No One’s Sure If Star Trek: Picard Will End After Season 3… Yet

Star Trek: Picard was never envisioned as a long-legged series in the style of the Treks of the ‘90s—hell, when it was first announced there wasn’t any particular certainty as to whether or not it would be more than one season long. But, as the series looks to second and third times around aboard La Sirena, its future remains in flux.

Discussion about the impending end of Picard comes via a preview for the upcoming second season of Picard in SFX Magazine. Fans have latched on to a moments in the preview where star Patrick Stewart tells the magazine he is currently preparing to shoot a few more episodes of the currently-filming third season, and is “weeks away from wrapping the series,” and producer Akiva Goldsman, discussing future cameos from past Star Trek stars in the show like season two‘s return for Guinan and Q, commented that “by the time these three years are done,” there will be even more returning familiar faces. There’s been some belief that the way this is worded—and Stewart’s own interchangeable use of the words “series” and “season” (where the former is used in the UK in the manner the latter is used in the U.S., where “series” would refer to a show at large)—implies that Picard will come to an end after its third season.

However, in the hours since SFX’s latest issue released today, the magazine took to social media to push back on the idea it had confirmed the show’s conclusion—and CBS has yet to publicly comment on whether or not speculation about the commentary in the magazine is accurate or not. io9’s reached out to the studio for clarification on the report, and will update this post if and when we hear back. But if season three really does mark Picard’s conclusion, it would not be really surprising—Picard got fast-tracked for a season three renewal alongside the announcement of season two, and when CBS recently revealed a swath of premiere dates for the approximately seven billion Star Trek shows coming to Paramount+ this year, alongside season renewals for most of them, Picard was one of the select few that didn’t get a new pick up.

Even before that, the intent with Picard was never to run as long as many of its other counterparts on Paramount+. Back at New York Comic Con in 2018, producers Alex Kurtzman and Heather Kadin discussed with TrekMovie the intent for the series to run for a few seasons, rather than be a limited series. And, at the time, Picard was only the second-announced Star Trek series in ViacomCBS’ grand plans for the franchise after the launch of Discovery. Now there’s going to be five different series running on the streamer one after the other, Picard’s second season included. With more Star Trek shows waiting in the wings for other series to wrap up—like the long-known-about Michelle Yeoh Section 31 series—it’s no surprise that there are likely to be some shows among this “first” generation of new Trek series that will give away to a next generation. We just aren’t quite sure yet if Picard will be one of those first series to give way.

Star Trek: Picard will return for a second season on March 3.

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