Star Trek: Picard Showrunner Reveals How Jean-Luc Spent Retirement In His Early Pitch

By now, it’s well-known among fans that it took some convincing to get Patrick Stewart to reprise his role as Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: Picard. Showrunner Michael Chabon compiled an extensive pitch document and, while almost nothing from that document made it into the show, it was a promising enough pitch to get Stewart on board with the series. The details of that document have largely remained a mystery, but Chabon revealed a small bit of information in a recent interview with The Los Angeles Times. The pitch did have Picard retired from Starfleet, as he was in the show, but instead of living at his vineyard in France, he worked as a traveling theater troupe manager.

“The only thing I remember [about those pages] was that it started with Picard having long since retired, and was now a jack of all trades,” Chabon says. “When the story opened up, he was working as a road manager for a traveling theater company, and we were doing a performance of Samuel Beckett’s ‘Krapp’s Last Tape.’”

Stewart commented in the same interview, “Don’t you think there should have been Beckett on “Star Trek,” after all those seasons?”

Stewart himself is a well-known theater actor from before his days on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Picard showed an appreciation for theater as well, helping Data comprehend the works of Shakespeare.

Chabon won’t return as showrunner for Picard‘s second season. He’ll still produce and write for the series, but he’ll spend the bulk of his time developing the Showtime adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Instead, Terry Matalas will take over as showrunner. The coronavirus will delay production of the new season, but Stewart has said that writing is already underway with big things in store.

“It is [coming together], yeah. Because of how we are living currently, there is no writers’ room, of course. But everybody is writing, and they are keeping me in touch with what is going on. We have video conferences,” Stewart said in May. “There are startling events predicted in season two. I am so excited about them because it is taking season one on from where we were. We are not going to be covering the same ground. It is going to be extraordinary. I am very excited about it. Of course, I can’t go into detail at all. I have a long conference planned for tomorrow, where I hope for certain aspects of how season two will develop, and I’m looking forward to it very much.”

The first season of Star Trek: Picard is streaming now on CBS All Access.