In what will bring great joy to fans of the once-“Next Generation” captain and surprise to almost no one in Hollywood, “Star Trek: Picard” has been given the green light for a second season before its series debut next month.
Like the first season that will premiere on CBS All Access on Jan. 23, Season 2 of the Patrick Stewart-led “Picard” looks to be a 10-episode order for the streamer. As a part of that second season, the latest venture in the Alex Kurtzman-marshaled Trekverse has been allocated over $20.4 million in California tax incentives.
CBS declined to comment on a Season 2 for the series co-starring Santiago Cabrera, Michelle Hurd, Alison Pill, Harry Treadaway and Evan Evagora. However, with plans already publicly in place for current showrunner Michael Chabon to shift roles in a second season, “Picard” — featuring “Next Gen” alumni Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner as well as Jeri Ryan from “Star Trek: Voyager” — was clearly going for that next final frontier. It seems sure to be a big draw and a flagship show for the relatively new and bulking-up subscription-based streamer.
Certainly, the huge reaction that “Picard” received when the resurrection of the philosopher-captain was first announced in Las Vegas last year and the tax credits made public today were a cold-hard-cash indication that the series — produced by CBS Television Studios, Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment — was going to engage further, to paraphrase Jean-Luc himself.
That $20.45 million Season 2 of “Picard” grew since then-Gov. Jerry Brown officially expanded the credits to $330 million a year overall and ditched the much-criticized lottery system in September 2014.
In comparison, the much-anticipated first season of “Picard” run by Chabon was awarded $15.6 million this time last year. While a not-insignificant chunk of change, that $15.6 million wasn’t even the most awarded series of that November 2018 allocation period, with top dollars of $15.8 million going to the third season of Fox’s “Star Trek” homage of sorts, “The Orville.”
Similar to “Star Trek: Discovery,” “Star Trek: Picard” will drop new episodes weekly for Season 1 on CBS All Access and is expected to do the same for the late 2020 or early 2021 penciled-in Season 2. With “Star Trek: Picard” having recently wrapped up its first season, sources tell me that a Season 2 could be making the jump to production warp speed as early as next spring.
First having given fans a real taste of the series at San Diego Comic-Con last summer, the cast and producers of “Picard” stepped around the issue of a Season 2 at the Brazilian Comic-Con in Sao Paulo last week.
Now they don’t have to be so light-footed.
“Star Trek: Picard” debuts in North America on the same day that the 2020 Sundance Film Festival launches on CBS All Access. The very next day, Jan. 24, the series will hit more than 200 countries and territories on Amazon Prime Video.