Godspeed, Captain!
Recollections of Working with Sir Patrick Stewart, a giant of the stage, the silver screen, and TV
February 2021
The soundstage was buzzing. The TV crew moved at the practiced clip in the battle against Time. Time is everyone’s enemy when they’re working to get everything ready so the cameras can roll.
I milled around just off set, a little hesitant, a little pumped, a little vigilant. The enormous set on was a doppelgänger version of Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s study in his vineyard mansion. On Earth. It had been constructed on Stage 8 at Santa Clarita Studios, forty-five minutes north of Los Angeles. It cost two pretty pennies.
We’d been writing the second season of Star Trek: Picard since the previous October, and now the first episode’s filming was underway. My episode’s writing was delayed because the execs had trouble comprehending the multi-moments-in-time story in the preceding episode, and we were back to the drawing board. I tacitly had permission to stop by the stages during filming before the Writers’ Room started each morning. Best believe I was taking advantage of that!
I hadn’t been on a soundstage in over a decade, not since I had directed this one crazy-ass short film. This was on a whole different level. The scope was… massive.
And why the fuck not?
Star Trek is a fabled franchise, the oldest one still going (outside of DC Comics’ Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman), and here I was marveling at the details the production design and his department whipped up. I was entranced by the intricate craftsmanship of these decapitated alien heads on the wall. Eye-popping taxidermy-style trophies. In this alternate timeline, Jean-Luc Picard was a brutal slayer, a galactic reaver, a menace to star systems far and wide.
I turned around to check out the main study, and there was Sir Patrick Stewart — fucking Captain Jean-Luc Picard himself — ambling toward me. Well, not toward me, but in my general direction.
My mind went blank. I couldn’t recall what the protocols were for interacting with Number One on the call sheet! A few half-phrases buzzed back into my synapses: don’t be a fanboy.
Easier said than done!
“Hello, Patrick,” I managed to say, as if I was on a first-name basis with Professor Charles Xavier! Most celebrated actors, especially the Brits, want to be treated like regular people. They’re not rocket scientists or brain surgeons. And I wasn’t going to call him Mr. Stewart or Sir Patrick the way other writers and production people felt they needed to do. It wasn’t like I disrespected the man, more like I needed to hold my own.
“And you are?” he responded.
“I’m one of the writers.”
“Ah, yes…”
There was an awkward pause. What was I going to say next? I’m sure he was expecting me to ask some deep cut about what was the meaning of X, Y, and Z in episode 12 of Season 2…
I could not go out like that.
And then it came to me.
“Uh, so, uh… was Sir Ian’s performance as Richard III more interesting in the movie or on stage?”
He squinted at me. Was this youngster really asking me this? Then he smiled a half-smile, that kind you give when you unexpectedly want to show respect.
“The stage! Of course,” he said with that voice that commands Wolverine.
And then John De Lancie (he plays Q) wandered over, interrupting. He had some idea about the upcoming scene he wanted to run by Patrick.
Time for my exit.
I nodded at them both. They nodded back. Right as I was turning, Patrick issued one of those “good show” winks at me. I grinned, nodded again, then ducked down the corridor and got the hell out of everyone’s way. I hurried to the craft service table, unsure if what this was going to get back to Terry Matalas or Akiva Goldsman (co-showrunners that season) or any of the other writers. They never let you live down moments to clown.
As far as I could tell, it never did.
And that was my first interaction with the man, the legend, the eternally inspiring thespian, who lit up my childhood in John Boorman’s EXCALIBUR and David Lynch’s DUNE before he took the helm on the USS Enterprise.
Writing on a TV show is a trip. You never forget your first experience. It might be something you dislike or something you cherish forever because of the hefty weight of the show. You don’t forget your first time entering “The Room”, the first time you pitch an idea that lands, the first time one of your ideas that made it to the board gets scrapped for a better idea.
There are so many “firsts”, but for my first TV job to be on Star Trek: Picard… well, that was something special. And writing for Patrick Stewart was certainly part of what made it unique.
The second season of Star Trek: Picard was a bumpy ride, to say the least. However, it was all a blessing. From the first day in the writers’ room to the very first table read of episode one (over zoom, see below); Whoopi Goldberg and Patrick were so excited to be reunited.
The pace of creativity flying in the early days of the room (and after hours when I was playing Star Trek lore catch-up) precluded me from absorbing this immense and historic boon in my creative career. It was on that Zoom that I had my first inkling of how monumental it would be to contribute to the historic stories of Starfleet.
Months later, after I had earned a place on the Season 3 staff, we started talking about the shape of the season. I very much remember those “blue skies” days. Most importantly, Terry remarked that one of the biggest tragedies of Star Wars Episodes 7–9 was that there was never a scene or a sequence where Luke, Han, Leia, and Chewbacca were reunited for one last hurrah on the Falcon. And now that Carrie Fisher had died, we’d never see that scene. Terry didn’t want that to happen with the Star Trek: Next Generation cast. We were tasked with: Was there a way, was there a story that the Season 3 writers could come up with that justified bringing those characters back together as well as integrating some of the current Picard characters?
Get Christopher B. Derrick’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
This was the challenge!
The North Star!
The dream…
A dream not just for us in that stuffy Santa Clarita writers’ room, but for every Star Trek fan. TNG expanded the reach of Star Trek in ways Gene Roddenberry probably hadn’t considered. It was a logistical struggle (budgetary reasons, of course) to design the season in such a way to methodically bring back each of the Bridge Crew over the first five episodes, make it emotionally satisfying without being naked fan service (and maudlin), and then set up the surprise climactic ending.
Terry, Cindy, and Chris kept mentioning the episode “All Good Things” as if that’s what we had to top for the whole season! It was a goal to do storytelling justice for Patrick, Jonathan, LeVar, Michael, Gates, Brent, Marina, and Whoopi.
After we had a rough shape for the season and novel ways to bring the Next Gen crew back together, Terry had to pitch the season to Patrick, who was an executive producer on the show.
This was the moment of truth, because we were developing the season, writing episodes without explicit approval from a shit ton of stakeholders.
Terry made his play on a Saturday. The next day he got an email from Patrick containing his thoughts on the season pitch, which Terry forwarded to the writers on Monday (I still have the email; I printed it out). Patrick had read episodes 301 and 302 — the critical scripts that kick off the reunion — and proclaimed that he had a change of heart. You see, when he was first pitched the Picard series, he “did not want to remake TNG, not remotely”. So coming at him with a final season where we planned to reunite the TNG cast was sort of antithetical to the whole reason why he signed up to do the show.
He went on to say, “Not only do I think it proper that Season 3 should have the TNG principal characters, I now feel it should be about them. In fact, a passionate recalling of all those character elements that made TNG so beloved.”
A Sword of Damocles was lifted. We were over the moon. Off to work we went. And we created something special.
What a class act.
The big magic trick we wanted to pull off was the return of the Enterprise D. The starship had crash-landed in STAR TREK: GENERATIONS (1994), and we wanted to bring it back. That was the ship where all the TNG adventures had taken place. We had a nifty plan on how to do it. It involved LeVar Burton’s character, LaForge.
On another soundstage, the production designer, the art director, and some stalwart construction crews slowly brought the D’s bridge back to life over the course of shooting season 3. It had to be ready for that moment in 309/310 when the TNG crew returned to their beloved ship for the first time in 30 years (real time and actual time).
Nine months later, I was back on the soundstages for the finale and the reprise of Enterprise D. My time on the show was over two months earlier, but Terry let me shadow him as he directed episodes 309 and 310. No pressure to carry my weight as a writer on what turned out to be a storied staff, I was there to watch, learn, and make extended memories.
I wasn’t there on the day when the legacy cast set foot on the recreated bridge (all sorts of studio brass had come down to bear witness, and the guest list was trimmed). But I was there the next day, and I was there the day of filming when Patrick, Jonathan, LeVar, Marina, Brent, Gates, and Michael did the scenes when they arrived on the Enterprise-D.
During those intervening two months, I was down in Costa Rica basking in the sun and absorbing the previous 60 non-stop weeks of writing Star Trek, adding to the fabled franchise, and I finally had a chance to recognize how important Patrick Stewart, as Jean-Luc Picard, was to so many. Across generations.
Picard was an ideal, a surrogate father to a lot viewers, a man of principles, and a man with faults, but he want to inner sight to address them. Sure, he was fictional, but he inspired men and women to be better versions of themselves.
The last time I saw of Patrick, in person, was at Grauman’s Chinese Theater for the Season Three premiere. He and the cast were taking photos on courtyard where the hand and footprints from stars are immortalized in cement; a practice from a bygone era in Hollywood.
I didn’t expect to ever see him or any of the TNG cast again. Even though there were rumors of a spin-off series with Todd Stashwich’s Captain Shaw and Jeri Ryan’s Seven of Nine as the leads. But Patrick, as Picard, wasn’t supposed to be in that. Maybe as a cameo, we has mused.
The TV gods didn’t grant that wish.
A year or two later, I caught a modern-day rendition of Macbeth with Patrick playing the doomed Scottish lord. He was always “Patrick Stewart” in these roles, yet he poured himself into the characters with the passion he brought to all his work. And it was remarkable to witness that from behind the camera.
After Patrick passed yesterday, several people reached out to express their condolences. It was touching, but odd. I wasn’t his friend or an intimate work colleague (like Terry, Akiva, and Alex Kurtzman who had 100s of interactions with him), but I had written the words he did eventually say. And I can always say, “I was there for the final voyage of TNG crew.”
I’ll never forget that.
Thank you, Patrick (and Terry, Akiva, and Alex).
It was an honor and a privilege…
