Star Trek: Picard season 2 will show more of what Starfleet is like now

Data is dead. Brent Spiner — who played the Star Trek: The Next Generation fan-favorite character in season 1 of Star Trek: Picard — is officially done playing Data. In the season 1 finale of Picard, Data and Jean-Luc (Patrick Stewart) finally had the proper farewell conversation that was denied them when Data sacrificed himself in 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis.

After their talk, Data asks Picard to unplug him from the “massively complex quantum simulation” his brain was downloaded into, which was keeping him alive even after his body was destroyed in Nemesis. Jean-Luc granted his dear friend his wish. However, Spiner played another character named Doctor Altan Inigo Soong. Soong is a scientist who lives among synthetics like Data on their homeworld. He’s also the brother of Doctor Noonien Soong, who created Data in his own likeness. So Data isn’t coming back, but Spiner could return as Doctor Soong.

Picard screenwriter Akiva Goldsman talked about all of this and more with IndieWire. “I think that we wanted to feather in the possibility of more Brent, and we knew we were letting Data go,” he said. We all knew that this Soong character had been in our head canon when it came to the season anyway. But we want more Brent, and we wanted to create a platform for which there could be more Brent in future seasons.”

As far as what fans can expect from Picard season 2, Goldsman promises to get inside what Starfleet is like now, since season 1 pretty much focused on a retired Picard doing his own thing. At the end of the season, William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) brought a whole fleet to save the synthetics’ homeworld from the Romulans, which sounds like it’ll be just the beginning:

"We knew that bringing in that fleet was a little bit of a promise, and so we tried to be thoughtful about it. Especially as we go forward, we’re going to start making statements about really what the world of Starfleet [is like], at least technologically if not socially and culturally … These are the things that are likely to get a little bit more play than they did [in Season 1] in what was essentially a story about somebody who is outside of Starfleet."

Shifting from Picard to Star Trek: Discovery, actor Wilson Cruz (Doctor Hugh Culber) stopped by The Talk, where he talked about his character’s improbable journey: brutally murdered in season 1 and then brought back in season 2, after his colleagues pulled him out of the mycelial network.

“I really wanted to make sure that the return [of Culber] was epic and it spoke to this relationship [with Stamets], but also that there was a cost to his being murdered,” Cruz said. “So many times with these LGBT, especially gay characters, are killed off on these series and there is no cost as if it never happened. I wanted there to be growth with this. He needed to have learned something from this. We all did. So, I was excited about the epic way he was brought back.”

Doctor Culber is in a relationship with Lieutenant Commander Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp), and it sounds like their relationship will develop. “I am more excited about how he has grown in season three,” Cruz continued. “How he has used this experience to kind of inform the way he works on the ship. We will see more of how he works as a doctor but also how he is taking into consideration mental health.”

Star Trek: Discovery season 3 doesn’t have an official premiere date yet, but CBS All Access says it will happen at some point this year. Meanwhile, Picard season 2 hasn’t even begun shooting on account of the coronavirus. Hopefully, everything is cleared up before long.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels

h/t TrekMovie