Stewart, Frakes Talk TNG S2 Release

The 2nd season of Star Trek: The Next Generation was just released on Blu-ray. To help promote the release Patrick Stewart spoke with EW about the season and reuniting with the cast while Jonathon Frakes floated the idea of TNG cast members appearing in Star Trek 3. Segments below.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When you think about the episode “The Measure of a Man,” what first comes to mind?
PATRICK STEWART: Well, indeed, we were all very proud of that episode, because it dealt with issues in present society that we all felt were still current and important — the definition of what is humanity and if you can write off a whole race as being a subservient, second class beings. I do remember feeling when that episode came out that we were going right to the heart of the fundamentals of the Star Trek philosophy and what Gene Roddenberry had been writing about in different ways from the mid ’60s.

I know you all had a big reunion in Calgary earlier this year. What was the most surprising thing for you in seeing everybody again?
STEWART: How old Wil Wheaton is. He’s 40! F—ing hell. 40! He was 14 I think when I met him on the set [for the first time]. And you know when they announced the cast for The Next Generation, there were only two cast members that the media had heard of. One was LeVar Burton because of Roots and Reading Rainbow. And the other was Wil Wheaton because of Stand by Me. The rest of us were all unknowns. The L.A. Times described me as “unknown British Shakespearean actor.” Brent Spiner had a poster made and stuck it on the front of my trailer door which read “Beware: Unknown British Shakespearean actor!”

So that was the biggest surprise when this, you know, youthful middle aged guy came over and put his arms around me in the lobby of the Fairmont Hotel in Calgary and I thought, you know this was some kind of attack that I was under. Because he had a beard, a weird little beard, and he put his arm on my shoulders and said “Patrick, it’s Wil. It’s Wil Wheaton.” So that was without doubt the biggest surprise.

It must have been a real treat to be able to be able to get together with everybody and just really sit down without a giant audience to reminisce for this Blu‑Ray release?
FRAKES: It was wonderful. The add-on, I guess, is on this second season from our Calgary panel, where we were sitting around taking the piss out of each other. It’s wonderful. It’s candid and it’s funny. It’s emotional and it’s revealing. It was a great morning. We did it one Sunday morning when we were all in for a convention. It’s a pretty special group of people.