Q returns in the time-hopping teaser for Star Trek: Picard Season 2 on Paramount Plus

Jean-Luc Picard faced many challenges in the first season of his much-hyped self-titled Star Trek series. We watched him reunited with some old friends, make some new ones, and contend with everything from a battle over the future of synths to his own terminal illness to a Romulan armada on the move. By the time it was all over, Picard would never be the same again. Now, with a new lease on life, the legendary Captain will have to face one of his greatest foes in a battle not just for the future of the galaxy, but for the fate of time itself.

In celebration of "Picard Day" (named for the celebration thrown on the Captain's behalf by the children of the Enterprise-D back in the Next Generation days) on Wednesday, Paramount+ released the first intriguing teaser for Star Trek: Picard Season 2, and in the process set up a confrontation we've long been waiting for. The series has already revealed that the great John de Lancie will reprise his role as the enigmatic Q for Season 2, but that doesn't stop the goosebumps when he finally appears, looking as mischievous as ever as he prepares to put Picard through yet another test. It seems all of time is broken, and Jean-Luc and his crew may be our only hope of putting it back together.

Check out the teaser below.

Season 1 was ambitious enough on its own, telling a story that only took Jean-Luc back through key pieces of his own past, but set up just how much his own sense of honor has been tested by his decades of association with the Federation, and ending by flat-out killing Picard and setting him up with a new synthetic body that would allow him to live out the rest of his natural lifespan.

With that chapter of the story done, it seems Season 2 is priming the captain for more adventures through time, something he's had experience with before, but perhaps never quite like this. We know to expect Q to be up to his old tricks, but that shot of Seven of Nine without her Borg implants shows we might have no idea of the full depth of what he's up to yet.

Then there's the Season 2 teaser poster, which is both a clever play on the Starfleet insignia and perhaps a hint that we could be in for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home levels of time-hopping.

Paramount+

Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard arrives next year on Paramount+.