The Showrunner of STAR TREK: PICARD Initially Had a Much Different Vision of the Series Than What We Got

I’m still in the process of watching Star Trek: Picard, but I love what I’ve seen so far! I like the direction the creative team is taking the story and the character. But the showrunner of the series, Michael Chabon, originally had a much different vision of the show. It would have been a much more grounded story that didn’t involve any kind of space adventure. During an interview with Variety, he said:

"You know, personally speaking, my own tastes and inclination, I always said when we were in the earliest versions of the room for this show, if we could have just done a whole show about Picard and the dog on the vineyard in France, with no starships, no phasers, the only Romulans would be those two Romulans who work for him on the vineyard, and no politics — just, like, there’s a funfair down in the village and they all go, and maybe Picard solves a very low stakes mystery in the village, like, someone has stolen the antique bell out of the bell tower, or something like that? I would have loved to write that show. Um. I don’t think the world’s quite ready for a Star Trek show like that, and there’s probably maybe not that big of an audience for a Star Trek show like that."

Yeah, I don’t think the world is ready for that kind of Star Trek series. That seems like a story that a lot of people would have lost interest in really fast. He went on to talk about how he and the other writers handled the plot and character dynamics in the series saying:

“I mean, there’s always going to be a tension — and this applies when you’re writing novels, too. It’s a tension that all writers experience when you’re trying to produce a sustained work of fiction, whether that’s on the page or on screen. I think a useful metaphor for thinking about it is an Etch A Sketch. If you remember, there are two dials on the Etch A Sketch, one is plot and one is character. What you’re trying to do, and it’s really hard, is to turn them exactly the same amount so that you’re getting a perfect 45 degree angle. But as soon as you commit to a plotted story, which we committed to from the opening scene of Episode 1, you’ve strapped yourself to a plot-driven engine that you’re going to have to push back against really hard to try to hold it into that 45 degree angle.”

I’m sure that writing for a series like this would be a very fun and interesting experience. Chabon will be back to write two episodes of Star Trek: Picard Season 2, but he will not return as showrunner.

What do you think about his initial vision for the Picard series? Is that a way you’d like to see the character explored? Or do you need space adventures with your Star Trek shows?