The series is set 20 years after Jean-Luc Picard's last appearance in Star Trek: Nemesis (2002), and finds him deeply affected by the destruction of Romulus as depicted in the film Star Trek (2009).

Quite possibly the most exciting thing to happen to Star Trek in over a decade, Sir Patrick Stewart returns to Star Trek to reprise his most admired role; the titular Jean-Luc Picard.

In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Picard was monumental in trying to help the reunification of Vulcan and Romulus. The destruction of Romulus is definitely going to have taken its toll on him, especially with all of the work that he’s done to make peace with the Romulan Star Empire over the course of the show and his final feature-film; Star Trek: Nemesis.

The series will be set almost 20 years since the events depicted in Nemesis, and given that that movie came out in 2002, it will have been about the same amount of time as when we last saw Picard, which to be quite honest is somewhat marvellous to me.

Based on interviews with Sir Patrick, it doesn’t sound like he’d have been interested to return to the role if he was playing the exact same character as he did during the 80s and 90s. Playing a version of Picard who has been broken and decided to leave Starfleet sounds like a far more intriguing change of character for him, and hopefully for us too as an audience.

With all the hate thrown at Star Trek: Discovery as of late, fans are excited about the new Picard series. I am too, but I would caution anyone who’s expecting to get that nostalgic TNG feeling from the show, as this is sounding like it will be a very different in tone from what we’re used to. But that’s what makes it so exciting to me, and it will interesting to see where they take it.

There’s no official release date as of yet, but CBS Chief Creative Officer David Nevins stated that CBS expects the series to launch late in 2019.