Producers and cast from the hotly anticipated Star Trek: Picard took the stage on Saturday in New York City to round out the “Enter the Star Trek Universe” panel at New York Comic Con. Including the premiere of a new trailer, we also got a confirmed release date for the show: Thursday, January 23, 2020 in North America, followed by a release the next day on Amazon Prime in the rest of the world.

Appearing on stage were Star Trek franchise showrunner Alex Kurtzman, executive producer Heather Kadin, supervising producer Kirsten Beyer, executive producer Akiva Goldsman, executive producer Michael Chabon, and cast: Sir Patrick Stewart, Isa Briones, Santiago Cabrera, Michelle Hurd, Alison Pill, Harry Treadaway, and Evan Evagora.

The panel began with the story of Sir Patrick Stewart being recruited to return to Star Trek, with the added detail that the original discussion had been about Picard returning for a Short Trek only — and not a full series. After Stewart largely turned down the producers on the idea of returning for a series, he asked for a written proposal that Michael Chabon was asked to put together. “I seem to remember 35 pages,” Stewart joked after having requested a four page write up. “I got into it!” Chabon responded.

On the decision to include other characters from The Next Generation in Picard, Heather Kadin said:

“A big concern was that we didn’t want it to be – and especially Patrick didn’t want it to be – a TNG reunion show….we only brought people back if their story really mattered to the story we were telling. I don’t think the fans would have appreciated that… If we’re going to go to them, and they join a show that’s called “Picard” we give them something significant to do. And I think you’ll see that each one of them has a pivotal, emotional story to tell in those ten episodes.”

On the question of whether someone needs to be fully familiar with The Next Generation prior to watching Picard, Kadin said that has been “a big consideration for all of us,” and that it was not necessary. She also indicated that Isa Briones’s character, Dahj, is a major point of view character that helps pull new viewers in, in much the same way that Tilly does on Discovery: “I think people are going to be welcomed into it without a problem.”

On where Picard finds himself in the show, Akiva Goldsman said that it was an intentional choice to set the show as far forward from Star Trek: Nemesis as we are from Nemesis being released in theaters. “We all spent a lot of time collaboratively filling in those 20 years,” Goldsman said. “Even though you’ll see in the narrative object there are hints of [backstory], we know pretty much everything that happened in those 20 years.”

Speaking of her involvement in the franchise as the director of the pilot episodes for Picard, director Hanelle Culpepper said, “I became a Star Trek fan because of The Next Generation, and I’m a huge fan of Picard and Sir Patrick. So when I got the job it was an incredible honor – and also terrifying in a way – because I knew I could not let you guys down.”

And Kirsten Beyer —Star Trek novelist turned Discovery writer, and now Picard producer –talked about how she used her experience with writing Voyager novels that continue the story of the characters beyond the end of the show in Picard. “The idea of taking these beloved characters beyond where the shows left them, or where the films might have left them, was sort of what I woke up every day to do anyway,” she told the audience. “It was a tremendous challenge but also really rewarding.”

In talking about being asked to participate in the Star Trek franchise and then in Picard, showrunner Michael Chabon recalled becoming a Star Trek fan at 10 years old in 1973 and said “from that moment until the day Akiva [Goldsman] proposed to me [to write for Star Trek] I never stopped living in that imaginative world… it comes very naturally to me to think in terms of Star Trek.”

Turning to the cast, Isa Briones talked about the first encounter between her character and the former Enterprise captain. “When Dahj and Picard first meet,” she said, “it’s this really special moment of two lost souls colliding in this crazy circumstance borne out of tragedy…it starts with me asking for people, but I think in a way we help each other.”

Santiago Cabrera, who plays Chris Rios, expanded upon the little information we know about his ex-Starfleet character. “Due to some traumatic events in his past in relation to Starfleet he’s stepped away [from the service],” he shared. “So he’s very reticent to take on Picard when it’s proposed to him by his friend Raffi [Musiker, played by Michelle Hurd]. What’s really fun about my character – and I think I can speak for everyone – is that we’re sort of a band of misfits, a motley crew as we like to call ourselves… it’s a great group dynamic.”

“Talk about complicated,” followed up Michelle Hurd, of her character Raffi’s relationship with Picard. “She’s very complicated in general. I wouldn’t say she’s warm and fuzzy. She’s sarcastic. She has vices that she leans on as crutches…but she has history with Picard and I can’t wait for you guys to discover it.”

She went on to describe Musiker and Rios as “partners in crime” who have their own history, which Hurd called “a unique, strong bond.”

Alison Pill, who plays Dr. Agnes Jurati, said of her character that “Picard’s mission ends up being exactly what she’s spent her entire life dreaming about. They have the same goal in mind,” she continued, “and the possibility of it invites this woman to want to go on an adventure unlike any she’s wanted to go on.”

The two Romulans, Narek and Elnor — played by Harry Treadaway and Evan Evagora, respectively, spoke a little about the comparison between their two characters. “We’re kind of like an odd couple,” said Evagora. “They’re both very different. We’re both Romulans raised entirely differently. [Narek] was raised more typically as a Romulan – [Elnor] was raised very differently. He’s more secretive, lying…my character was raised to tell the truth…I don’t think he’s capable of telling a lie.”

In answering fan questions, Sir Patrick Stewart talked about how the ensemble nature of The Next Generation and now Picard was so important to him. “You have used the word that has been most important to me since an April day in 1987,” he began.

“I looked on every aspect of The Next Generation as being ensemble based… I think when we first met and talked [about Picard] it was my use of that word – the ensemble – and the uniting of a group… here we sit in love with all these [actors] and that’s where the ensemble element comes from.”

Stewart also confirmed that it had been he who advocated that Picard’s dog, Number One, should be cast as a pit bull.

In his closing remarks on the panel, Alex Kurtzman indicated that the plot of Picard had been written to grapple with modern day issues in a serious way. “Star Trek is a mirror. It holds itself up to society,” he said. “We’re in the middle of a massive immigration conversation right now, and we are very proud I think to say we are diving headfirst into that and to using Star Trek as a way of exploring it from all points of view.”

Star Trek: Picard is now only three and a half short months away from our television screens, but thanks to yesterday’s announcement, we also learned that “Children of Mars,” the Picard-backstory Short Trek, will be debuting on CBS All Access on January 9, two weeks ahead of the Picard series premiere.

Keep checking back to TrekCore for all the latest news on Star Trek: Picard as we approach the series’ January launch!