Star Trek: Picard gave audiences the chance to go adventuring again with Jean-Luc Picard, and even more fun is on the way. Season 1 featured the retired Starfleet admiral living in a chateau on his vineyard, and while that feels like the most obvious place for him to have been spending his post-Starfleet life, co-creator Michael Chabon revealed the original pitch for the show featured the character in another odd but appropriate line of work.
Yes, winemaking is in the Picard bloodline, but it's not the only interest that the Star Trek: The Next Generation character made viewers aware of. Michael Chabon spoke to The Los Angeles Times about the highly publicized pitch document that Patrick Stewart was initially given for the CBS All Access series, and revealed the completely different line of work that Jean-Luc had taken up in the original concept.
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. 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.
It may sound weird at first, but considering the character's noted love for the stage in Star Trek: The Next Generation, would audiences really have been too surprised to see the captain leading a group of dramatists? Jean-Luc Picard was frequently quoting Shakespeare over 700 years after the playwright's death, so it's not a stretch to believe he'd be part of a troupe performing a play by Samuel Beckett after his days in Starfleet were done.
The job also would have been a nice nod to the career of Patrick Stewart himself, who is a noted stage actor. Stewart spent two decades doing notable work in theater prior to joining Star Trek: The Next Generation, and according to past interviews, he'd only taken that gig to boost his star profile in the theater world and make some money for a show that he thought would probably fail rather quickly. Obviously the show didn't fail, and Stewart branched out considerably from there, becoming a globally known celebrity in television and movies. That said, Stewart has returned to the stage time and again over the years.
While making Picard a road manager for a theater troupe would've been a nice nod, it's hard to see how it would fit into what happened in Star Trek: Picard Season 1. After retiring from Starfleet following the Synth attack on Mars, Picard expressed regret for sitting on his chateau essentially "waiting to die," as opposed to going out and continuing to fight for Synth rights. If Picard had been running a stage troupe, he potentially would have been in a more jovial state from the jump, which maybe would've conflicted with the quiet reserved life he had at the vineyard. Either way, Patrick Stewart is always welcome on my TV.
Star Trek: Picard Season 1 is currently available to binge on CBS All Access, and Season 2 is in development. Continue to stick with CinemaBlend for more details on what's happening in the world of Star Trek, and for the latest news happening in television and movies.
