It’s 2019, which means the new CBS All Access Star Trek series featuring Patrick Stewart’s return to the role of Jean-Luc Picard is coming this year. We still don’t know a lot about the show, but we are now learning more about how it came to be and how involved the star of the show is in his return to the 24th century.

Stewart wants to protect Next Gen legacy

In a new interview with DigitalSpy, executive producer Alex Kurtzman acknowledged that it wasn’t easy to convince Sir Patrick to return to the role, saying, “…getting him to say yes was its own amazing thing.” The man in charge of expanding Star Trek for television also gave some details on what motivated Stewart’s change of heart:

“Patrick needed to make sure that we were coming from the right place and that we wanted to protect what Next Gen means to so many people, and what his character, specifically, means to so many people. And that was really about several conversations back and forth, exploring his instincts, our instincts. Ultimately our job is to make him feel comfortable and safe and to protect the show and shield it from anything that would break it in the wrong way.”

Stewart is hands-on

Sir Patrick is also an executive producer on the new show, and from the way Kurtzman describes it, the star is very much involved in crafting this Star Trek: The Next Generation follow-up series.

“He was there [in the writers’ room] for two weeks at the beginning of the experience, sitting with the writers. Everybody was talking together about what they wanted this show to be, and that’s very special. Patrick will send us beautifully written emails about what he feels about Picard and where he feels Picard has been. That’s so inspirational.”

Exploring how to connect new show with established canon

The new series is expected to be set 20 years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis, which would put it in the year 2399. Getting a continuation of the Star Trek story after Voyager and Nemesis is something many fans have been hoping to see. It is an open question as to what the new show will be like, especially in relation to what was established in 21 seasons and four feature films set in the 24th century. Kurtzman spoke briefly about how they are approaching this issue:

“It’s fun to think about how to connect to canon while freeing yourself from it technologically. We’re still exploring that, that’s a deep dive. That takes literally a year to figure out.”

Stay up to date on all the Picard show news here at TrekMovie.com.