new show as a look at a “new chapter” in Picard’s life. And Stewart’s input on scripts is a prime asset.
“I think it’s going to make the show. It’s going to take it to another level. Just to have him participating in the way he participated? Amazing,” Chabon told Deadline. “He understands drama and he understands character and can bring to bear on that all of his experience doing Shakespeare and Beckett and everything in between.”
Stewart is joined by a new-to-the-franchise ensemble of actors, including Alison Pill (HBO’s “The Newsroom”), Santiago Cabrera (“Big Little Lies”), Michelle Hurd (“Hawaii 5-0”), Isa Briones (“American Crime Story”) and Harry Treadaway (“Penny Dreadful”).
The premiere date for “Star Trek: Picard” has yet to be announced.