William Shatner has congratulated Patrick Stewart on his return to Star Trek as Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Patrick played the popular character in Star Trek: The Next Generation from 1987 to 1994, in one episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and the movies Star Trek: Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Star Trek: Nemesis.

Fans were thrilled to hear that Patrick would be returning as Picard for a new Star Trek series. The show will be in addition to the already popular Star Trek: Discovery, which can be streamed exclusively on CBS All Access. This new Star Trek series is part of Alex Kurtzman's plan to grow the franchise for CBS. Picard's story last left off with him aboard the enterprise; however, this new series is said to focus on the next chapter of his life.

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After the news of Stewart's return made its way online, William Shatner took to Twitter to salute Picard's return. In response to Stewart's own announcement on Twitter, Shatner retweeted Stewart with the caption "It's wonderful news! Congratulations my friend!" Shatner and Stewart are part of a pretty small club, having played former Star Trek captains, and clearly that's led to some close ties between the two actors.

William Shatner of course popularized the role of captain of the Starship USS Enterprise back in the 60s on the original Star Trek series. Shatner would also go on to play Captain James T. Kirk in multiple follow-up films, last appearing as the popular character - alongside Stewart's Picard - in Star Trek: Generations. Shatner himself has talked about returning to Star Trek by appearing on Star Trek: Discovery or even in Quentin Tarantino's Star Trek movie, but nothing has been confirmed on that front.

While the Star Trek franchise hasn't been quite as successful as Star Wars recently, it's no doubt stayed relevant in popular culture, even with the Skywalker saga breaking box office record after box office record. Star Trek has gotten a whole new trilogy thanks to producer J.J. Abrams, with a fourth film possibly beginning filming in January 2019. Chris Pine has led the revived film series as Shatner's iconic character in what's known as the Kelvin Timeline. As for Star Trek: Discovery, season 2 has been announced which fans can also expect in early 2019. With multiple projects currently in development, it's definitely a great time to be a Star Trek fan. Fans have been wanting Picard to return to the franchise for years now, and Stewart has finally seen fit to make it so.

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Source: William Shatner