Chabon And Goldsman On Picard: Looking Back And Ahead
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Now that the first season of Star Trek: Picard has aired, Showrunner Michael Chabon and Akiva Goldman reflect upon the season and look ahead to Season Two. Note: Spoilers for the first season.
One of the main themes of the first season was Picard’s feelings about Data, who sacrificed himself in Star Trek: Nemesis.
“This was one of the great organizing ideas of the season, the final sitdown between Picard and Data,” said Goldsman. “This idea of how Picard could face and take off the anchors of his own guilt surrounding the loss of his friend…was part of what we were driving to from the beginning.
“As things changed about the series and the season as it evolved, this dream and Picard’s fate never changed.”
Chabon was tasked with writing that final Picard/Data scene, which was “a big challenge for me.”
“Writing it as a long scene, and knowing it was going to be an important scene — it was just Patrick and Brent — I really wanted it to be great for them,” he said.
One surprise for the fans was the inclusion of Seven of Nine on Star Trek: Picard. According to Chabon, “the idea of bringing Seven back, and seeing her Borg past interact with Picard’s” was “just too rich to pass up.”
That hand-holding scene that caused a buzz was improvised by the actresses on the day of shooting. But Chabon defends the attraction between the two, saying that you can see it beginning to evolve earlier.
“If you sit down and rewatch, you’d see a hint or two here or there throughout the season of [Seven and Raffi] just getting to know each other,” he said. “The first hint of it is in the first full episode Seven appears in, on Freecloud. As Raffi is putting handcuffs on Seven, there’s a moment between them — a physical gesture — and in that moment I think is where you start to feel some kind of connection.”
So what can fans expect in Season Two? “It has to be focused on Picard but have room for all the other characters,” said Chabon. “It’s never going to be just a show about the crew of a starship that’s part of Starfleet and everyone’s wearing uniforms and they’re flying around, encountering alien life and weird planets. Those are the challenges we face going into Season Two, and I’m so excited about the story we’ve come up with.”
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