Star Trek: Picard season three promises franchise game-changing events.
Star Trek: Picard will likely be wrapping up after season three is done airing. The third season is currently being shot right now and Patrick Stewart himself has mentioned taking a small break before returning to the show’s third season’s filming and finishing up the last few episodes to conclude the series.
Season two is set to start airing soon, and with it will be the exploration of a different reality than the one we’re familiar with. Does that mean a different universe, time travel, a gigantic Borg simulation? We really don’t know. We just know Q’s at fault because of course he is. Yet, when looking to season three, we’re told that huge, franchise-changing, things could be coming.
Executive producer and co-showrunner, Terry Matalas spoke to SFX about potentially introducing game-changing ideas to the franchise, saying;
"Not so much in season two. Definitely, in season three, there are some game-changing Star Trek Universe ideas. Season two, as epic in scope as it is, is an intimate story."
Fans are weary about anything that changes the foundation of a franchise.
The reason newer Star Trek shows have had a hard time landing with a broader audience, unlike others, is due to the very nature of the Nu Trek. These are shorter seasons, that revolve around season-long story arcs that pay little tribute to the core concept of Trek as a whole; exploration and diplomacy.
These new shows are crass, violent, and juvenile. That doesn’t mean they aren’t well made, they just feel, inherently, un-Star Trek. That is until Prodigy hit the air. Fans have been split on the new Trek because of they opted to go against traditional Trek ideologies and practices in order to “shake up” the franchise.
The thing is, fans don’t want their franchises shaken up. We don’t want our expectations subverted. If we buy Coke, we don’t want New Coke. We want Coke. If we go to a steakhouse, please don’t tell us mid-meal we’re eating flounder.
Fans have expectations for long-running franchises, and if creators want to “do different things” many fans believe they should just make their own show at that point.
All that is leading to this; fans don’t want franchise-changing promises. We don’t want “game-changers”. We’ve had enough of that over the last five years, and what we want is more of what got us into Trek. Complicated stories, where people have to make tough decisions for the betterment of the majority.
So be wary about promising things that can shake a franchise up, because all you’re risking is alienating more fans.