Brent Spiner offers advice to Sir Patrick Stewart for filming Star Trek: Picard season 2

"Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1" -- Episode #109 -- Pictured (l-r): Sir Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard; Brent Spiner as Alton Soong; Alison Pill as Agnes Jurati of the the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: PICARD. Photo Cr: Trae Patton/CBS ©2019 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

FEBRUARY 19, 2021 - It’s safe to say that Brent Spiner knows a thing or two about being an android. When Spiner revealed the details of his new book Fan Fiction in a recent interview with SYFY WIRE, he also took a moment to weigh in on the future of the character of Jean-Luc Picard, passing along some friendly advice for his Star Trek: Picard co-star, Sir Patrick Stewart.

Over the course of seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation, four films and a season on Star Trek: Picard, Spiner has had many opportunities to explore what it means to be a synthetic life form. On multiple occasions, Spiner’s character would take on new personality traits, new abilities, even a whole new identity, all while still playing Data. “We did all kinds of things, and I was inhabited by different creatures and personalities,” Spiner said of his character. “It's a dream, for an actor, to be able to do that. And so really, I think of them all as the same thing, in a way. It was all one character, even though the Soongs were human."

If you haven’t seen the first season of Star Trek: Picard, this next part is definitely a spoiler. You’ve been warned.

At the end of “Et in Arcadia Ego: Part 2”, the Picard season one finale, audiences saw Picard’s mind and life experiences safely housed in a new synthetic body. With plenty of expertise in this area of acting finesse, Spiner took a moment to speculate on what that could mean for the character, and how Stewart might choose to portray this new version of Picard. "I really don't know what his capabilities are now," Spiner said. "I don't know if he has any extra skills or super strength or anything like that. I don't think so. I think it just allowed him to go on living...or maybe he can fly," he added.

In the show, the new “synthetic Picard” does not, in fact, possess superior strength, as Data had. In fact, the synthetic life form is programmed to permanently shut down some day. According to SYFY WIRE, Spiner suggested that perhaps “Stewart could try to act smarter because Picard might now have better capabilities than his original organic brain allowed.”

Whatever happens with the character, the new synthetic body is a major plot point, one that will likely see exploration of the “synthetic side” of Jean-Luc Picard in the second season of the series, due to begin filming any day now.

Until then, you can catch up on the first season of Star Trek: Picard, available to stream in full on CBS All Access.