Latest STAR TREK: PICARD trailer features the new starship Enterprise

The trailer for Star Trek: Picard's third season has arrived and features the surprise appearance of the latest starship to bear the name USS Enterprise.

Eagle-eyed viewers will spot the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-F showing up towards the end of the trailer. The Enterprise-F first appeared in the video game Star Trek Online and, along with many other ships from the game, has been licensed for use in Picard. The ship is an Odyssey-class vessel and is the largest ship in Starfleet, with over 2,000 crewmembers. The Odyssey class has replaced the Galaxy and Sovereign class as the flagship class in Starfleet. Only a few ships of the class exist.

The fate of the Sovereign-class Enterprise-E remains unknown (in Star Trek Online's backstory, which is non-canon, it was destroyed in fluidic space in 2408, during a war with the Undine, better known as Species 8472).

The trailer confirms the return of the main Next Generation cast, with Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Michael Dorn and LeVar Burton returning as Picard, Riker, Beverly Crusher, Deanna Troi, Worf and Geordi LaForge respectively. Picard regulars Jeri Ryan and Michelle Hurd also return. The trailer also confirms the return of Brent Spiner, this time playing Data's evil twin Lore, and Daniel Davis as a hologram of Professor James Moriarty. The hologram twice previously caused havoc on the Enterprise-D after Data accidentally gave it sentience and the ability to access the ship's systems. Amanda Plummer will also play a major villain this season, an alien captain named Vadic who harbors a grudge against the Federation.

Star Trek: Picard's third season launches on Paramount+ in the USA on 16 February 2023. Hopefully it will be more consistent and focused than the previous two seasons of the show.

Paramount announce launch dates for new seasons of STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, PICARD and PRODIGY

Paramount have announced the launch dates for their next raft of Star Trek series.

In addition to Season 2 of Lower Decks, currently airing on Paramount+ in the USA and Amazon worldwide, the first season of Star Trek: Prodigy debuts on 28 October.

The new series, the first Star Trek show to be completely 3D CG-rendered, returns to the Delta Quadrant for the first time since the conclusion of Star Trek: Voyager in 2001. The series, set five years after the end of Voyager, features an all-alien, non-Starfleet cast of characters who stumble across the USS Protostar, an experimental Starfleet vessel despatched to the Delta Quadrant. The vessel is abandoned for reasons unknown, until it is found by a group of young aliens. The ship comes equipped with an Emergency Training Hologram, based on Admiral Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew reprising her role from Voyager), who helps them get to grips with piloting the vessel.

Prodigy is swiftly followed by Season 4 of Star Trek: Discovery, which will debut on 18 November, marking the first time since 1999 that two Star Trek series will air new episodes simultaneously (when the seventh and final season of Deep Space Nine overlapped with the fifth season of Star Trek: Voyager). The new season of Discovery sees the crew adjusting to life in the 32nd Century as they help the Federation and the Milky Way galaxy rebuild after the cataclysmic event known as the Burn, only to encounter a new anomaly which could threaten everything.

Finally, the second season of Star Trek: Picard will debut in February 2022. In the new season, a returning Q (an also-returning John de Lancie) apparently changes time into a dystopian nightmare, as part of a test for Picard. Picard and his colleagues utilise knowledge from a captive Borg Queen (Anna Wersching) to time travel back to the 21st Century and repair the damage done by Q.

Picard has been renewed for a third season, alongside rumours this may be the final season since Sir Patrick Stewart turns 82 next year and Paramount+ is developing several more shows with a view to one of them replacing Picard once it runs its course.

Star Trek: Generations

Captain James T. Kirk attends the launch of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-B. An emergency situation arises and Kirk, as usual, helps save the day, but he is apparently killed in the process. Seventy-eight years later, Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Enterprise 1701-D is put in a desperate situation when a fanatical scientist starts destroying entire star systems. Picard is going to need some help...

With the conclusion of Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1994, a TV series that dwarfed the popularity and reach of its predecessors, Paramount was keen to move the show and its popular cast onto the big screen as soon as possible. Overriding the concerns of the production team, the film was immediately put into rotation to start shooting as soon as filming was completed on the TV show and to be on cinema screens before the end of the same year. It was a tall order, leaving the cast and crew exhausted from working on the TV show for seven years and then straight into a full-length feature film.

Some of this can be seen on screen. Star Trek: Generations (the first film in the series to drop the roman numerals) is a solid but unexceptional film, something of a surprise given it features Captains Kirk and Picard joining forces to take down a mutual threat, a charismatic villain played by Malcolm McDowell. There's some entertaining comedy beats and some very good characterisation, particularly of Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) as he gets used to his "emotion chip". Most of the castmembers get at least a brief chance to shine and, in the scene where the Enterprise-D's saucer section crash-lands on a planetary surface, one of the franchise's most memorable action and effects set-pieces.

The film relies a little too heavily on the TV show for setup. Villains Lursa and B'Etor have very little motivation and if you hadn't seen them already in the TV show, you'd have no idea why them showing up is a big deal. Similarly, Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) feels like a bit of a walking deus ex machina in the film and her character has no real arc.  The story also feels a bit overworked and overcomplicated, with too many moving pieces and a TV-like approach of pressing on regardless of if the plot makes sense  (Soren not being able to beam into the Nexus from a ship already feels a bit iffy, but the jump from that to blowing up entire stars to shift the Nexus's path feels extreme). The film's big ending being a fistfight between two middle-aged gentlemen and an older one on a big rock is also rather underwhelming. Destroying another Enterprise also feels a bit gratuitous, although it is at least done in an impressive manner.

Still, it's a long way from the worst entry in the Star Trek pantheon and it has fun moments. William Shatner takes a delight in hamming up every second he's on-screen, but for once this is more charming than annoying, due to his limited screen time (he has a brief appearance at the start of the film and then at the end, more of an extended camo than the promised film-length team-up). He and Stewart make for an entertaining team, even if the gulf in their respective acting abilities is more of a yawning chasm. Malcolm McDowell can do "charming but evil" in his sleep and the film packs a lot into its running time.

Star Trek: Generations (***½) isn't going to be winning any prizes for being a classic movie, but it is a solid and entertaining piece that does its job - passing the baton from one generation to another - efficiently.

Star Trek: Picard - Season 1

2399 AD. Fourteen years ago, Admiral Jean-Luc Picard failed in his mission to help save the last remaining people on the planet Romulus before it was destroyed in a supernova. Riven by guilt and anger that Starfleet and the Federation (both more insular in the wake of decades of war and uncertainty) did not do more to help, Picard retires to his winery in France. The arrival of a young woman who is being targeted by Romulan assassins calls Picard back into action, especially when he learns that events are tied into the death of his friend Lt. Commander Data twenty years ago and his experiences with the Borg.

Picard represents a key moment in the Star Trek franchise. For the first time since the release of the film Nemesis in 2002, the Star Trek universe is moving forwards. Every Star Trek project since 2002 has been a prequel or set in a parallel universe (or, in the case of J.J. Abrams' movies, both). It's way past due time that we get to see what happens next.

Picard is a bit of a mixed bag and, like its CBS All Access label-mate Star Trek: Discovery, is often deeply frustrating. The ingredients are here for a compelling and enjoyable SF series reflecting on timely themes like mortality and nostalgia, but instead we get moments of excellence interspersed with terrible dialogue and moments of contrivance that will make you very briefly wish Brannon Braga was still working on the franchise (okay, never that bad, but still).

The season opens with a mystery and it is here that Picard shines, as the titular ex-admiral takes charge of the investigation which is deeply connected to his own past. Patrick Stewart is physically incapable of acting poorly, even in his elder statesmen years (Stewart turns 80 this year and is playing a 94-year-old), and when required brings gravitas and integrity to the scenes. One change is that Picard is here suffering the very earliest stages of Irumodic Syndrome (the same disease that was afflicting his future self in the Star Trek: The Next Generation finale, All Good Things...) so Stewart has to make Picard a somewhat more tremulous, feeble character than the one we remember.

This adds an interesting element of human mortality to the series. Stewart was such a commanding force of nature in The Next Generation series and movies that seeing him here as an older and less certain figure is sometimes genuinely distressing. Time is not a kind figure, but having it thrown in the viewer's face as vividly as here is startling. Thankfully, Stewart has still got the old magic in flashback scenes set years earlier and is a much more commanding and forceful figure.

The rest of the cast is a mixed bag, not for acting talent but for writing. Isa Briones as Dahj and Soji is outstanding in the first few episodes as she portrays two versions of the same character, one fleeing Romulan assassins and the other trying to unearth the secrets of the Borg. She does tremendously well in both roles, and even better in a third role a lot later in the season. Inbetween she is not always well-serviced by the scripts, and becomes too much of a passive figure in the central third of the season, first swept up in a morally dubious romance and then buffeted around by various people trying to save her.

Santiago Cabrera (Heroes) is fun as ace pilot Chris Rios, especially as his narcissistic side has led to him crewing his ship with variations of the Emergency Medical Hologram Programme from Voyager, complete with ever more outrageously terrible accents. It's a fun gag, but one that feels a bit of out keeping with the tone of the rest of the series and is perhaps a bit over-used. Outside of that, Rios gets very little character development. Alison Pill, Michelle Hurd, Harry Treadway and Peyton List all do the best they can with the material they are given, but the quality is again all over the place. Particularly egregious is Alison Pill playing a character who commits an absolutely horrendous crime at one point and everyone seems to forget about it five minutes later and welcomes her back into the crew with open arms.

Particularly baffling is the character of Elnor, a Romulan swordsman prodigy whom Picard recruits for the mission for no particularly convincing reason and proceeds not to do very much for the rest of the series. Evan Evagora does the best he can with the material, but it's hard to make a character with no story purpose compelling.

More successful is the return of Jonathan Del Arco and Jeri Ryan as former Borg drones Hugh (from two episodes of The Next Generation) and Seven of Nine (from the last four seasons of Voyager). Both take care to root their characters in the way they last appeared (twenty-seven and nineteen years ago, respectively) but also layer them with two decades of off-screen character development. It's also good to see Brent Spiner back as Data (albeit in dream and flashback sequences), even if trying to accommodate for his ageing pushes both the makeup and CGI to their very limits. Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis also make very welcome return appearances as Riker and Troi.

Part of the schizophrenic writing quality can be put down to the competing interests of the two showrunners: Michael Chabon, the Pulitzer and Hugo Award-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and The Yiddish Policemen's Union, is by some margin the most feted author to ever work on a Star Trek series and you can see his influence in the musings on the ethics of creating artificial life, the moral comprising of the utopian Federation by the trauma it has undergone in previous decades (multiple Borg attacks, the absolutely devastating Dominion War, a brief war with the Klingons etc) and the intelligent consideration of themes like mortality and nostalgia. However, it feels like this has been compromised by executive producer Alex Kurtzman, a writer who wouldn't know subtlety and thematic exploration if they joined forces and ran him over with a snowplough. At every turn, Kurtzman's over-earnest need for exposition, lens flares, infodumps, incongruous humour, explosions, needless character deaths for shock value only and murky CGI drags the writing down whenever it seems to be in danger of getting interesting. A good example of this is how Chabon wanted to reference the Dominion War and how the trauma of seeing millions of Starfleet personnel killed in battle rocked the certainties of the utopian Federation and put it on a more isolationist course, but Kurtzman overruled him because he didn't think anyone had ever watched Deep Space Nine, which is a deeply stupid decision.

Picard does have plenty of good points. The production values and effects (bar some strange use of stock footage) are better than they have ever been before in Star Trek, even the movies, and the actors all do the best they can with the material. It's genuinely fun to see Picard back in action and a few character reunions do bring lumps to the throat. The setup in the first two or three episodes is genuinely compelling (plus Into the Badlands' Orla Brady as an Irish-Romulan Tal Shiar agent turned housekeeper is absolutely fantastic) and some of the moral quandaries faced by the crew are intriguing. But it does feel that for every good thing in the series that makes it worth watching, there's something else that weakens it.

Star Trek: Picard's first season (***½) is inconsistent and problematic, but anchored in Patrick Stewart's still-formidable gravitas. It's certainly a stronger first season than Discovery's and it's revelling in continuity is refreshing after Discovery played very fast and loose with it (although the laughably impractical holographic controls in both shows do need to die a death soon). Whether the promised second season can build on the good points of the first season and jettison the numerous weaker elements remains to be seen. The season is available now on CBS All-Access in the United States and on Amazon Prime in much of the rest of the world.

Whoopi Goldberg returning to STAR TREK as Guinan

Whoopi Goldberg is returning to her role of Guinan in Star Trek.

Patrick Stewart made the offer, authorised by his fellow producers, live on TV whilst appearing on Goldberg's talk show, The View, and Goldberg accepted.

Goldberg portrayed the role of enigmatic alien Guinan in a recurring role on Star Trek: The Next Generation between the second and sixth seasons of that show. She served as the bartender and owner of the Ten-Forward bar on the Enterprise. She also appeared in the film Star Trek: Generations (1994) in a major role and in Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) in a minor one. Guinan is a very long-lived alien, a member of a species called the El-Aurians who are also known as "listeners." They have an unusual relationship with the universe and with time itself. At one point Guinan apparently holds off the supposedly infinite power of Q (in the episode Q Who?), whilst in another she is able to perceive a major shift in the timeline when no-one else can (Yesterday's Enterprise).

Goldberg took time out of her burgeoning movie career to appear on Star Trek, because of her lifelong love of the franchise. Movie stars (especially Oscar nominees and winners) appearing on weekly TV was extremely unusual in the 1980s and 1990s and Goldberg's presence increased interest in the series, although her appearances were intermittent (eventually totalling 29 out of The Next Generation's 178 episodes).

Guinan will return in Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard, which is expected to shoot later this year for airing in 2021. Season 1 will begin airing on CBS All Access in the United States tomorrow and on Amazon Prime in the rest of the world on Friday.

STAR TREK: PICARD renewed for second season

Star Trek: Picard has been renewed for a second season before the first season even airs.

The series sees Sir Patrick Stewart return to his signature role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-94) and four feature films. The show has picked up a lot  of positive buzz and executive producer Alex Kurtzman has already met with Stewart to discuss a second season.

The long-term future of the series depends on the willingness of Stewart to carry on, as he turns 80 years old this year. Stewart notes he was convinced to return because he wanted to give the character a better send-off than the disappointing Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) and felt he had unfinished business in the Star Trek universe.

Star Trek: Picard debuts on 23 January on CBS All Access in the United States and worldwide the next day on Amazon Prime.

Familiar faces join the crew in first STAR TREK: PICARD trailer

CBS All Access has released the first trailer for Star Trek: Picard, their new TV series which picks up with the adventures of the retired Admiral Picard twenty years after his previous appearance in the film Star Trek: Nemesis (2002).

The trailer explains the storyline. Picard is in retirement at his family vineyard in France (previously visited in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 4 episode Family) when he is visited by a young woman named Dahj (Isa Briones), who is in danger. She is attacked by unknown assailants whom she fends off. Picard requests Starfleet's aid in protecting her and ends up assembling a crew consisting of Cristobel Rios (Santiago Cabrera), Raffi Musiker (Michelle Hurd), Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill), Narek (Harry Treadway) and Elnor (Evan Evagora).

More surprising is that Picard is also joined by some familiar faces on his travels, including former Borg agents Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan, from Star Trek: Voyager) and Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco, from three episodes of The Next Generation), and an android played by the redoubtable Brent Spiner. It appears that this android is B-4, the prototype android for Lt. Commander Data. Data's destruction in Nemesis is mentioned as another motivating factor for Picard's mission and the presumed decision to resurrect B-4 for this mission.

It has also been confirmed that Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis will also be reprising their roles as Riker and Troi from Star Trek: The Next Generation for the series, although it is unclear how extensive their roles will be.

Near the end of the episode it is also confirmed who the real big bad of the series will be: the Borg! A Borg cube is shown either being constructed or rebuilt, and the Borg threat is presumably what calls Picard (who has a long-standing grudge against them), Hugh and Seven into the fight.

Star Trek: Picard will debut on CBS All Access in the United States and Amazon Prime in the rest of the world in early 2020.

CBS releases first trailer for STAR TREK: PICARD

CBS has released the first teaser trailer for Star Trek: Picard. And immediately withdrawn it. They have released a nice poster though:

The story follows a retired Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Sir Patrick Stewart) eighteen years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis and fifteen years after he led a huge rescue mission with unforeseen consequences that led to Picard quitting Starfleet. Even Starfleet are uncertain why he did this. Since then Picard has been apparently working at his family vineyard in France (last seen in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Family). Circumstances bring Picard back into the Starfleet fold.

According to some reports, the rescue mission was an attempt by the Federation to help the people of the Romulan Empire due to the obliteration of the Romulan homeworld (as noted in the events of the 2009 movie Star Trek), the first time the events of the alternate "Abramsverse" or "Kelvin Timeline" have had a major impact on the Prime Timeline of the core Star Trek universe.

In a particularly geeky detail, this suggests that the official Star Trek timeline will have to be rewritten; the current timeline has the events of Star Trek: Nemesis taking place in 2379 whilst the destruction of Romulus is listed as occurring in 2387. The plot summary suggests that only three years elapse between the two events, presumably putting the destruction of Romulus in 2382 and setting this new series in 2400, bringing Star Trek into the 25th Century (or almost, depending on how you measure it).

Star Trek: Picard started shooting last month and will consist of 10 episodes, at least two of which will be directed by Stewart's old running-mate Jonathan Frakes. The Pulitzer and Hugo Award-winning author Michael Chabon is working on the series as a producer and writer.

The series is expected to debut on CBS All Access in the United States in late 2019.

In surprising news, the series will air on Amazon Prime worldwide, rather than Netflix (who currently air Star Trek: Discovery).

UPDATE: CBS have apparently removed the trailer they themselves put on YouTube. Curious.

Michael Chabon to write new Captain Picard TV series

Michael Chabon, often acclaimed as one of the greatest living American novelists, has joined the writing team for the new Star Trek TV series focusing on Captain Picard.

Chabon joins a writing team consisting of Akiva Goldsman, Kirsten Beyer, Diandra Pendleton-Thompson and James Duff. Chabon has already broken his Star Trek teeth by penning one of the Short Treks, a series of self-contained mini-episodes that will be released before the second season of Star Trek: Discovery debuts in the New Year.

Chabon's novels include Wonder Boys, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Gentlemen of the Road, Telegraph Avenue and Moonglow. He has won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, the Hugo and the Nebula Award. He has also worked in Hollywood, penning a - so-far - unfilmed script for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and doing script doctoring work on films such as John Carter.

The new Star Trek series will catch up with Jean-Luc Picard some 20+ years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis. At this time, none of the other Star Trek: The Next Generation actors have been asked to return.

CBS All Access commissions STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION sequel starring Patrick Stewart

CBS All Access has commissioned a new Star Trek: The Next Generation sequel project starring Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard. This will mark the first time that Stewart has returned to the role since the film Star Trek: Nemesis in 2002.

Patrick Stewart with Star Trek: Discovery star Sonequa Martin-Green.

Although firm plans have not yet been confirmed - such as the name of the series and if it will be an ongoing series or a one-off mini-series - CBS and Stewart himself have confirmed that the project is moving forward. The new series will be set approximately 20 years after the end of Star Trek: Nemesis and will catch up with Picard's situation at that point in time. This will also be the first project to revisit the Next Generation "era" (which also includes spin-off shows Deep Space Nine and Voyager) since Nemesis.

Stewart has indicated that Picard will no longer be a captain, which is quite likely as Stewart is now 78 and, assuming the new series is set exactly 20 years after Nemesis in the year 2399, Picard would be 94 (humans in the Star Trek universe live significantly longer than now). Previous Star Trek novels and TV episodes featuring glimpses of the future have suggested that Picard might have been promoted to Admiral, served in a mentorship or leadership capacity at Starfleet Command and then become a Federation Ambassador, or possibly left Starfleet to pursue his love of archaeology.

It is also unknown if other Next Generation actors may appear in the new series, although Jonathan Frakes (who played Commander Riker) is involved in the new Star Trek projects at CBS All Access as a director, and may return for this new series.

According to Stewart, the writers haven't yet produced a script and they are still at the brainstorming stage. On that basis we may not see this new series air until 2020.

Patrick Stewart officially retires as Professor X

Patrick Stewart has announced that, at the age of 76, he has retired from playing the character of Professor Charles Xavier in 20th Century Fox's X-Men series of films.

Stewart debuted in the role of Professor X in the movie X-Men (2000). He reprised the role in X2 (2003), The Last Stand (2006) and Days of Future Past (2014), as well as brief appearances in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) and The Wolverine (2013). His final role as Professor X comes in Logan (2017), which also marks the final appearance of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine (although Jackman hasn't completely ruled out a comedic cameo in a future Deadpool movie, given his online banter with Ryan Reynolds).

Stewart's decision to leave the role is unsurprising. Given the events of X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) and the ongoing rewriting of the X-Men film continuity over the last few films, as well as Jackman's decision to retire, it's clear that Fox will taking future X-Men films in a different direction, perhaps leaning more on the new cast with James McAvoy playing the role of a somewhat younger Professor X, or even contemplating a full, from-scratch reboot after twenty years of the current, increasingly convoluted continuity.

Stewart was given the role by director Bryan Singer in 1999 following a fan campaign to have him cast in the role. It gave Stewart his second popular Hollywood role following his performance as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation from 1987 to 1994 and four spin-off films: Generations (1994), First Contact (1996), Insurrection (1998) and Nemesis (2002). During the making of the X-Men films Stewart met Ian McKellan and the two distinguished actors formed a strong "bromance" that has continued ever since (with McKellan officiating at Stewart's wedding).

Although Stewart has departed the role of Professor X, he will continue working as an actor on screen, on stage and in voiceover work. His next role will be as, er, Poop in the animated Emoji Movie.

Star Trek at 50: Torpedoing the Box Office

With both Deep Space Nine and Voyager over and a new series in the planning stages, the custodians of the Star Trek franchise turned their attention to a new movie starring the Next Generation crew. They made the decision that they wanted a clean break with how things were done in the past, with a new behind-the-scenes crew to inject some new blood and excitement into the films.

This, it turned out, was not an altogether successful decision.

Released four years after the previous Star Trek film, Nemesis was going up against The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Die Another Day at the box office. In retrospect, moving it might have been a good idea.

To make the tenth Star Trek movie, Rick Berman and Paramount decided to bring on board a new writer and a new director with no previous Star Trek credentials. Berman in particular was aware of how this had worked splendidly well for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, when producer/writer Harve Bennett and director Nicholas Meyer came on board and saved the franchise from oblivion. His hope was that a similar creative approach could yield similar results.

To write the movie, Paramount called on the services of John Logan. Logan was hot property in Hollywood, having just come off the tremendously well-received Gladiator and Any Given Sunday. His later movies would include the well-received The Aviator, Hugo and Skyfall, so clearly he was a talented screenwriter. He was also a major fan of Star Trek and was a friend of Brent Spiner's, who got him up to speed with the rest of the cast. Logan was keen to explore the Romulans, feeling that for such a classic Star Trek race they'd been grossly overlooked by the franchise, and there was a feeling that they could make both an epic action story and a more personal story about the characters and their fates (Picard's relationship with his young clone and Data's relationship with his android predecessor, B4). All of the pieces were in place for a strong movie. Paramount just needed to choose a good director.

 Tom Hardy was generally praised for his role as Shinzon, and has gone on to become a Hollywood superstar.

For reasons that are still a bit fuzzy, they went with Stuart Baird. Baird was a highly experienced and acclaimed editor who had recently moved into directing, helming the moderately well-received Kurt Russell/Steven Seagal vehicle Executive Decision and the so-so U.S. Marshals. Paramount could have gone with Jonathan Frakes, who had helmed First Contact and Insurrection, but Frakes was finishing up another movie (Clockstoppers) and Paramount chose not to wait, even though it was down to a matter of a couple of weeks on the schedule. It was hoped that Baird would, like Meyer twenty years earlier, bring a fresh and new perspective to the franchise. This was undone by the fact that, unlike Meyer, Baird refused to watch any of the TV episodes, was allegedly derogatory about the franchise to other people and jarred badly with the castmembers, getting LeVar Burton's name repeatedly wrong and making quips about his character being an alien. In more recent years the castmembers have called the director an "idiot". Paramount also insisted that the Voyager character Seven of Nine be inserted into the movie against the writer's wishes, an insistence that only went away when Jeri Ryan herself turned the proposal down, calling it idiotic. Kate Mulgrew was instead hastily written in with a cameo appearance as Admiral Janeway on a viewscreen.

Still, the movie that resulted wasn't too bad, at least if reports of the assembly cut are to be believed. There were impressive action sequences between the Enterprise-E and the Reman battlecruiser Scimitar, some interesting scenes musing on life, death and rebirth and the casting department knocked it out of the park when they turned up a young, hard-hitting and intense British actor named Tom Hardy to play the main villain, Shinzon. The effects team did great work and the script struck a nice balance between action, comedy, drama, tragedy and pathos. Baird's direction ranged from poor to mediocre, but the script and certainly the performances could have turned things around if Paramount hadn't received the cut of the movie and taken a chainsaw to it.

 The space battle between the Enterprise-E and the Scimitar wasn't too bad, but did miss the point from The Wrath of Khan that having two evenly-matched ships is more interesting than some super-vessel we know is going to get beaten anyway (Into Darkness makes this mistake as well).

Star Trek: Nemesis's initial cut was close to three hours long. This was, clearly, far too long for a Star Trek movie and there was scope for some of the scenes to be deleted. But Paramount had devised a - highly questionable - strategy for the film. They were going to launch it directly opposite the second Lord of the Rings movie, The Two Towers, and use its much shorter running time to pack in more performances and pick up more viewers from people who couldn't get in to see The Two Towers. As a result they hacked Nemesis down to barely 115 minutes, removing numerous scenes of character development or reflection in favour of action, explosions and violence.

This strategy was an unmitigated failure. As it turned out, The Two Towers wasn't the only game in town. There was also the new James Bond movie, Die Another Day, and the second Harry Potter movie, The Chamber of Secrets, to contend with. Released in December 2002, Nemesis simply couldn't stand up to that level of competition and retired from the cinema having taken a catastrophically low worldwide box office of $68 million against a budget of $60 million. With marketing costs factored in, the movie was an abject failure, the first Star Trek movie to actively lose money at the box office. The film's critical reception was also horrible, with the movie getting the worst reviews since at least Generations, if not The Final Frontier.

Wil Wheaton was to make a cameo appearance as Wesley Crusher, but his material was all cut from the final edit of the movie. Fortunately, a few years later Wheaton would reinvent himself as a cult geek figure by appearing on web series The Guild and on sitcom The Big Bang Theory.

Fortunately, the film was saved by the DVD release. The movie shifted over 1.1 million DVDs in its week of release, with strong sales for several weeks afterwards. Like most of the Star Trek franchise it developed a very long tail. Thanks to the DVD release, the film was pushed firmly into profitability, but it was far too close for Paramount's comfort.

The film's reception resulted in several things happening. A sequel script, which would have been the last Next Generation movie designed to send off the TNG crew altogether, was cancelled.  All further development of the Star Trek franchise in the cinema was halted. A proposed reboot projected helmed by Rick Berman was politely rejected. Paramount had a new buzzword floating around and that word was "franchise fatigue." Star Trek had reached the point of burn-out and it was time to put it on ice.

Star Trek at 50: The Best of All Worlds

Star Trek: The Next Generation entered its second season in 1988 as a proven success, with massive ratings and generating significant profit for Paramount. However, it had suffered a critical drubbing for most of its first season and behind the scenes the production of the series was a chaotic mess. The long-term future of the series was in doubt, and then every scriptwriter in Hollywood went on strike for six months.

The results were not great. Episodes for the second season had to go into production with only their first, early draft scripts completed (no rewrites allowed under the terms of the strike). One eleven-year-old script from the abandoned Phase II project had to be quickly recycled to serve as the season opener. Producer-writer Maurice Hurley had prepared an elaborate, multi-episode arc continuing from the end of Season 1 showing the Federation and Romulans collaborating to find the race responsible for the attacks in the Neutral Zone, which would have resulted in the unveiling of a new, terrifying insectoid race with a hive mind and superior technology, but this had to be jettisoned in favour of stand-alones.

Somehow, the second season ended up being okay and a much-needed improvement over the first, with several all-time classic episodes. The Measure of a Man was a brilliant morality tale of the kind Star Trek had traditionally excelled at making. Matters of Honour put Riker on board a Klingon Bird of Prey and gave us our first look at a Star Trek story from the POV of the supposed bad guys. But the season will forever be remembered for Q Who?, the episode that introduced the Borg. The original plan for a race of hive-minded insects proved too expensive to realise on screen, so Hurley replaced them with a race of cybernetically-enhanced humanoids, obsessed with absorbing technology from other races. The script also called for the Borg not to be defeated at the end of the episode, with the Enterprise only barely escaping from the Borg threat after Picard begged Q to save them. Patrick Stewart was not keen on this ending but later admitted he was wrong, with the episode winning immense critical acclaim.

However, Hurley had become frustrated at dealing with Gene Roddenberry, in particular when Roddenberry would break his own rules about "perfect" characters that other writers would get chewed out for. In addition, Patrick Stewart had become increasingly aware of the power he held as the star of the show and was volubly campaigning for Gates McFadden (fired at Hurley's direction) to return. These were power struggles that Hurley was increasingly unwilling to fight, so quit at the end of the second season. He did suggest his replacement, however: a young and talented writer named Michael Piller.

When Piller came on board at the start of the third season, he found a show that was still in chaos. With Hurley gone, Rick Berman had acquiesced to Patrick Stewart's demands and Gates McFadden had come back onto the show. But a large swathe of writers had departed and Piller now had to rebuild his writing team from scratch. He assembled a mixture of more experienced hands like Ira Steven Behr and fresh-faced youngsters like Ronald D. Moore and also laid down a series of rules. One of his most far-reaching and successful was the idea that the show was about the regular characters, not the guest stars. The weekly guest stars were there to flesh out stories about the regular, not vice versa. This idea helped strengthen the scripts. Piller was also able to take advantage of Roddenberry's declining involvement in the show to push through scripts based more around conflict and drama.

Piller proved to be an able showrunner and provided tremendous stability and direction, even in the most chaotic of conditions. The most heavily-rewritten and expensive script of the season, which people were writing off as a confusing mess at the script stage, became Yesterday's Enterprise, which met with blanket critical praise. Ron Moore was allowed bring Star Trek to the Klingon homeworld for the very first time in Sins of the Father and broke a cardinal rule of Trek by leaving the story unresolved at the end. The story of Lt. Worf and his struggles with his Klingon heritage would span not just the rest of The Next Generation but expand into the spin-off series as well. Numerous other classics dot the season, but it was the finale that completely transformed the fortunes of the franchise. The Best of Both Worlds saw the Borg return in full force, cutting a swathe of destruction across Federation space before, in a cliffhanger ending, kidnapping Captain Picard and transforming him into one of them.

The episode electrified audiences, with both fans and casual viewers eagerly debating what was going to happen next. Patrick Stewart was taken aback to be in his car and have people yelling "Locutus!" at him from neighbouring vehicles. The fourth season opened with a strong run of episodes even after the cliffhanger was resolved, and the show never looked back. Shortly after this the Cardassians were introduced, and a compelling, multi-episode storyline unfolded over the entire season which eventually ended with the Klingon Empire being plunged into civil war by the machinations of the Romulans. The show overtook the episode count of the original Star Trek and, at the start of the fifth season (around the time Gene Roddenberry sadly passed away), passed 100 episodes. More great episodes followed, the producers started talking about spin-offs and a movie and, most impressively, other science fiction shows started appearing on TV. These started with "soft" SF series which had minor SF elements wedded to more standard forms of storytelling, such as with Quantum Leap and The X-Files, but by the end of Trek's run other space operas had started appearing, such as the short-lived Space Rangers and the much more successful Babylon 5.

Star Trek: The Next Generation concluded in early 1994 after seven seasons and 178 episodes. The show had surpassed the original series in popularity and critical acclaim and the cast and crew were keen to take the show to the next level: by following the original crew onto the big screen.

Star Trek at 50: Building the Next Generation

In 1977 Star Trek nearly returned to television screens as Phase II, a series that would star both the original cast and a number of newer, younger characters who would, over a long period of time, take over the reigns of the franchise as a new generation of stars. In the event, the TV series was cancelled in favour of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). Made with the heavy involvement of original Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, the film went drastically over-budget and attracted mixed reviews, although its commercial performance was reasonable. Roddenberry's involvement was scaled back and three sequels - The Wrath of Khan (1982), The Search for Spock (1984) and The Voyage Home (1986) - were both critically more successful and more profitable.

The original cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

However, as the movie series continued and became more successful, Paramount had to accept both wage hikes and production agreements to keep the original series stars on board. William Shatner returned for The Voyage Home only after a pay rise and an understanding was reached that he would direct the fifth movie (after his co-star Leonard Nimoy had directed the previous two films). With the actors also ageing and the appeal of visual effects-heavy SF movies featuring characters in their fifties and sixties questionable, the future of the franchise looked less certain.

The decision was made by Paramount to start work on a new Star Trek TV series, with early development work undertaken by writer/producer Greg Strangis. They decided that the new series would feature all-new characters and an all-new Enterprise, and be set considerably further in the future than the original show. Creating an entirely new Star Trek paradigm was considered risky without fan support, and to bring them on board Paramount decided to ask Leonard Nimoy to join in either a consulting role or a more hands-on producing capacity. However, Nimoy was busy with Star Trek IV and didn't want to dive straight from that film's post-production into a gruelling television schedule.

After some debate, Paramount decided to ask Gene Roddenberry to take the helm of the new series. After Roddenberry's handling of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, this raised alarms in some quarters but it was also noted that the first two seasons of the original Star Trek, made with Roddenberry's direct involvement, had been brought in at cost and were generally considered superior to the third season where he took a back seat. Much to their surprise, Roddenberry initially turned them down. He'd felt shut out of the production process on the second through fourth movies and was unhappy with what he felt was a move away from his original, utopian vision. Paramount wooed him back by granting him showrunner status. Paramount's own reservations about using Roddenberry were assuaged when Roddenberry himself requested that a Paramount executive be assigned to him as a co-producer to handle the day-to-day demands of production, freeing Roddenberry up to focus on the writing and casting. Paramount assigned Rick Berman, an up-and-coming producer noted for his strong negotiating skills and his cost-conscious production style, to the new project.

Star Trek: The Next Generation was formally announced on 10 October 1986 as a new, relatively big-budget TV production that would air directly in syndication. It would debut the following September, not giving Roddenberry and Berman much time to get production underway. They decided to assemble a team tapping into some of the talent from the original show, including writers D.C. Fontana and David Gerrold and producers Robert Justman and Eddie Milkis (who would leave towards the end of the first season). Designer Andrew Probert also joined from the film series, along with scenic artist Mike Okuda and production designer Rich Sternbach. Working from Roddenberry's ideas, Gerrold wrote a series bible drawing on inspiration from the original series and some of the follow-ups.

The Galaxy-class USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) is the ship used in Star Trek: The Next Generation. It is the fifth ship to bear the name, following on from the Constitution-class ship used in the original series and the first three movies, a second Constitution-class ship used in the next three films and two further vessels of - at this time - unknown design.

The new series featured a number of ideas that had been developed for Phase II and The Motion Picture. Most notably, this included an empathic counsellor (Counsellor Troi, replacing Lt. Ilia) and a younger, more dynamic first officer who would command away teams (Commander Riker, replacing Commander Decker). Initially Roddenberry didn't want to use the Klingons at all, but was intrigued by one idea raised by Greg Strangis during the initial brainstorming phase. This idea was that Klingons and the Federation had made peace and were now allies. In the glasnost-driven era of the late 1980s, Roddenberry felt this was a fine notion and took it further by assigning a permanent Klingon character to the show, Lt. Worf. Roddenberry also didn't want to repeat himself with a Vulcan crewmember but was delighted by one idea that emerged from the brainstorming sessions: an android who wanted to be human and developed a kind of Pinocchio complex. Roddenberry himself developed the notion of the Federation as having evolved further into a utopian society since Kirk's day, with want and need eliminated and humanity's primary desire now being to evolve and enrich itself with knowledge and equality. Slightly paradoxically, however, he was also inspired by the character of Vasquez in the film Aliens (1986) into including a hot-headed, trigger-happy female security officer (who eventually became Lt. Yar).

The writing of scripts became problematic due to salary issues, with Roddenberry trying to impose less-than-union rates for some of the writers and even script editor D.C. Fontana. Relations between the two deteriorated, with Fontana recording conversations with Roddenberry and Roddenberry bringing his lawyer Leonard Maizlish to meetings. After co-writing the pilot and several draft scripts, Fontana left and Maizlish, despite having no official standing, became de facto script editor. David Gerrold hung around for longer, but after being called "disloyal" several times by Roddenberry also quit at the end of the first season. Writer-producer Maurice Hurley joined partway through Season 1 and his influence was credited with stabilising the chaotic writing room.

Design-wise, things went much more smoothly. In fact, Andrew Probert designed the brand new Enterprise by simply pulling out an unused concept from The Motion Picture which Roddenberry approved almost instantly. The new Enterprise was designed NCC-1701-7, but after "1701-A" was used for the second Enterprise in The Voyage Home this was changed to "1701-G" and then "1701-D", by which time it was also being described as a Galaxy-class starship. The designers came up with the idea for smooth, touch-control surfaces with no obvious buttons, and the control panels reconfiguring themselves for different modes or to the user's preference. They also developed the idea for ultrathin, tablet-like computer devices called PADDs, which designers from Apple would later cite as an influence on their thinking for the iPad.

Casting went somewhat smoothly, with a mixture of new faces (Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, Denise Crosby, Brent Spiner, Michael Dorn), experienced-but-not-well-known hands (Patrick Stewart, Gates McFadden) and a couple of noted up-and-comers (LeVar Burton and Wil Wheaton). Roddenberry initially opposed the casting of Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, not wanting to cast a "bald British guy" but with Berman highly in favour of the idea, which he thought would defy expectations. Stewart was called in to test for the Paramount execs in a wig, but was told to lose it for the series. The main cast was announced in May 1987.

The production of the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation was infamously chaotic, with Roddenberry often rewriting scripts to their detriment and his lawyer Leonard Maizlish meddling in almost every part of production. Patrick Stewart, unused to the rigours and intense schedule of American network television, was initially stuffy and disliked his co-stars' habit of joking around between takes. However, within a few episodes the ice had been broken and the cast began to meld together into a strong team.

Although the first season was mostly critically derided, late-season episodes such as the finale, The Neutral Zone, which reintroduced the Romulans and hinted at the existence of the Borg, were much better-received.

The chaos began to diminish towards the end of the season as Rick Berman informally made Maurice Hurley a sub-showrunner under his and Roddenberry's overall leadership and reduced Maizlish's involvement in the show. Hurley brought in some longer-form storylines, such as arranging the return of the Romulans and hinting at a much bigger threat lurking on the horizon, which he intended to be an insectoid species with highly advanced technology and a hive mind. This strengthened the writing direction of the series and led to the noted improvement in quality at the end of the first season. However, it also caused controversy amongst the cast when Hurley decided that Gates McFadden's character, Dr. Beverly Crusher, was too passive a character and moved to remove her at the end of the first season. This decision did not sit well with the rest of the cast, particularly Stewart. This also came after the resignation of Denise Crosby as Lt. Yar, who became the first regular Star Trek character in history to be killed off (in the episode Skin of Evil). Crosby later came to regret this decision.

Despite the chaos behind the scenes, Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted in first-run syndication in the United States on 28 September 1987. It's first-run ratings were 15.7 million. When all re-runs were included, this increased to 27 million, making the show a colossal success. First-run ratings fell to about 8 million, but then returned to around 10-11 million by the end of the season. Because of the syndication model, Paramount recorded a 40% rate of return over the course of the first season, despite the show's very high (for the time) budget of $1.3 million per episode. This made renewal an easy decision.

Critically, the first season was mostly panned, although late-season episodes such as Heart of Glory (which focused on Klingons) and The Neutral Zone (the season finale, reintroducing the Romulans) were much more warmly received. Also, although many episodes were torn apart critically (most notably Justice and Code of Honour), the show received generally positive reviews for its design work and casting.

With a second season confirmed, Star Trek: The Next Generation was established as a hit series and everything was set for the show to go on to bigger and better things.

And then every scriptwriter in Hollywood went on strike.

Trailer for X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST

A trailer has been released for Days of Future Past, the next X-Men film. This film will combine the original cast of the 2000-2006 trilogy of films with the cast of First Class, playing their younger selves. Time travel will be used to bring the two groups together to face off against a greater threat.

Returning are Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy as Professor Xavier and Ian McKellan and Michael Fassbender as Magneto. Hugh Jackman also returns as Wolverine (thanks to his immortality, they only need the one actor). Anna Pacquin, Ellen Page, Nicholas Hoult, Jennifer Lawrence and Shawn Ashmore also return as Rogue, Kitty Pryde, Beast, Mystique and Iceman respectively. Peter Dinklage (Tyrion from Game of Thrones) is the film's most notable newcomer, playing Professor Bolivar Trask. The Sentinels will play a role in the film as well. Bryan Singer, the director of X-Men and X2, returns to direct. The movie is loosely based on the highly-regarded graphic novel of the same name.

The film will be released on 23 May 2014.

Patrick Stewart's awesomeness: confirmed

Patrick Stewart is an awesome dude, it is known. If there was any doubt, here is him talking openly about his family experiences and how they led to him working with women suffering from domestic abuse and soldiers suffering from PTSD.

The young woman who asked him the question, Heather Skye, speaks about the experience here.