Saturday will be the biggest day yet for Star Trek: Picard, where we’ll see Patrick Stewart and the rest of the series cast join showrunner Michael Chabon and the show’s producing team on stage at San Diego Comic Con — but ahead of this weekend’s event, some new hints about the show have been revealed.

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, franchise boss Alex Kurtzman did confirm that the former Starfleet officer will be headed back into space during the series, even though all the promotional imagery seen so far has been much more terrestrial in nature, showing Picard in retirement at his family vineyard in France.

“Events began [sic] to unfold that conspire to take Picard back to the stars,” said Kurtzman, “but not in a way that anyone expects.”

We know from the first trailer released back in May that Picard has left Starfleet by the time of the Star Trek: Picard series, and Kurtzman noted how that may have changed the former officer.

Because he’s no longer in Starfleet, he no longer carries the weight of that behind him. In some ways, it’s easier to be [a great man] when you’re a captain. But it’s an entirely different thing when you don’t have an army behind you.

When you want to get something done and fight an injustice, how do you do that when you’re really only one man?

As has been suspected, the first season of Picard will be a serialized story — the norm for Trek television these days — but showrunner Michael Chabon confirmed that will be the case for the new show. Chabon also went on to expand on how time has changed Picard since we last saw him:

He’s a lot older and we’re not shying away from that at all — we’re dealing with a man who’s in a very different place in his life. It was terribly important to us that he remains fundamentally Picard.”

Meanwhile, Kurtzman expanded on his quote we reported on yesterday:

You will not see a version that betrays the man we loved from Next Generation. We’re not doing that. But we wanted to put a character with that level of morality and leadership and who always does the right thing no matter how hard the circumstances…  we wanted to put that to the test.

Finally, the new release from Entertainment Weekly also included a good high-resolution version of the first-look photo we shared with you last night, with Patrick Stewart (and dog pal) on location in the Picard family vineyard.

Keep checking back to TrekCore throughout the weekend for more news out of San Diego Comic Con as it drops!