New trailers and updates for Picard season 2, Discovery season 4, Lower Decks season 2, and Prodigy!

Big Star Trek TV news day! To mark First Contact Day today StarTrek.com hosted a series of panels, including reflecting on the 25th anniversary of the best TNG movie, behind the scenes and cultural impacts of other Trek, and some major new Trek-TV news for most of the currently in-production series, including lots of new trailers, and release date updates. Continue below for a round-up of the day's news:

The first big announcement of the day is that the original Q, John de Lancie, will be returning for Picard season two, which is set to arrive in 2022. This was revealed in this teaser trailer:

 

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Patrick Stewart and de Lancie, along with host Wil Wheaton discussed this a little in the panel as well, in which Stewart noted Q's reappearance comes at a "shattering moment" of trauma for Picard, which may or may not be directly related to Q's motivation to return.

Other elements of note in the trailer include Picard's previous commands, the USS Enterprise-D and USS Stargazer, and a big emphasis on time (including a sand timer going backwards) and second chances. Could Q be about to take Picard on another trip to his past? 

It's also been previously suggested Guinan will be returning this season too; might we finally learn something about Q and Guinan's mysterious animosity? 

More surprising among the various props seen is the Reckoning Tablet the Bajoran artefact from the ruins of the city of B'hala which once contained a trapped Prophet and Pah-wraith. Surely suggesting a major DS9 element coming in this season too.

One other thought: The Q reveal in the teaser comes via a Queen playing card. I wonder, could this be a double tease? Hinting at another returning foe, the Borg Queen? The original Borg Queen, Alice Krige appeared as part of the First Contact panel that followed this announcement; was that just part of the anniversary celebration, or is Krige more currently involved in production too?

StarTrek.com has confirmed some other casting, that Brent Spiner will be back (presumably as Altan Inigo Soong), as will Orla Brady, otherwise known as Picard' Romulan pal Laris (Jamie McShane, aka Zhaban, isn't yet listed though). Also listed are the expected main cast: Alison Pill (Jurati), Isa Briones (Soji), Evan Evagora (Elnor), Michelle Hurd (Raffi), Santiago Cabrera (Rios), Jeri Ryan (Seven), and of course Patrick Stewart (Picard). 

Moving on to Discovery, check out this amazing first trailer for season four (alas the embedded is a short version, check out the full thing on StarTrek.com), which will arriving later this year:

Season four of Star Trek: Discovery finds Captain Burnham and the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery facing a threat unlike any they’ve ever encountered. With Federation and non-Federation worlds alike feeling the impact, they must confront the unknown and work together to ensure a hopeful future for all.

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Where to start with this; wow! This sets up a new season arc about a huge gravitational anomaly. It also shows us some colourful new versions of the 32nd century uniforms (I like this upgrade!):

The Creative Teams panel might shed some light on led to this change, as Disco costume designer Gersha Phillips noted the first version of the 32nd century uniforms had a slight issue of being a similar colour to the Discovery sets. Maybe this suddenly more colourful look was the solution to that problem?

There's also new look for Adira too:

And a lot of classic aliens, including Vulcans, a Cardassian/Bajoran mixed heritage person, and a Shlurm, a species only seen in the Kelvin timeline before!

Oh, and is that the pre-refit version of the USS Discovery? Speculate wildly now:

StarTrek.com has also confirmed all the season three main cast returning: Sonequa Martin-Green (Captain Michael Burnham), Doug Jones (Saru), Anthony Rapp (Paul Stamets), Mary Wiseman (Sylvia Tilly), Wilson Cruz (Dr. Hugh Culber), David Ajala (Cleveland “Book” Booker), Blu del Barrio (Adira), and Ian Alexander (Gray).

Also getting a new trailer today was Lower Decks season two. Just a shorter one, but it packs in a lot! This season will start on the 12th of August this year, and StarTrek.com have also confirmed the series has been renewed for a third ten-episode season.

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Here are a few highlights, full of Trek nostalgia:

Also recently released was the trailer for the home video release of season one(ad), giving a little look at the behind the scenes featurettes as well as the episodes:

The newest Star Trek series also got a preview today, but not a trailer just yet. The animated children's series Prodigy revealed some crucial new details of it's setting: It will take place in 2383 (that's a little later than Lower Decks, and slightly before the Synth attack on Mars in Picard), and crucially, in the Delta Quadrant. Captain Janeway will be part of the show in the form of an emergency training hologram instructing the young crew of the as-yet unseen Starfleet ship they take control of in the series. Here is the classic Voyager-look Janeway as she will appear in Prodigy:

Given the Delta Quadrant setting, I think we can safely assume the hairier member of the crew there is a Talaxian. Apparently there's a TOS connection to one of these guys too. Set after Voyager has returned home, this series has great potential to show how things have moved on in the Delta Quadrant since Voyager visited. Exciting!

Also announced today is that Paramount+ will be showing Woman in Motion, a feature-length documentary about the impact Nichelle Nichols (Uhura) had on NASA recruiting female astronauts. Here's a tease trailer (you can watch a longer version on StarTrek.com). 

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Here's the poster for the film, and blurb:

Directed by Todd Thompson (The Highwaymen, PRE FAB!), Woman in Motion chronicles how Nichols transformed her sci-fi television stardom into a real-life science career when, in 1977, she embarked on a campaign to bring diversity to NASA. Nichols formed the company Women In Motion, Inc. and recruited more than 8,000 African American, Asian and Latino women and men for the agency. Nichols and her program continue to influence the younger generation of astronauts as well, including Mae Jemison, the first female African American astronaut in space. Despite an uphill battle against a bureaucracy that was hesitant to let her get involved, Nichols persevered and is credited by NASA for turning it into one of the most diverse independent agencies in the United States Federal Government.

This trailer released proceeded the Women in Motion panel discussing Nichols' impact, and the wider impact of the role representation of women and people of colour in Trek with many of the current main women of colour cast members: Sonequa Martin-Green (Burnham), Isa Briones (Soji), Dawn Lewis (Freeman), and Michelle Hurd (Raffi).

To view all the panels in full, check StarTrek.com's special First Contact Day page.

For more Star Trek, you can find all current and future Treks, in the US at least, on Paramount+(ad). In Canada look to Bell Media services, while in the rest of the world Trek is split, so far, between Netflix and Amazon Prime Video(ad).

Meanwhile to keep track of all the latest Trek TV updates, check back through my TV tag, or those for each of the current series: Picard, Discovery, Lower Decks, Prodigy, Strange New Worlds, and Short Treks.