Star Trek: Picard Producer Reveals What They Learned From Season 1

Star Trek: Picard will return for its second season in 2022 and the creative team learned at least one lesson from developing the first season. Paramount+ revealed the first teaser for that new season during First Contact Day last week. The teaser revealed the return of John de Lancie as the nigh-omnipotent alien being called Q. Discussing the new season, producer Akiva Goldsman said in a recent interview that one thing they learned from writing the show's first season is, when dealing with a heavily serialized series, its good have the ending settled before you start telling the story.

"Figure out the end earlier," Goldsman told The Hollywood Reporter. "If you're going to do a serialized show that you have the whole story before you start shooting. It's more like a movie in that way – you better know the end of your third act before you start filming your first scene."

The comment suggests that the ending to Picard's first season was conceived later in the process than the producers would have liked. That's not all that unusual for a television series as developing, serialized stories change while they're being made all of the time. But it seems for a series going specifically for a cinematic approach, the producers would prefer to have things settled a little earlier on this time around.

Since Star Trek: Picard's first season was directed in blocks, it was most likely the final two episodes, directed by Goldsman himself, that remained in flux. That's the two-part episode "Et in Arcadia Ego," in which Picard tries to convince Soji and the other synthetics not to summon an extra-dimensional army to wipe out all organic life, while at the same time trying to dissuade a Romulan armada from wiping out all synthetic life on the planet.

Star Trek: Picard stars Patrick Stewart reprising his iconic role as Jean-Luc Picard, which he played for seven seasons on Star Trek: The Next Generation, following him through the next chapter of his life. Star Trek: Picard Season Two's cast includes Patrick Stewart, Alison Pill, Isa Briones, Evan Evagora, Michelle Hurd, Santiago Cabrera, Jeri Ryan, Orla Brady, and Brent Spiner.

CBS Studios produces the series in association with Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment. For season two, Alex Kurtzman, Akiva Goldsman, Terry Matalas, Michael Chabon, Doug Aarniokoski, Dylan Massin, Patrick Stewart, Heather Kadin, Rod Roddenberry, and Trevor Roth are executive producers. Aaron Baiers (Secret Hideout) and Kirsten Beyer are co-executive producers. Akiva Goldsman and Terry Matalas are season two's co-showrunners.

Star Trek: Picard's first season is streaming now on Paramount+.