Star Trek: Picard & Discovery Cast Unite For Hopeful Message
The Star Trek: Picard and Discovery casts unite for a hopeful message amid the coronavirus pandemic. Star Trek of course began as a TV phenomenon way back in the 1960s with the original series, then carried on with later movies as well as shows like TNG, Deep Space Nine and Voyager. But after Star Trek: Enterprise ended its own run in 2005, Trek vanished from the small screen for what would prove to be a very long hiatus.
Happily, that small screen Trek hiatus finally came to an end in 2017 when CBS All Access debuted season 1 of the splashy new Trek series Discovery. Of course, not all Trekkies embraced the show, with its focus on action over cerebral storylines, and its tendency to play fast and loose with canon. CBS carried on with their Trek plans regardless of Discovery’s detractors, debuting Picard in 2020. Featuring the further adventures of TNG captain Jean-Luc Picard, played once again by Patrick Stewart, the show tapped into Trek nostalgia more directly than Discovery but also infuriated fans with how it seemed to warp creator Gene Roddenberry’s original vision of a Utopian future.
One thing all Trek fans - even those who don’t like the new series - can agree on is that everyone could use a little hope in the world’s current time of real-life darkness. In the spirit of dispelling some of that darkness, the casts of Discovery and Picard came together for a hopeful video message posted on Twitter by CBS All Access. See the video, featuring many favorites of Trek old and new, in the space below:
As everyone knows by now, the cast of Picard includes not only the aforementioned Stewart but also TNG veterans Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner and Jonathan Del Arco, all of whom show up in the new video message. Deep Space Nine’s Jeri Ryan, whose Seven of Nine ended up playing a huge role in Picard, also drops in. Discovery star Sonequa Martin-Green heads up the list of younger Trek actors making appearances in the video, along with her fellow Discovery crewmate Wilson Cruz as well as Picard cast members Michelle Hurd and Isa Briones.
Of course, spreading positive messages like this used to be the stock-and-trade of Star Trek, especially back in the original series when creator Roddenberry’s whole intent was to imagine a future free of the constraints of economic hardship, racism and class boundaries. Newer iterations of Trek have somewhat controversially tended to lean away from depicting such a grandly Utopian future however, in favor of what might somewhat superficially be characterized as more “gritty” storylines. Fans who prefer hopefulness over grit arguably have plenty of reason to be down on producer Alex Kurtzman and company’s new interpretation of the Star Trek vision, but there’s no denying the positivity of the message being spread here by the united casts of Star Trek: Picard and Discovery.
Source: Star Trek on CBS All Access/Twitter
Source: screenrant.com