The long-gestating Jean-Luc Picard Star Trek series — still lacking an official name — has launched active production in California this week, announced executive producer Michael Chabon on social media today.

Filming in southern California (rather than in Toronto, home of Star Trek: Discovery), the series will feature the return of Patrick Stewart to the Star Trek franchise, in a new ten-episode season set some two decades after the events of the last Star Trek: The Next Generation film, Star Trek: Nemesis.

Chabon, who also wrote the Short Trek “Calypso” for Discovery’s second season, hailed the day on Instagram with a “First Day!” snapshot. [UPDATE: The original image has been taken down.]

First announced last August, Patrick Stewart will be joined in the series by several new castmates — including Santiago Cabrera, Michelle Hurd, Evan Evagora, Alison Pill, Harry Treadaway, and Isa Briones — in a story which will, in some manner, follow up on the destruction of Romulus as seen in the 2009 Star Trek film.

The first two hours of the show will be directed by Star Trek: Discovery vet Hanelle Culpepper, with the second pairing of episodes directed by longtime Trek contributor Jonathan Frakes.

Past that, little is known about the series, though as the weeks and months progress we expect to learn much more about “the Picard show” as we move closer to its expected late-2019 premiere date.

Keep checking back to TrekCore for all the latest news about the show as it breaks!