As we’ve expected for months now, word has come down from CBS All Access that the Star Trek: Picard story isn’t concluding in 2020: a second season of the series has been officially announced on the eve of the Hollywood premiere.
The studio’s official announcement, released during the Star Trek: Picard press tour today, reads as follows:
CBS ALL ACCESS RENEWS “STAR TREK: PICARD” FOR SECOND SEASON
Terry Matalas Joins Series as Executive Producer
PASADENA, Calif. –– Jan. 12, 2020 –– CBS All Access today announced the second season renewal of its upcoming original series STAR TREK: PICARD. The announcement was made by Julie McNamara, Executive Vice President of Original Content for CBS All Access, during the service’s biannual Television Critics Association presentation.
“The energy and excitement around the premiere of STAR TREK: PICARD has reached a magnitude greater than all of us at CBS All Access could have hoped for,” said Julie McNamara, Executive Vice President, Original Content, CBS All Access. “We’re thrilled to announce plans for a second season before the series’ debut, and we are confident that ‘Star Trek’ fans and new viewers alike will be captured by the stellar cast and creative team’s meticulously crafted story when it premieres on Jan. 23.”
Season one of STAR TREK: PICARD premieres on CBS All Access in the U.S. on Thursday, Jan. 23. Following the premiere, new episodes of STAR TREK: PICARD’s 10-episode first season will be available weekly on Thursdays, exclusively for CBS All Access subscribers in the U.S.
STAR TREK: PICARD features Sir Patrick Stewart reprising his iconic role as Jean-Luc Picard, which he played for seven seasons on “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” The new series follows this iconic character into the next chapter of his life. The series is produced by CBS Television Studios in association with Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment. For season two of the series, Alex Kurtzman, Akiva Goldsman, Michael Chabon, Patrick Stewart, Terry Matalas (“12 Monkeys,” “MacGyver”), Heather Kadin, Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth serve as executive producers; Aaron Baiers (Secret Hideout) and Kirsten Beyer serve as co-executive producers.
In addition to the additional episode order, the studio revealed that writer/producer Terry Matalas will be joining the series to serve in an executive producer role, likely timed to balance the impending departure of current showrunner Michael Chabon.
Most recently known for his role running the SyFy adaptation of 12 Monkeys for television, Matalas is no stranger to Star Trek or science fiction in general: he served in the production team of latter seasons of Star Trek: Voyager and all four years of Enterprise, and scripted two episodes of the latter series (“Stratagem” and “Impulse”).
The Hollywood Reporter also notes that Matalas has already been working on Picard “for some time” to transition over Chabon’s departure, and that the series’ production team is already starting to think about plans for Season 3 of the show — assumed to be a lock at this point in time and likely to kick off production relatively shortly after work on Season 2 is completed.
Production on Star Trek: Picard’s second season is expected to resume sometime in 2020, but as of yet no official timetables have been announced.