Star Trek Picard: John de Lancie confirms series is shooting back-to-back

John de Lancie is clearing up confusion regarding Star Trek: Picard.

John de Lancie is returning to the world of live-action Star Trek, taking another turn as Q on Star Trek: Picard. Having played the long-time nemesis of Jean-Luc Picard since the premiere of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Q is often thought of as Picard’s biggest nemesis. Yet, after years of being the one pulling the wool over the eyes of everyone and anyone, he’s now the one who’s apparently giving us some clarity.

There were expectations that Star Trek: Picard was going to shoot seasons two and three back-to-back, but due to COVID, the ViacomCBS merger, and the transition to Paramount+, there were questions if that would still be the case heading into production.

According to TrekMovie.com, de Lancie has seemingly confirmed that Picard is indeed shooting back-to-back seasons after rumors to the contrary sprang up.

"Patrick was delighted to see me for the first couple of days and after a couple of more days of really annoying scenes, he said, “SO, how many episodes are you doing?” In other words, ‘When are you going to get out of my face?’ And the answer is six episodes. I think they are going to be coming out – actually I don’t know. But we are shooting season two and three all at the same time right now."

What does this mean for Picard?

Well after rumors of the show not filming back-to-back popped up, there was no real idea what this meant for the series. Yet, now that we know there will be a third season of Picard, it’s fair to say it may also be the last season of Picard. The idea was to do the show as a three-season arc and it appears they’ve been able to do just that.

While there were talks of doing Picard for as long as Patrick Stewart wanted to play Picard, it’s also fair to say that part of the reason to do back-to-back film seasons isn’t just to lower production costs but to make sure that the 80-year-old Stewart is still able to do the role.