Star Trek: Picard is coming back not only for a second season but also for a third season.
The first official trailer for the show’s sophomore run was released during the Picard panel at Paramount’s Star Trek Day celebration last Wednesday. It was also during the panel when the cast officially announced that the sci-fi series was renewed for season 3.
In the two-minute season 2 trailer, fan-favorite Star Trek character Q (John de Lancie) makes a surprising reappearance and sends Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the rest of the La Sirena crew to an alternate timeline, in which Picard is part of a totalitarian regime that rules over the universe.
As expected, that doesn’t sit right with Picard, so he and his crewmates plan to save the world from this grim future by travelling back in time. After seemingly hijacking the Borg Queen (Annie Wersching), they find themselves back to 21st-century Earth, where they attempt to undo the nightmare Q has created three days before the future is changed irrevocably.
Though the show’s season 3 renewal was just announced, it was previously rumored that Picard actually received an informal third season greenlight by January 2020 to allow the second and third seasons to be developed together and filmed back-to-back.
This was inadvertently confirmed by de Lancie in a Mother’s Day greeting posted on Cameo last April 30th. “Q is coming back,” Lancie said of his character in the video message. “As a matter of fact, for the last two weeks I have been filming on Picard and really annoying Picard – really annoying him. Patrick was delighted to see me for the first couple of days and after a couple of more days of really annoying scenes, he said, ‘So, how many episodes are you doing?’ In other words, ‘When are you going to get out of my face?’ And the answer is six episodes. I think they are going to be coming out – actually I don’t know. But we are shooting season 2 and 3 all at the same time right now.”
The 10-episode Picard season 2 is set to premiere on Paramount+ in February 2022, while the show’s season 3 doesn’t have a release window yet.