Earlier in the week we remarked on a recent Star Trek commercial which included stars from current or upcoming series who have or had played captains.

Patrick Stewart, Anson Mount and Sonequa Martin-Green appear out of uniform and Patrick talks about Star Trek, i.e. he's speaking as Patrick rather than Picard.

Kate Mulgrew's voice is heard but rather than seeing her we see a screen with one of her animated characters.

Not older Vice Admiral Janeway who admittedly is only seen briefly in the most recently screened Prodigy episode A Moral Star Part 2, but her much younger in appearance Emergency Training Holographic Advisor Janeway.

Of course we can't say for certain why we don't see Kate herself but she has aged since Voyager and put on some weight.

Patrick Stewart has also aged, of course, but was always (in Star Trek) bald and never looked especially young.

With a constant screen presence courtesy of the X-Men films and now the Picard series he has aged in front of audience eyes and also maintained his physique.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter John de Lancie has spoken about his return to Star Trek in season 2 of Picard and interestingly touched on this topic.

I said, ‘I just have a preliminary question: You’re not putting me in tights again, are you?' And Terry goes, ‘Oh, no, no, no.’ I said, ‘OK. We can proceed.'

I asked how they were going to deal with the age and that type of stuff. And Terry said, ‘We will [make it happen] and more importantly, we want you how you are now.'

We hope that this wasn't a case of not wanting Kate as is she is now because of a gendered double standard.

Which would be wrong in any instance and especially disappointing for what is supposed to be one of the more enlightened and progressive franchises.

But this doesn't look good.

You can see John de Lancie in season 2 of Picard whose first episode is available on Amazon, with the remainder releasing weekly.

You can see Kate Mulgrew in The Man Who Fell to Earth which has an April 24 premiere in the US and should release in Australia on Paramount+ some time after that.

[ Main Image: John de Lancie in Picard. Credit: Startrek.com. ]

References

Parker, Ryan (March 3, 2022). ‘Picard’ Star John de Lancie Had Single Question Before Returning to ‘Star Trek’ as Q. The Hollywood Reporter.