Making a triumphant return to television with Star Trek: Picard, Patrick Stewart reprised his beloved role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Narrating the story of a retired Picard, who is approached by a mysterious woman for help, only to later find that she holds the key to the secrets of his past life, the show features Alison Pill, Ed Speleers, Jonathan Frakes, and more.
But while the 3 seasoned 2020 show earned massive praise from fans, overall – the second season in particular turned out to be rather controversial. During a Master Replicas Collectors Club Zoom chat, Season 3 showrunner Terry Matalas thus shed some light on what went wrong with the second season. Fans will be baffled, once they learn how the show was butchered.
Terry Matalas Revealed Why Star Trek: Picard S2 Fell Short
While the third season of Star Trek: Picard is held in high regard by fans, the first two seasons failed to bag that very reputation. Although Season 1 managed to establish the plot and gain fans’ attention towards the show, Season 2 of Patrick Stewart’s show, somehow fell short of what fans wanted from the series.
Turning out to be particularly controversial in the eyes of viewers, Star Trek: Picard S2 landed a 30% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Therefore, shedding some light on why Season 2 ended up being the most disappointing among all, S3 showrunner Terry Matalas revealed what went wrong during a Master Replicas Collectors Club Zoom chat, via TrekMovie.
“There’s actually many, many different versions of Season 2, I think you can kind of feel when you watch Season 2 that there’s a lot of different ideas here.”
Admitting how they had different arcs and possible storylines to entice fans, Terry Matalas revealed how it was all changed. Originally, Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard had a lot going on between plot lines, but unfortunately, due to Paramount’s involvement in the process, episodes had to be rewritten.
Paramount Changed Star Trek: Picard S2 as it Was Too Much in-Star Trek
During his conversation, although Terry Matalas didn’t reveal much about which parts of Season 2 came after the rewrite, the showrunner simply mentioned that almost all episodes were completed after the feedback came from Paramount. According to Matalas, the drafts shared with the network were considered “a bit too sci-fi”, and therefore had to be changed accordingly.
“We wrote nine episodes at one point and the network was like, ‘No, we don’t really understand this, it’s a bit too sci-fi, it’s a bit too in-Star Trek.’”
Terry Matalas and his group of writers thus began rewriting the parts of Star Trek: Picard S2. Although they left Q and the time travel plot as a part of Season 2, several other classic Star Trek plots were nixed from the final product. Eventually, Matalas even mentioned how they started working on Season 3 before Season 2 was finalized, due to constant rewrites.
“There were Romulans—there was a whole thing. The idea was that Guinan’s bar was presented as a normal bar in Los Angeles, but if you knew the right thing to do, you could go into the back through the telephone phone booth and that was Rick’s Café, and it was a stopping point for all these different species that were actually there on Earth with a ‘Do not interfere’ thing happening.”
“So you had a lot more Star Trek happening in the backdrop of it. Ultimately, the powers that be at that time were like, ‘This is too much.’ But there were some really good ideas there that were pretty cool.”
Eventually, changes based on Paramount’s feedback butchered and turned Star Trek: Picard S2 into a disappointment for viewers. But thankfully, Season 3 brought the show to a profoundly gratifying conclusion.
Star Trek: Picard is available on Paramount+.
