PAST IMPERFECT

AKIVA GOLDSMAN AND TERRY MATALAS, EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS AND CO-SHOWRUNNERS OF SEASON TWO OF STAR TREK: PICARD, TALK TIME TRAVEL AND WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS…

- DARREN SCOTT

WHEN SFX catches up with the cast and crew of Star Trek: Picard, production has resumed on the final two episodes of season three. Announced at 2021’s Star Trek Day, filming took place consecutively with season two.

Akiva Goldsman says there was always a plan for three seasons, but with “an opportunity for us to have spectacularly failed after one, and that would have been one and done.” As for more? “God knows what the future will bring.” But for the moment, Goldsman and fellow executive producer and co-showrunner Terry Matalas are still very much entrenched in the final throes of season three as season two finally beams down.

“My inner fanboy is kind of on fire with the stuff that I’ve been able to do,” Matalas grins. “There’s a lot of things that I can’t talk about yet that I’m just bursting at the seams to talk about. There’s been a lot of absolutely legendary moments that have happened in the last year with no press yet.

“There are starship designs and things for the next two seasons that I’m really excited about…” He references Star Trek design veterans Jon Eaves and Doug Drexler joining forces with production designer Dave Blass to “take another look at starship nacelles”. He smiles: “It’s exciting.”

As with so much of Star Trek, it comes from a place of love – and specifically that the showrunners are lifelong fans. “A lot of what we were doing was making the show that 12-year-old us would have been just delighted by. It was, in large part, a kind of dice roll that there were enough folks like us out there that would also like it,” Goldsman laughs when asked about the response to Picard’s first season.