According to Star Trek: Picard showrunner Michael Chabon, the legendary Starfleet captain could have been in a very different place when the show began.
Series lead Patrick Stewart said that he originally felt that Picard's story had been told, but Picard's co creators Alex Kurtzman, Kristen Beyer and Akiva Goldsman sold him with their very elaborate verbal pitch. "And they talked and talked and that's when I said, 'Could you please put as much of that as possible on paper so that I can study it properly?' That’s when I encountered Michael."
"The only thing I remember [about those pages] was that it started with Picard having long since retired, and was now a jack of all trades," Chabon said. "When the story opened up he was working as a road manager for a traveling theater company, and we were doing a performance of Samuel Beckett’s Krapp's Last Tape."
In the final version of the show, Picard had retired to France to oversee his family's vineyard. The original idea, if it had made the journey to the screen, would have been an homage to Stewart's roots as a theater actor.
Star Trek: Picard stars Patrick Stewart, Alison Pill, Michelle Hurd, Evan Evagora, Isa Briones, Santiago Cabrera and Harry Treadaway. The first season is available on CBS All Access.
(Via The LA Times.)