They assured him that he would be a failure

With two series (208 episodes between the two) and a good handful of movies (4, to be exact), Captain Jean-Luc Picard is considered one of the most legendary characters From every Star Trek since it first appeared more than 35 years ago on American television. And if his face is the face of a great actor Patrick Stewart This is for one reason only: “He was cheated.”

This is acknowledged by the Brits, recalling how the opportunity to revitalize a science fiction franchise came into his hands Starring in a new seriesStar Trek: The Next Generation (ST: Next Generation). He had serious doubts, first because he didn’t want to leave the stage.

second, Because I didn’t know what it was exactly That “Star Trek” … despite the fact that his kids saw it, he tells about Mirror:

“I remember coming home from the Royal Shakespeare after dinner just in time to give them [a los niños] their dinner, reading to them, and putting them to bed before returning to the evening’s performance. And I found out they were watching this thing on TV with these guys in colorful shirts. And that’s all I remember.”

Financially the offer was very tempting (the equivalent of £12,000 a week compared to £140 in the theatre), but I had to sign a contract for six yearswhich ended any hopes of doing his beloved revue of all time, specifically, he wanted to put on a sophisticated version of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”.

“Caught” deceived

However, his friends encouraged him and, above all, It was his agent who made him pay By reassuring him of something we later found out it wasn’t: that the series would be absolute to fail. As he remembers last April in The James Corden Show:

My agent said to me, ‘Look, you know you can’t bring an iconic series to life. .. And you go home. That was his expectation: six months, no more.

Finally, there would be seven seasons (1987 to 1994), followed by four movies (and two decades later, a new series). A clear success immortalizing him as Captain Picard despite the fact that He almost refused to participate in the series.

And to be fair, you have to break the spear in favor of the screenwriter as Paramount saw them and wanted to get this new series off the ground. While they were fully hoping to relaunch a franchise that had held out incredibly well for two decades, American national chains They were more than hesitant at the idea (How things change, huh).

ABC and NBC only promised to consider the script for the pilot; CBS wanted a miniseries and if that was what they were going to talk about; Newly created FOX was more interested but they only wanted thirteen episodes but would have to work against the clock. They finally chose to get involved: selling it to local chains, independents and affiliates of the “Big Three” to broadcast the first window. A risky move, but as we have already seen, it worked.

In Espinov | The 17 best Star Trek standalone episodes to get you started on the legendary saga