The third and final season of Star Trek: Picard played well with fans, critics, and viewers. Now the show is starting to get some notice as Hollywood gears up for Emmy season.
Could Picard season 3 break through at the Emmys?
Voting for Emmy nominations kicks off next week on June 15th and some industry watchers are talking about the possibility of Star Trek: Picard getting some attention. While Star Trek shows tend to do well in the “Creative Arts” categories (visual effects, makeup, hair, etc.), the franchise has had less luck when it comes to nominations for the major Emmy categories. Star Trek: The Next Generation (and Picard) actor (and director) Jonathan Frakes thinks this year might be different, telling ScreenRant:
TNG was the only Star Trek series to get the best drama nomination back in 1994. Maybe Picard will be considered. Maybe lightning will strike twice… It would be a great way to finish things up. Get Patrick a nomination, get the show nominated. It’d be just brilliant.
To be certain Picard is not a favorite for the major categories, but some industry watchers are taking note. This week TV Line included the series as one of their picks for Best Drama, saying in part:
It wasn’t just a nostalgia trip, though: The final season pushed Jean-Luc and his Enterprise pals to new emotional heights with the introduction of a son Jean-Luc never knew he had, along with a badass villain in Amanda Plummer’s Vadic.
In a roundup for the LA Times, Matt Roush of TV Guide listed Picard as his 6th top choice for Best Drama. Even though he doesn’t expect it to happen, Roush said:
And how I’d love to see ‘Picard’s’ final-season tribute to ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ steal a nod from the overhyped ‘Game of Thrones’ knockoff ‘House of the Dragon.
Michael Dorn as Worf, Gates McFadden as Dr. Beverly Crusher, Jonathan Frakes as Will Riker, Patrick Stewart as Picard and Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi in”Vox”
In a piece comparing the series finales of Picard and Emmy-favorite Succession, Joshua Patton of CBR wrote:
That none of Succession’s characters are good people is something that the show prides itself on. Picard’s final season executes a more difficult task by telling a story about how each character is worthy. Optimism, compassion and a commitment to hope are much harder things to sell in drama than gross villains learning nothing.
Gold Derby, a site dedicated to industry awards, maintains a predictions scoreboard based on reader votes and Picard is still seen as a longshot, ranked 20th for Best Drama. In an opinion piece titled ‘Star Trek: Picard’ deserves a Best Drama nom for final season just like ‘The Next Generation’ got Gold Derby TV editor wrote:
The TV academy isn’t as snobby around sci-fi as it used to be, but while they’ve backed the truck up to Disney+’s spinoffs from the “Star Wars” and Marvel universes, they have remained stingy to “Star Trek,” the franchise that actually started on television. Maybe reminding voters of “TNG” will be the key to getting “Trek” back to the forefront.
Some of the actors from Picard are also getting some notice. While all are considered long-shots, Patrick Stewart (for Best Actor), Amanda Plummer (Best Supporting Actress), and Michelle Forbes (Best Guest Actress) are all on the Gold Derby charts. The Hollywood Reporter ranks Stewart as a “major threat” to the Best Actor frontrunners and Forbes as one of the Best Guest Actress “possibilities.”
UPDATE: TV Line has included Stewart on their Best Actor list and Plummer for Supporting Actress.
Michelle Forbes as Ro Laren in “Imposters”
The first two seasons of Picard garnered a combined nine Emmy nominations, all in the Creative Arts categories, with one win for Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup in season 1. Voting for nominations begins this year on June 15, with the nominees announced on July 12. The Creative Arts ceremony will be held on September 9 and 10 and the main Emmy Awards will be aired live on FOX on September 18.
For their part, CBS Studios and Paramount+ have been running an active FYC (For Your Consideration) campaign for the show, including recreating the 10 Forward Bar as part of an “Emmy Activation” in Hollywood along with holding industry panels with Picard creatives. Star Trek branding is also part of their takeover of a popular coffee shop in Los Angeles. And there is ad campaign running in the trades and outdoor advertising as well, as shared by Picard showrunner Terry Matalas.
— Terry Matalas (@TerryMatalas) June 4, 2023
There is also a social media campaign running, including highlighting some of the “below the line” work on Picard. For example, here is one post for makeup and hair.
The final season of #StarTrekPicard features some of @StarTrek's best makeup and hair yet. What were your favorite looks this season? #FYC pic.twitter.com/BzlZsTuWPu
— Star Trek on Paramount+ (@StarTrekOnPPlus) June 6, 2023
Prodigy wins Telltale TV Award
Star Trek: Prodigy competes in the new Children’s & Family Emmy Awards, which will be held at the end of the year. Last year the show was nominated for Outstanding Animated Series and won an Emmy for production design. Voting wont start for months, but Prodigy was just voted as the Favorite Animated Series for the Tell-Tale TV Awards. Co-executive producer Aaron Waltke shared the news on Twitter last week:
Wow! Huge congrats to everyone on our show #StarTrekProdigy for winning a Tell-Tale TV Award in the category of "Favorite Animated Series"!
The competition was very tight this year — Harley Quinn, Bob's Burgers, Bluey! — but thanks to the fans, we prevailed. We are honored.🖖 https://t.co/YJJrkJgiSw pic.twitter.com/Hw3wySQYC5
— Aaron J. Waltke (@GoodAaron) May 30, 2023
Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
The notion that Picard features “some of Trek’s best make-up and hair” falls down pretty hard if you watch Strange New Worlds.
Yeah that’s a tall Mount to climb.
Fair but Trek’s make up today vs Berman era is hands down better.
I dunno. The budget is better, but I think every one of Michael Westmore’s creations when he had the resources to do more than a prosthetic forehead can go toe to toe with what the new shows do. The FC Borg, Cardassians, Jem’Hadar, Xindi Reptillians, Remans, Founders, Salamander Paris, Vidiians… Just amazing work.
I think without a doubt Westmore was a genius. But the kinds of tech they have today just lets them do things that weren’t possible back then. Like I don’t think aliens like Saru with his legs would have been easy to pull off.
Yeah, it’s and apples to orange’s comparison, essentially.
If we are just talking about advances in tech, then sure!
I have never gotten the Westmore love. Pretty much every old age makeup he did on TNG was horrid and plasticky looking. I think the only reason I don’t rewatch THE VISITOR annually is because of the old-age makeup, and it is definitely why I haven’t rewatched THE INNER LIGHT this century.
His old age stuff for Bowman in 2010 was equally rocky, so it isn’t just a matter of time/budget/TV constraints.
I think the love for Westmore comes from their long family dynasty of make-up work. I mean I remember that almost all the Westerns that I watched back in the day had at least one Westmore as the make-up artist and they certainly have a long legacy in the business. While not all of his work was stellar, in general I enjoyed the creativity that Mike Westmore showed when he was given the chance and resources to do something more than a plastic forehead. Also you have to remember that old-age makeup is almost always very difficult to do compared with others so I think we can cut him some slack there.
Cool story, but my cat just told me Westmore did a billion other things besides old-age makeup.
Yeah, it’s quite laughable. Especially if the highlight is making Amanda Plummer’s character look like a meth addict who lost a knife fight.
You must be having fun now that junior high is out for summer. Stay safe.
Looks like you got held over for summer school though… Wishing you the best!
*Insert “Nicely Done!” Picard meme here*
My thoughts exactly. He put that softball right over the plate for me.
Fingers crossed!
I was so happy when TNG was nominated but it broke my heart when they lost even though I knew they would. I hope Picard is at least nominated. SNW deserves to be as well frankly. It’s true that SciFi has better chances these days but it is also very true that Trek is in a class by itself when it comes to the Academy and they will always hate Trek for *reasons*
It’s never a good idea to drink your own Kool-Aid. PS3 will do well in the creative arts categories, but there’s nothing coming down the pipe in the major categories. If the impossible did happen, it would suck that the presentation will be muted because of the writers (and likely actors and directors) strike…
Not sure if it’s Kool-Aid when the show is getting legitimate buzz from uncommon sources. That still probably won’t lead to any significant nominations (because Succession, because other outlets have better marketing budgets and campaigns than CBS), but it’s release/finale so close to the voting window opening certainly helps keep it closer to front of mind than if it had premiered months ago.
I have to agree. I know Trek is having a huge resurgence right now but I don’t think it will ever have another golden age like it did in the 90’s when TNG was going off the air. Stewart hosted SNL for example, you aren’t going to see any Trek actor besides Chris Pine doing that. And not for Star Trek. The Emmy’s didn’t want to nominate TNG, they frankly had no choice do to it’s immense popularity at the time. Trek may be popular in streaming now but no where near where it was back then. I don’t want to be saying this but sadly that’s just what I see what I look at the small corner of the world I occupy.
Nah, it’s only a matter of time before Anson Mount gets on SNL. And also, Shatner and TOS has always dwarfed Stewart and TNG — always has and always will. TNG has never approached the worldwide iconic level of TOS, and having one season of Picard that finally didn’t suck isn’t changing that.
Well, Shatner and Nimoy had their Wrath of Khan days to be sure. But they were one crew. The Berman era had TNG, DS9, and VOY all on at practically the same time. And Stewart was the face of that era. Sure Shatner and his “Get a life” appearance on SNL is infamous but that was way before the TNG era. I’d love to see Mount on SNL but if it happens I honestly doubt it would be for SNW. I mean both he and Stewart have other stuff going on. I laughed out loud when I sawe both he and Stewart in the same exact scene in Dr Strange 2 hahaha.
I think it’s very easy to think of Anson Mount, Rebecca Romijn, Michelle Yeoh, or Jason Isaacs hosting, and potentially Ethan Peck.
For the record in regard to the “major” categories for The Original Series:
Nimoy was nominated for Supporting Actor all three seasons of TOS.
Nominated for Best Dramatic Series for their 1st & 2nd season.
Nominated 8 other times in the “technical” categories like Art Direction, Special Effects & Editing.
True but Star Trek wasn’t “Star Trek” back then. It didn’t have the stigma behind it. Nor did SciFi as a whole. It was just another show on TV among only 3 networks.
I think there was definitely a stigma against sci-fi at the time. It was still widely seen as for the juvenile audience, as evidenced by NBC rejecting the original Star Trek pilot as “too cerebral” (they wanted fist-fights and bug-eyed monsters.) Adult successes like The Twilight Zone (which was nominated for major awards) were offset by the camp of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Lost In Space (which were not.) A sci-fi series like Star Trek getting major Emmy nominations was definitely a rarity even then, and I think was not repeated until Quantum Leap in 1990.
Well don’t forget shows like the X-Files too. That’s a pretty old show around the QL era. It was def SciFi but it got away with it because it was a rarity that was SciFi but also kind of a police procedural. But man for a while it was a mainstay at the Emmys. SciFi or not the emmys just seem to pick what they want. IMHO Twilight Zone was every bit as much SciFi as Trek was. The only difference was one was in space and the other wasn’t. In fact I think that’s what I think usually separates Trek from the rest of the herd.
Yeah exactly! It got all of those nominations even with the stigma. No Star Trek series has come close to that since, even though the stigma for sf series has lessened significantly
It’s actually the opposite is true. There was more stigma back then. That just shows you how great TOS was viewed by its peers in the TV industry. TNG never came close to that even though there was less stigma by then for science fiction series.
And thought I’d add that both years Star Trek was nominated for Best Dramatic Series it lost to “Mission: Impossible”.
Nimoy lost to Eli Wallach for something called “Xerox Special”, then to Milburn Stone for “Gunsmoke” then in ’69 the category combined drama with comedy for supporting actor and Nimoy lost to Verner Klemperer from “Hogan’s Heroes”.
Feel free to draw whatever conclusions you wish.
Remind me to never read anything Collider says from now on. What a laughable quote.
I am not seeing a Collider quote in this article?
It’s on the billboard
“One of the best TV finales to ever grace television screens”
Well, I guess they’re kind of right, given they completely carbon copied one of the greatest trilogy movie endings of all time in Return of the Jedi.
Lol
I want say something about these always up poping topic called fanservice which also was used for P3. In what a twisted world do we live in that fanservice is considered something bad?? I mean how do people define fanservice? Every time something fans are loving is coming back? So in this case in every episode everyone should die and every starship must be destroyed in every episode and must be replaced by new ones. Otherwise you could argue that people are looking forward to see characters and starships they love again what would be a fanservice.
I don’t think fanservice is bad per se… but I do think it can become an issue when it gets in the way of a) servicing the story and b) putting a bad taste in the mouth of lesser fans or newcomers that might have otherwise become fans. I’m not saying that was the case with PIC S3. I loved seeing the 1701-D and while it was fanservice it did serve the story just fine and I can’t think of any reason why any non-fan would have had an issue with it.
Good point!
Fanservice in and of itself is a positive thing. However, when fanservice is the primary focus, with plotting, logic, special effects, and even the original purpose taking a back seat to fanservice in a production, that’s a problem — especially if you have a set of fans that is so desperate to get that fan service that they have been waiting years for that they lose all ability to evaluate a series in terms of the other key factors I mentioned here (and that includes superfan internet personalities, podcasters, etc)…they complete lose their FILTER…and that’s where fanservice becomes a negative.
And it’s sort of pathetically sad when that happens.
The legitimate argument is that “fan service” or callbacks is a lazy way of getting around poorly constructed stories. Bespoke tropes or iconography specific to the IP used by writers to create shortcuts for plot and character.
Now, reasonable minds might be able to look at ST:P-S3 and see how the quality of those tropes and use of iconography **runs the gamut from great to awful**, but we do not live in a reasonable world.
To me all these shows are coasting on fanservice so I don’t really harp on it too much. Yes you can definitely go too far with it at times but it’s what many fans want to see. It’s why Kirk is back on a show he shouldn’t be on right now or why Janeway is back full time on Prodigy or why LDS goes nuts with the easter eggs in some episodes because it’s what fans want and they clearly know that.
If you don’t want fanservice of any kind, then you begin anew with a new group of characters in the 26th century and start all over. But there is a reason all these shows have a lot of nostalgia bait, takes place mostly in the TOS and TNG era and has brought back everything from GOF to Q because for most fans, that’s what they want to see and will happily pay to watch it.
I love Patrick Stewart, but you have got to be kidding me. His last time he really acted a great Picard was Pic S1. He’s been weak in the past 2 seasons, and it pains me to say that.
Michell Forbes, OK, she was great.
Amanda Plummer — OMG, how about a Razzie instead? A badly written character and a badly acted character.
Make up — no way given it’s up against SNW, which blows it away.
My prediction: 0 Emmys for Picard S3
I think Prodigy will get a couple of awards this year — what a well deserving series!
Lower Decks will continue to have ZERO wins…it’s just not all that well thought of by it’s professional peers and the awards bodies. It will get it’s usual nomination or two from awards we barely pay attentions to, but no wins, and that’s about it.
“.. Stewart has been weak in the past 2 seasons, and it pains me to say that.
Michell Forbes, OK, she was great.
Amanda Plummer — OMG, how about a Razzie instead? A badly written character and a badly acted character.
Make up — no way given it’s up against SNW, which blows it away.”
Facts? Or your opinion? Even though it’s listed like facts I think it’s your opinion of these things.
Obviously he was expressing opinions. Did he have to precede every sentence with IMHO for you not to get offended?
It’s his opinion, he’s just a jerk about how he expresses it.
I have to agree about Stewart’s portrayal of Picard, except I’d have to say I haven’t felt he was Picard since the last TNG movie.
Forbes was great too, Plummer’s character was a caricature.
Although I love Lower Decks, I don’t think it’s the kind of show the award-giving body, whoever they are, give awards to.
Picard S3 has left me unimpressed. Everything left dark so they didn’t have to add details to the sets, to save money… Too few sets so it just felt like a big bottle episode, again to save money… underused Changelings or even misused, and frankly I don’t care about the Titan and making it the Enterprise is obvious pandering. The Enterprise-D sequences were great though, let’s give them that.
There’s nothing about S3 that would want me to watch a follow-up show. I’d watch, just like I would watch Starfleet Academy and S31, but I could wait a year to binge watch it just like I did for Picard S1 or depending on the reviews, maybe I wouldn’t watch at all, like S2.
We seem to have the same take in the end Silvereyes.
I’d add a few thoughts on Emmys vs success in building the franchise.
I’d argue that Picard S3 was successful in doing the latter (however personally disappointed I was on where it left the 25th century), but any Emmy nomination buzz appears based on nostalgia and is almost exclusively coming from clickbait genre sites with the exception of the LA Times.
Prodigy deserves all the children’s animated nods it gets. How well it’s doing with kids will likely be more measurable once the back half of season one finishes rolling out on linear on Nickelodeon.
Lower Decks is very successful in a growing and competitive animated comedy market targeted at younger adults. Emmys are going to more serious animated dramas as I don’t believe there are multiple categories for animated shows. Paramount needs to be in Lower Decks’ young adult animated comedy niche, that is dominated by Netflix, and the show is their most successful one.
What is interesting is that recent data shows that Paramount was successful in building demand for the franchise throughout 2022 and into Q1 of 2023 according to Parrot Analytics.
There was a noticeable drop in Star Trek franchise demand in early 2022 during Discovery S4’s run compared to December 2021.
It was SNW, then Lower Decks and Prodigy that got and kept Star Trek ahead of Marvel and DC, and trading with SW through the fall of 2022. Only the rapid increase in demand for the Taylor Sheridan franchise kept it from taking the lead.
So, Picard S3 built on this momentum but the base as of Q4 2022 was already higher than anything but Sheridan.
Picard S3 buzz really didn’t pick up until late December early January, so we have to recognize that Lower Decks and Prodigy really are contributing significantly to maintaining and growing interest.
Thank you for this info, TG47.
If Lower Decks and Prodigy are growing interest in the franchise then that’s a good thing, as it’s well deserved. Discovery had potential in S1, but I stopped watching in beginning of S2. I came back to it later on and made it to the end of S4 but the show is just too preachy and therefore divisive. It’s all about IDIC but I don’t need to be force-fed ideologies, whether I agree or not. Maybe others feel the same as well, which would explain the drop in demand during S4’s run, as you mention. I’m still looking forward to S5 though, but I’m afraid that scene of Burnham riding the Discovery’s saucer like a surfboard is going to push my tolerance to its limits.
My take is that Discovery S4 suffered more than most from the impact of COVID protocols.
It was one of the first shows back in production so it had some of the most onerous limitations, but it’s also that the writers solved the challenge by giving us yet more stilted, earnest conversations.
It will be interesting to see what they did with S5.
I am so very happy about the news with Lower Decks and Prodigy and they are both doing well! :)
I was never worried about LDS, but I was afraid maybe Prodigy isn’t really pulling in the views, but it sounds like it is. And it will probably get even stronger next season if it becomes a stronger Voyager spin off than it already was to get some of the other long time fans whose been on the fence with it.
And for LDS, that show seems to get more popular every season and we may now get seven seasons…and a movie after all! ;D
As for Discovery, I’m hoping the last season will at least be decent but I’m just waiting for it to end at this point now.
COVID was an incredible hardship for productions to overcome across the board.
But knowing your limitations can be very freeing sometimes, and as you say, the dialogue they wrote to fill the breach was divisive. Not exactly the second coming of “Duet” or “The Wire” in any of those conversations.
LET’S GO PICARD! 🖖
And congrats to Prodigy!
I loved this season of Picard. Best one of NuTeek for me so far! 😀
If you told me a season of Picard would get to this point, I’d have never believed it. But, I really do think the buzz is deserved.
Wow great to hear! And I love just how much Trekmovie really supported this season and pushing for the Legacy show. Season 3 wasn’t perfect, but it really has sparked a lot of hype and interest in fans who hasn’t been that fond of the franchise in a long time.
I want the show to win an Emmy outside of makeup or special effects. The storytelling raised the bar for modern Star Trek. And Stewart, Frakes, and Gates were magnificent….so was everyone else. I was never a TNG fan…..but now I am.
Keeping my fingers crossed for Terry and his gallant crew.
We definitely need more Terry Trek bro and happy you’re a new TNG fan! 😀 🤞
I think the biggest point this season of Picard proved is the fact that yes you can update TNG for the 2020s without losing its essence and without making it fully dark,gloomy and depressing for the “modern” audience. It was a big success in this regard. It managed to keep its soul while updating it in a proper way by introducing interesting new characters like Shaw and without fully dumbing down the concept.
I feel like we watched two very different shows alphantrion.
I loved the first half of the season, but it was definitely darker.
The back half suffered all the incoherence of any other season on Picard or Discovery, and left us with an early 25th century where Starfleet is corrupted by influence, its values sacrificed by some of our most idealistic heroes of TNG. Nothing ‘proper’ in that for me.
I acknowledge though that it caught the lightening of nostalgia. My spouse was watching enthusiastically with me through the end. But they’re also excited for the new season of SNW.
I must disagree with most of this. I feel S3 was quite dumbed down. Most of the episodes were vacuous where nothing was happening except dropping a hook to make us watch the next episode. It’s like drug dealers giving out drugs for free to get people hooked… but I digress.
And it was certainly dark and gloomy and depressing. I’m dumbfounded that you would actually state the contrary to demonstrate your point. It didn’t keep TNG’s soul either. S3 just left me depressed. There’s nothing of Star Trek’s positivism… it’s just a commercial endeavour to bring in money, by eschewing any deep concept or plot and just inserting a few nice things for TNG fan’s interest. And Stewart just looks like a third wheel in most scenes, just tagging along…
This being said, this is only my opinion Alphantrion and I respect your view as well.
Unless it’s for Frakes, I’m not interested.
He really was a revelation this season. Was not expecting that.
I hope the Okudas get something, because they deserve it. But, I wasn’t really a fan of Data saying “I hate them” about the Borg, after season two showed a possible peace between humans and the Confederation faction of the Borg, the same way Trek has always shown the trajectory for antagonism toward peace, or at least neutrality. It felt very much like Kirk saying “Let them die” except without Spock pulling him back from the brink of bigotry.
Even Guinan said there would be peace with the Borg some day, way back in “Q Who.”
GUINAN: Q set a series of events into motion, bringing contact with the Borg much sooner than it should have come. Now, perhaps when you’re ready, it might be possible to establish a relationship with them. But for now, for right now, you’re just raw material to them. Since they are aware of your existence
“It wasn’t just a nostalgia trip”
…
..
.
Wait. It wasn’t?
“One of the best series finales to ever grace television screens” – you mean All Good Things??