Trekkies have been buzzing since news broke two weeks ago that CBS had tasked Star Trek: Discovery executive producer Alex Kurtzman with expanding Trek on TV. While there were no confirmed details on what new projects were in the pipeline, an article in The Hollywood Reporter discussed “rumblings” of Sir Patrick Stewart returning to Trek as Jean-Luc Picard. There have been subsequent tabloid reports on Stewart’s imminent return since, from both sides of the Atlantic.
On Tuesday, Stewart’s Star Trek: The Next Generation co-star Marina Sirtis was asked if she will be returning to Trek with Stewart, and the actress responded by saying she thought it was “just a rumour” that there was to be a new Star Trek show featuring Picard.
I think that’s just a rumour. https://t.co/ObIlLzqyJG
— Marina Sirtis (@Marina_Sirtis) July 4, 2018
However, when pressed about if she was interested in returning to Trek if the stories turn out to be true, Sirtis replied back with an emphatic all caps “YES.”
— Marina Sirtis (@Marina_Sirtis) July 4, 2018
For his part, Patrick Stewart has remained mum over the last two weeks, neither confirming nor dispelling the reports of his return to Trek. However, his possible return as Jean-Luc Picard puts his cryptic comment a month ago about having a “good reason” to watch Discovery, into a possible new context.
For now, the other Star Trek projects planned by CBS remain shrouded in mystery. Fans are hoping that more will be revealed at the Star Trek: Discovery panel with Kurtzman, set for Friday July 20th at San Diego Comic-Con, to be held in the famed Hall H.
Patrick Stewart at Signature Theater Gala, March 2018
Sirtis up for Discovery too
Sirtis returning to Trek has been a hot topic for 2018, ever since she showed up on the Star Trek: Discovery set in Toronto while Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Jonathan Frakes was directing an episode in May.
Surprise visit on the set of @startrekcbs my #Imzadi @Marina_Sirtis pic.twitter.com/SqvDEZvMVP
— Jonathan Frakes (@jonathansfrakes) May 5, 2018
The actress said she was in Toronto to shoot an unnamed project, so it is possible she was not there for Star Trek: Discovery. However, a couple of weeks ago, she made it clear she hopes to be part of the show when answering a fan question on Twitter.
I hope so. #StarTrekDiscovery https://t.co/O8aU09u7qh
— Marina Sirtis (@Marina_Sirtis) June 16, 2018
Keep up with TrekMovie for all the news on the news and analysis regarding the upcoming Star Trek TV projects.
Like she would be in the know on this…lol
At this point, it’s all just speculation, but it is quite possible that whatever it is, it is not a return of the entire TNG gang, but just something featuring Picard or a limited number of previous cast members. I posted in another article that it would be interesting to see how they handle Worf, given the new look of the Klingons. They may choose just to stay away from that character as well as Troi and others also.
Yea, that is about what I am thinking on this as well. A Picard role, but not bringing back TNG crew (at least as series regulars).
Didn’t Michael Dorn get frustrated when CBS didn’t accept his pitch for a Klingon centric TV show? I think in either case he wouldn’t be too eager to work with them.
She loves to shove herself into basically anything that gets her more attention. She doesn’t know jack squat about this. I’m not opposed to her portraying Troi again – would like it actually – but the more I’ve gotten to know Marina over the years the less I like her.
No need to be so rude.
Agreed
Troi was such a lovely, kind, nice, sweet character, I really used to like a great deal. My first impulse on going to a convention was to transfer a bit of that onto Sirtis. I agree though Jo, once you get to know her though you realise
she most definitely is NOT Troi!
That’s why they call it acting.
Well, her accent went south in the movies and I’m guessing the regular chats and input from Michael Piller are probably what kept the character on track for as long as it was.
Or maybe she’s just an actress who accepts the work offered to her?
Well, she’s not like Troi, but I like her, she’s funny and opinionated – definitely not a wall flower. I think she’s pretty under rated as an actress, she’s certainly different in person to her performance as Troi.
It’s kind of ironic that the person who portrays the extremely diplomatic Troi is someone who in real life has no filter.
Agreed. A bit like the Sondra Bullock of Star Trek, but she’s more friendly to her fan base.
She’s a proper North London girl. They’re damn smart and tough cookies. Don’t mess with them and always show respect. ;)
I agree I think Marina is a riot, I love hearing what she has to say
As if Jo “knows” Marina Sirtis intimately….. The more I get to know Jo, the less I like him… He seems like one of those people that assumes the worst about anything and anyone….
Troi is presumably still on the Titan, with Riker. I hope this doesn’t turn out to be a rumour. But I also hope that it doesn’t turn out to be Picard teaching at starfleet academy. I want to see Picard on the enterprise saving the galaxy one last time.
Yeah she’s on the Titan with Riker in Generations it was I believe 78 years later for Picards crew if each movie is another year, that woukd be 81 years and 10 before Kirk for disco, thats totals 91 years LATER, not sure without a another tired time travel how either of them could ever appear in Disco
Riker and Troi moved to the Titan in Nemesis…set in 2379. Discovery is set in 2257.so they are 122 years apart. So it’s even worse. Generations was set in 2293 and 2371
Enterprise was set even earlier but that didn’t stop them from appearing ;) !!!
True enough. Only good part of the Enterprise finale was the ending montage. I can see it now, while pondering whether she should send Holographic Geordi to his simulated death in “Thine Own Self”, Troi asks Picard for pointers on how to ace the commander’s exam without telling Riker. They watch a holographic version of Michael Burnham struggle with the same thing except with real people dying for some reason even though Burnham already did this essentially in the pilot
Watt Art you talking about?????
What?
If it is a rumor, let us hope there is at least some veracity to the proposed Argyle P.I. miniseries.
Hahaha, are you sure the miniseries isn’t the further adventures of LQ Sonny Clemonds?
I recall watching a TV show starring William Shatner as the host…the actual name escapes me but it was something like: “How Star Trek Changed the World”. Two things that stick with me is how Commander Riker walks into a Lt. Commander Data’s extremely noisy room with six classical songs playing simultaneously and asked what that racket was and please to turn it down so he could concentrate on the topic that he came to talk about. Data reduced it to one soft background song. Some young fan watching at home was fascinated by the idea of using technology to create and store music so he went to work the next morning to begin the design process. I don’t remember the company name of who he worked for but it was a big company like an Apple or other Silicon Valley giant. Anyone remember the details???
The second topic was how during the trip back to San Francisco in 1970 Dr. McCoy stops while running through the airport to give a dying woman a single pill to cure her almost instantly and it worked as you saw in a scene a few minutes later. Watching Dr. McCoy check the status and treat a patient with an electric scanning device led some young 1980s research technologists to create the CAT scan and MRI machines to play a similar role.
Any other details? The other major Star Trek-inspired inventions?? Please reply to all.
Thanx,
RDG
It was Rasmussin from the past claiming to be a historian from the future at Penthara 4 who wanted Data to lower the music streams and McCoy in a hospital, but the point is valid, even NASA astronauts have cited Trek as inspiration 😁
Cell phones are of course based on the communicator from Trek. I also heard many stories from James Doohan about how his role as Scotty inspired people to take up engineering. Also there was an article here a couple of years ago about making a real medical tricorder. I don’t know if they were successful or not.
McCoy was running through a hospital and cured a woman of diabetes with a single pill. IIRC, he didn’t scan her, she just told him she had diabetes. Probably inspired some medical technology entrepreneur, but MRI and CAT scan technology had already been around for a few years before that movie came out.
It was a new kidney, actually.
I Think it actually was apple. But I thinl it was a Scene where Data just tasked the Computer to Play some Classical music.
Wildly over-acting, Admiral Picard must undo the damage he did while on a mission many years earlier. Everyone thinks he’s too old until he steps out of his wheelchair and reveals he’s de-aging and… Wait, did that one already.
Well some might think a limited series featuring Picard would be aptly named Star Trek: Too Short a Season…okay bad joke :p.
haha took me a few seconds to get it :)
Stewart looks good in that picture, but sure seemed like he’d slowed down by the time of “X-Men: Days of Future Past”…Did he even MOVE in that one?
Well, he was in a floating chair for his entire role…
Stewart is going to have to face the same facts that are pointed out whenever someone starts beating the drum about needing to have Shatner ‘in action’ one more time. Both are getting quite old, and stunt doubles can only do so much….setting aside for the moment that Stewart never quite fit the action hero mold to begin with…
I’d very much appreciate a return to the more diplomatic Picard of the series than the action hero they tried to make him out to be in the movies.
Again, the “action hero” concept was from Stewart himself. HE wanted that. Not the producers or the studio execs.
I know, but by this time and considering his age, I don’t think Stewart himself would want to continue with the “action hero” concept anymore. Though you never know.
Pat is waiting to to say yes or no. I don’t think he would leave us hanging. It’s not going to be Disco. The new show or mini-series is going to be set in the prime universe “now”. The TNG kids are as popular as ever and tech will bring Data to “life” like we have never seen. So exciting. They got flim flamd over Nemesis, and is a better movie than 11, 12, 13, and yes, 14. 15 might, just might be what we need for ST. I do agree though Star Trek belongs on TV. Disco is fabulous but it is in the past. Patrick Stewart is a movie star, let’s not forget.
Brent Spiner won’t do Data now. He was already too old for the make-up in Nemesis. I wouldn’t hope for more than a cameo at most.
Yep. I think the days of TNG cast doing any TNG project are over.
Unless we get a TNG animated series.
Wasn’t there an episode where Data implies that he has built-in aging programme? Maybe I am remembering it wrong…
I thought there was something about an aging programs too, but isn’t he shown in a flash forward (while a professor at some Oxbridge university) looking the same and only with a fake white streak in his hair?
Regardless, “the too old for the make-up” comment comes from Spiner himself. He said one of the Marx brothers kept using the same make-up as he got older and it just looked awful.
It was in the series finale episode during the flashforwards to the future.
Yes. Data has an aging program to simulate the physical appearance of aging. The same as his android “mother” he met in the episode “Inheritance”.
There was a small article in the July 2nd edition of the American tabloid Globe that said Sir Patrick Stewart was going joining DSC. It also said that he was being paid $16 million for 3 months of work, and that it would film in LA so he could be home for dinner with his wife. Yeah, I don’t believe a word of it, but it is a new rumor to add to the pile…
lol the limited series involving Picard set during the late 24th century is definitely more plausible, even if its just a rumor too.
Yep. Even though it would explain the issue of DSC being overbudget, and then some. ;-)
Hey, we love rumors here. Plenty of digital ink has been spilled on stories on this site that end with, ‘all of this is just speculation’….
I think it would be just as easy, making Captain Archer made up to being very old on a cameo on Discovery, then making Picard to appear to be young.
Yeah…besides, Picard would not be born for another 48 years if time travel isn’t involved
They could always do the actor plays the character’s great-great-grandfather trope.
I think it a stretch to have the audience buy a 190 year old guy in a cameo.
I suspect she knows more than she’s letting on but if there’s a big SDCC reveal planned then Marina is not going to let the cat out of the bag whether she in the loop or not.
Sadly I think it is a rumour. Whilst It would be fun to see the old crew for a season Discovery has altered the story somewhat. To try and bring it together would take a bit of bending, but it fantasy is fantasy so perhaps they bring the aging crew together who battle the new technology to out wit the opponents with old techniques haha it would certainly make for amusing television!
I think he’ll be returning for the Quentin Tarantino project myself.
Paramount and CBS are separate, kurtzman isn’t on the movies any more and JJ does’nt have a say in the series
It’s seems unlikely in a logical sense for Stewart to return to Trek. He is busy doing his theatre work and his campaigning stuff. He doesn’t need to go back to American television, and he doesn’t strike me as someone who would want to do that.
Nevertheless I would love to seen it happen. Time will tell of course.
He may be more likely to be in a Star Trek movie than a television show.
I think Patrick Stewart would do it if the money is good and for an opportunity to work with his beloved TNG cast one last time. I saw him on stage in London last year and he’s certainly still fit enough for one last intergalactic adventure.
Everything is a ‘rumor’ until it’s been officially announced. Could be more of her just trying to side-step the question, I’m sure since she is one of the more active TNG cast members on twitter that knows Patrick Stewart personally that people believe she would be the best source of info. Then again, it honestly could just be nothing.
I think rumours are sometimes spread by the producers to test the reaction of the fans and to decide afterwards. Or sometimes spread by some fans to get the attention of the producers.
I’m sensing something. I sense a lack of emotion for his return.
Fo me , it is not a lack of emotion.
It is a lack of belief that it s happening in the first place.
But, I hope it happens.
If that is Sir Patrick’s motivation to finally watch Discovery, it’s unfortunate. Once he sees how badly the show was written, beneath all the gloss, he’ll run the other direction!
No he won’t because he experienced how bad the first season of TNG was and how great the show became one it found its feet.
She’s not wrong. There hasn’t been any announcement, and asides from a cryptic comment from Stewart, all there is is rumor. We know CBS is working on more Trek content, as to details, there haven’t been any. For all we know Wesley Crusher may be getting his own show….
Did she lose her arm?
A weekly series is an incredible grind that demands a ton of energy and stamina from its lead actors. I think Stewart is old enough to be leery about signing up to star in a weekly series, with its intense energy demands. I think it’s far more probable that he’d either star in a mini-series (so the work would be time-limited) or would play a character like the one Whoopi Goldberg played, one who shows up every once in awhile but who doesn’t carry the show on a weekly basis.
There is ZERO chance of Stewart doing a weekly television series in America. It’s not worth debating/speculating on that.
He may lend himself to some voicework for animation, a few episodes of television or he could feature in a Trek movie, the last idea is my favoured one.
Yes, I agree; I was saying WHY. :-)
DataMat,
Stewart starred in a weekly American TV show just two years ago. Does NO ONE remember this lol. And if it wasn’t cancelled after season two he would be doing it now.
I just have no idea why you are so adamant he would be against it to the point ‘its not worth debating’ when his recent resume suggests the opposite?
But it’s interesting you seen to know what Stewart wants more than Stewart himself.
Patrick Stewart lives in Brooklyn, so doing a series “in America” is more likely than anywhere else.
And yet he WAS staring on a weekly show not two years ago.
Had anyone not seen or heard of Blunt Talk? If you haven’t yeah you’re not alone lol but it disprove this notion he’s against doing a TV show again. The guy was already 74 when he started that show. And if you seen that show you know his energy was just fine.
The guy still works as much as he did 30 years ago. I don’t see any reason why he wouldn’t do another show, Star Trek or not.
@Tiger2 I watched the first few episodes, but it wasn’t very good. No surprise since that hack McFarland was running the show. No one watched it.
The only reason it ran for two seasons is because McFarland scammed a 2 season deal out of Starz. Starz would have cancelled it after the first season if it wasn’t for that deal.
Well, until it is officially announced, it is a rumor.
If any of the TNG cast makes an appearance I’ll watch it ! I’m even interested in watching their current projects . Good talent is worth following.
That headline is REALLY misleading. Read that tweet again, Sirtis said it was “just a rumor” that she and Patrick would be on Trek together again.
She said NOTHING about whether Stewart himself would be back.
She served no TRUE useful purpose on TNG and at best was
a biddy who seemed to be in everyone’s business. 🙄 Having
her in any rendition of Star Trek is a step in the wrong direction.
She’s like having ones Mother In Law and dopey little Sister at
the fair. One holds you back and the other doesn’t know left from right…🤨
Plus she’s a girl.
Speaking of rumors… Remember those Paramobius rumors from a few years ago that said multiple Trek TV series were in the works? Well, the guy in charge of them is certainly not who I expected or wanted, but that whole basket of rumors has now borne out almost entirely true. From Orci being replaced as writer/director, to Trek coming back to TV with multiple series, it has all happened more or less as predicted. In retrospect, I thought that the multiple Trek TV series boded well for the likes of me. I never imagined that they’d put Kurtzman in charge of them or that they’d be anemic and lame. Yeah, that’s right — I’m criticizing the new series before they’ve even been made. Go ahead and prove me wrong, CBS (if you dare). Bunch of pandering wimps.
I really bought into paramobius in a big way as I recall (though if you hadn’t brought it up, I probably would never have given him another thought, which makes me feel kind of guilty, like I forgot about somebody who died for our sins or something.)
TrollFolk (and others) sure did hate on him, though, didn’t they? Wonder if he ever replied to any of that with the Gorkon line to the effect that people who are the most afraid of the future are the ones stuck having to live in it. Would explain the kneejerk rage, and perhaps point to the mindset that can be conned into electing moronic man-babies to high office.
I seem to recall Sirtis saying in 2009 that Trek is about ‘moving forward’.
Obviously she has had a change of heart. $$$
Let’s be honest she hasn’t done anything of note outwith star trek, so she would love to return to a working job. she wants it to be a rumor as she’d be pretty annoyed at not getting asked to return if Patrick Stewart did.
Technically she is right.
It is a rumor until it is confirmed.
Proving once again that the lovely Ms Sirtis is not even remotely hooked into the grapevine…
:D
https://trekmovie.com/2018/08/04/breaking-new-star-trek-tv-series-starring-patrick-stewart-as-jean-luc-picard-announced/