The first teaser trailer that hints at the upcoming story for "Star Trek: Picard" season 2 has arrived and despite being only 70 seconds long, there's quite a lot to unpack!
Paramount+ unveiled the new Picard trailer today (June 16), and while it did not include an exact launch date for the show's season 2 (aside from having to wait until 2022), there's certainly a lot to look forward to.
We open with Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) wandering into a reception room from the courtyard of the Château Picard, calling repeatedly for Laris (Orla Brady).
"What the hell is happening here?" he says, exasperated.
At which point, we hear the familiar sound of Q's voice becoming apparent (John de Lancie). "Excellent question, Jean-Luc. Slowly, Picard looks up, a look of absolute dread on his face. "Oh dear," Q continues, "You're a bit older than I imagined."
(And a synthetic/replicant now too. You have to wonder if Q knows that. He'd have to, right? He's omnipotent after all.)
Related: 'Star Trek: Picard' Season 2 teaser is teeming with Easter eggs
"Mon capitaine, how I've missed you," Q gloats and we get our first look at him…and he looks pretty damn good. And in a manner that's comparable to Admiral Kirk's reaction to seeing Khan again for the first time in 18 years, Picard gasps, "Q …" Only it's been 29 years for him.
We cut to Picard standing at a podium, flanked by representatives and flags of the Klingon Empire, the Tellarite flag (from the "Star Trek: Discovery" first season finale), the United Federation of Planets, Starfleet Command, Starfleet Academy, the IDIC (the foundation of Vulcan Philosophy), Bajoran and Ferrengi. Picard himself is wearing a slightly tweaked Starfleet uniform (it appears to have a maroon monster-style front fastening) to that which we saw in the episode "The End is the Beginning" (S01, E03), plus an up-to-date comm badge and his admiral's rank insignia.
Could this the first evidence of a multiverse? A new timeline where Picard didn't leave Starfleet in 2387? Q's voice provides the voiceover as the music takes a turn for the dramatic. "Welcome, my friend, to the very end of the road…not taken."
We are treated to a montage of brief clips, including Laris herself, Soji (Isa Briones), Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill) and Cristóbal Rios (Santiago Cabrera), standing on the bridge of La Sirena, who seems surprised to suddenly have a new, as-yet unidentified Starfleet comm badge.
"Time…has been broken," says an unknown voice that may or may not be Laris.
"We can save the future," Picard says, "And I will get us home, together."
And then we cut to Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) and possibly the most shocking element of this new trailer. Peacefully asleep, she's startled and wakes suddenly; she gets out of bed and sees a strange badge on her dresser and then catches herself in the mirror… and she no longer has any Borg implants. Fade to black.
Related: The 10 best 'Star Trek' episodes ever
So there we have it! It's clear now that we're in a parallel timeline of some sort, much like Q has sent Picard down many a time before in "The Next Generation," most notably "Tapestry" (S06, E15) and "All Good Things" (S07, E25 & 26). It also seems that no one is aware that they're in a parallel timeline as their reactions to significant changes shows.
Is the logo on the badge that Seven has the same that Rios suddenly finds himself with? His badge seems to have been incorporated into an arrowhead-style insignia, similar at least to Starfleets, although it looks too symmetrical to be Starfleet, as we know it. But, if this is a modified, parallel-timeline Starfleet insignia, is Seven's a modified, parallel-timeline Borg insignia?
It's no coincidence that this trailer has dropped today, as June 16th is also known as "Captain Picard Day" in yet another tenuous, franchise date-assigning exercise (see also, "Alien Day," "May the Fourth" "First Contact Day" and so on). It first appeared in "The Next Generation" episode "The Pegasus" (S07, E12) and was portrayed as an annual event aboard the USS Enterprise-D for the ship's schoolchildren. Activities included a contest, judged by Captain Picard himself, in which the children created paintings and models of the captain. As we saw in that episode, he wasn't terribly fond of the event, as he generally did not respond well to children.
Finally, to accompany the trailer, there's a new poster for Season 2 … with the freeways of Los Angeles forming a Starfleet badge and downtown LA in the background.
Interestingly, "Picard" has been spotted filming in downtown Los Angeles quite a lot recently. One would be forgiven for thinking it was purely a set shoot, much like how the Anaheim Convention Center Arena doubled, with the benefit of some CGI as Starfleet HQ in San Francisco. However, this poster, and the apparent century it appears to show, may suggest something else. Time travel, in good ol' fashioned "Star Trek"-style perhaps?
Follow Scott Snowden on Twitter. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.
