Star Trek: Patrick Stewart Reveals Whether Picard Season 2 Will Address Coronavirus Pandemic

With the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect our daily lives, some turn to celebrities and heroes of fiction for inspiration. The cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation has stepped to that challenge. Patrick Stewart is live-streaming his readings of Shakespeare's sonnets daily. LeVar Burton is bringing his LeVar Burton Reads podcast to live-streams three times a week. But fans shouldn't expect to see the pandemic represented in the upcoming second season of Star Trek: Picard on CBS All Access. Stewart both stars in and produces the series. He says he's not comfortable bringing such a fresh crisis into the sci-fi show.

"I would not encourage that," Stewart said during an interview with CBC. "This is a disturbing and frightening and sad time for many thousands of people and I would feel uncomfortable if we were to make this a theme of the second season of Star Trek. It is too sensitive, too upsetting, too frightening, I think than some of the other issues that we have dealt with, which are much more of a political nature."

This led Stewart to share some of his personal thoughts about how the crisis has been handled by those in positions of power and speculated about how Captain Jean-Luc Picard may have done things differently. "Well, Picard would have acted very much quicker than either the US government or the UK government did," he said. "There were good examples around the world of how best to handle this dangerous and difficult situation, and it wasn't taken up, and I think that Picard would not have hesitated in finding, if not solutions, at least ways of minimizing the risk and the danger to individuals."

Star Trek: Picard wrapped its first season earlier this month. The show was renewed for its second season on CBS All Access ahead of its January premiere.

"The energy and excitement around the premiere of Star Trek: Picard has reached a magnitude greater than all of us at CBS All Access could have hoped for," said Julie McNamara, Executive Vice President, Original Content, CBS All Access when the announcement was made. "We're thrilled to announce plans for a second season before the series' debut, and we are confident that Star Trek fans and new viewers alike will be captured by the stellar cast and creative team's meticulously crafted story when it premieres on Jan. 23."

Star Trek: Picard is now streaming on CBS All Access.