‘Star Trek: Picard’ Season 2 Teaser: Get Your First Look at the Return of John de Lancie’s Q
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Jean-Luc Picard got a new lease on life — and, by the end of the initial run of episodes, literally a new body — in the polarizing first season of “Star Trek: Picard.” Where does he go next? Well, the first teaser with footage from Season 2 just dropped, and it seems that once again Patrick Stewart’s beloved space sage isn’t seeking adventure so much as adventure finding him. Watch the teaser below.
Q, omnipotent superbeing and galaxy-brained wit, has popped up at Picard’s chateau in La Barre, France. And it’s a surprisingly subdued appearance: you’d think this veritable trickster god would find his love of Napoleonic couture to be perfectly at home in the French countryside. He’s also aged, presumably adjusting his own appearance with a snap of his fingers so as not to make Picard feel bad about his own advancing years.
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You know there will be some explanation given for why a veritable deity is showing the wear of years: John de Lancie is playing Q once again, a role he’s assayed since the very first episode of “The Next Generation” in 1987. And he’ll be putting his beloved “mon capitaine” through the ringer once again. In that first “Next Gen” episode he put humanity on trial — are we as enlightened as we say we are? Are we really ready to be traveling the cosmos? Well, in the “Next Gen” series finale he told Picard that the trial goes on.
For Season 2 of “Picard,” debuting in 2022, Q seems to be setting in motion a time-travel related plot. “Time is broken,” one character says in voiceover. And Jeri Ryan’s Seven of Nine is seen looking into a mirror to discover that her Borg implants are gone! Does that mean history’s been rewritten so that she was never assimilated at all? The strange thing is that it seems like she still remembers having been a Borg.
Alternate history shenanigans may also explain a shot of Picard in uniform addressing some kind of Federation summit: note that, as he stands at the podium, he’s flanked by a series of flags that include the Klingon, Vulcan, Bajoran, and Ferengi sigils. We know from the far-future seen in “Star Trek: Enterprise” that the Klingons do join the Federation at some point. Has that already happened?
Returning with Stewart and Ryan from Season 1 are Alison Pill (seen in a space prison jumpsuit, after she committed murder last time around), Isa Briones (standing in the middle of the Lincoln Center fountain, which naturally is still around at the dawn of the 25th century), Evan Evagora, Michelle Hurd, Santiago Cabrera, Orla Brady, and, intriguingly, Brent Spiner. The erstwhile Data is probably playing the Dr. Soong (of the Soong family that invented Data) seen in Season 1. It seemed unclear at the time if there would be more to do with that character.
Also intriguing: Check out the poster for Season 2, which appears to show present-day Los Angeles. Ahhh… so perhaps we’re not seeing Briones standing in the middle of the Lincoln Center fountain in 2399, but rather in the present day. Frankly, it’s unclear if New York City is even around during the events of the “Trek” shows as it may not have survived World War III in the mid-21st century.
And here’s the poster: is there any way this isn’t 2021 Los Angeles? Also of note: “Star Trek: Voyager” established that much of L.A. fell into the sea following the Hermosa earthquake of 2047 — so it’s unclear if any of the city would even be visible during the time of “Picard” let alone an intact downtown skyline.
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