It’s the return of everyone’s favorite single-letter, omnipotent, immortal, alien being! The first teaser for Star Trek: Picard‘s second season has dropped and it’s not shy about showing off who this season’s nostalgia-pleasing returning character is. John de Lancie returns as Q, the tricksy extra-dimensional being who happens to have a penchant for messing around with Patrick Stewart’s John Luc Picard. It seems he’s up to some massive space-time manipulation this time around, pulling the entire cast of the show into an alternate future.
This alternate future has a lot of interesting aspects, including Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) waking up without her Borg implants and with a shiny medallion that looks like a Star Fleet version of the Borg symbol. Picard also seems to still be in Star Fleet, along with much of the rest of the cast. Plus, there are new Star Fleet uniforms that are pretty damn sharp-looking. Star Trek is, of course, no stranger to time travel, alternate realities, and all sorts of other fun universe-bending occurrences. The current run of films is, in fact, set in an alternate timeline known as the “Kelvin Timeline”, while multiple episodes and films have involved time travel, and Q himself was messing with reality in both the pilot and finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Don’t forget there is also an entire “dark” Mirror Universe that was first introduced in Star Trek: The Original Series and heavily featured in the first season of Star Trek: Discovery.
The second season of Picard is returning a host of cast members, including Brent Spiner, who played Data in the original series. Also returning are Alison Pill, Isa Briones, Evan Evagora, Michelle Hurd, Santiago Cabrera, Jeri Ryan and Orla Brady. Whether or not other classic characters will return is a mystery, though the first season saw plenty of cameos and callbacks so there’s no reason to assume this one won’t have some too. The showrunners have already said their plans haven’t been affected by any negative reaction to the first season.
Star Trek: Picard season 2 is set to release sometime in 2022 on Paramount+ but Trek fans won’t have to wait that long for more of the franchise as the kid-friendly Star Trek: Prodigy is landing later this year.
