Quarantine got you down? Patrick Stewart is here to help with 'Star Trek' and sonnets
The coronavirus quarantine may have you stuck inside your homes, but Patrick Stewart is happy to escort you on a virtual tour of the final frontier. The Season 1 finale of Star Trek: Picard premieres on CBS All Access on March 26, and the former Enterprise captain is inviting viewers to binge all 10 episodes of the hit sequel series free of charge from now until April 23. In an Instagram post, Stewart directed fans to sign up for a month-long CBS All Access pass with the code GIFT. “It felt good to bring Picard back,” the actor wrote. “I can’t wait to reunite with our cast and crew for Season 2.”
The second season is being written as we speak, although it won’t start filming anytime in the near future due to coronavirus-caused production delays. But Stewart’s enthusiasm to continue Picard’s late-in-life adventures is good news for Trekkies the world over. Speaking with Yahoo Entertainment last year, the actor remembered how the current Star Trek team coaxed him out of retirement for Picard. “I agreed to a meeting with the people who were going to produce this new version of Star Trek only because I wanted to seriously and respectfully explain to them why I was turning the project down. I heard just enough to realize this was something very unusual, and I was intrigued. What I was afraid of was that this was going to be jokey, and I didn’t want to do that. I asked a lot of questions and the answers were all very satisfying.”
So far, the first season of Picard has satisfied fans new and old with a storyline that’s sent Stewart on a planet-hopping mission that’s brought him into contact with such familiar Trek faces as Jeri Ryan’s Seven of Nine and Jonathan Frakes’s Will Riker. And Stewart suggested to us that the finale will definitely bring certain plot threads to a close. “They are writing a 10-hour movie,” he said at the time, while also hinting that there would be more material for future seasons.
Free access to Star Trek isn’t the only way that Stewart is doing his part for fans. Before he commanded a starship, he commanded the stage as one of England’s leading Shakespearean actors, and he’s returned to his roots by posting daily sonnet readings on Instagram. His first was an extemporaneous recitation of Sonnet 116 that won a rave review from his former Next Generation co-star Wil Wheaton.
He followed that with a spirited reading of Sonnet 1.
And then moved on to one of his personal favorites, Sonnet 2.
Daily doses of Shakespeare by Picard himself? Make it so.
Star Trek: Picard is currently streaming on CBS All Access.
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