Even more Star Trek: Next Generation alums coming aboard Picard?

Sir Patrick Stewart is back in Starfleet in Star Trek: Picard, set to air at some point in 2020 on CBS All Access. Set years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis and the destruction of Romulus, Star Trek: Picard finds Jean-Luc as a sad old man, running his family vineyards with his trusty dog, Number One.

Speaking of Number One — the human, that is, not the dog — Jonathan Frakes is reprising his role as Will Riker. Marina Sirtis is also returning to the role of Deanna Tro, and Brent Spiner is coming back as Data. It looks like The Next Generation gang is all back together again…well, almost.

But they might be on their way, too. Speaking at the Destination Star Trek convention, Stewart was asked if the rest of The Next Generation crew would make an appearance on the show. “I think so,” to everyone’s delight.

We haven’t heard of Michael Dorn — who played Worf — or LeVar Burton — who played Geordi La Forge — being attached to Picard, at least not yet. Also still missing in action is Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher. “I think it is very unlikely they will ask me to participate in it,” Wheaton said at the convention. “I mean, I think it is just extraordinarily unlikely that will happen. If they did, I would say ‘yes,’ of course. I think all of us would say ‘yes.’ I think all of us if we were given the opportunity to put on the spacesuits again and go work together and bring those characters back, as they would be thirty years later, we would all say ‘yes.’”

"And I don’t think it’s because we want the work. I don’t think it’s because we need the money. I don’t think it’s because we don’t have other things to do. It’s because we love each other so much and an opportunity, even for a day, to return emotionally to some of the best times of our lives, I think that we would jump at that opportunity."

And Stewart is doing more than just acting on the show. Cinema Blend reports on some comments that director Michael Chabon made about everything Stewart is doing behind the camera. “ huge, huge just priceless input from Sir Patrick Stewart,” he said. “The things he told us, the things he said he was interested in doing, and was not interested in doing. The acting challenges he was looking for, and the things that he felt were old challenges that he had already risen to and he was not interested in doing again. We took all that so seriously, like gospel. The word of God, really, and we obeyed.”

When you’ve got an acting legend like Patrick Stewart on set, you listen to everything he has to say. That overflowed into the writer’s room, too.

"We really tried to tailor the story to suit the actor, to suit the thinker, the man who had given a lot of thought over the long years that he had not played Jean-Luc Picard to what it was that made Picard interesting to him, and what he thought was going to be interesting about Jean-Luc Picard in this fairly late stage of his life. What was important to Patrick Stewart looking around at the world that we’re living in now."

Oh and in case you’re wondering, Picard will be an admiral in his new show. Check out his new uniform:

Star Trek: Picard debuts on CBS All Access in January.

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h/t Geek Tyrant