I didn't look for any screen caps but from what I remember the floor of the bridge leads right into the turbolift like it's just another room instead of having a thin break or seam that a lift would have. That's odd.
The 24th century is just very, very good at seams. I can't get TrekCore images to open from where I'm typing (at work, but I didn't tell you that), but IIRC these seamless turbolifts appeared just twice: early on in the TOS pilot "Where No Man" (back when they had raw concrete floors for the sets, and still dared experiment with fancy camera angles), and in the TNG pilot "Encounter at Farpoint" (where the bridge set was sort of halfway finished). And I might be wrong about the latter... Timo Saloniemi
And the lift is always on that level when someone on the bridge walks towards it, they don't even pause to see if the doors will open for them, they just assume it will open and the lift will be there
From an In-Universe POV... It could be that there is always a turbolift at the bridge, when one turbolift goes to the Bridge, the Bridge Turbolift moves to allow this Turbolift access, unless of course theres two turbolifts going to the bridge, in which case the one that gets there first causes a slight delay for the second
I always wonder what they do in the turbolifts. You see them go in; you see them come out. Do they break out the iCommunicate and sext each other?
For the record, I believe there are two turbolifts that go to the bridge of the Enterprise D.... the main one everybody seems to use a lot by the Engineering terminal and the other is located next to Picard's ready room...... and I do believe I've seen episodes where crew members were waiting for a lift while on the bridge.... although not very often. As it goes for finding a clear shot of the main turbolift on the Enterprise D bridge online, it doesn't seem to be the easiest thing to find.
I gotcha, Timo! At no time was the turbolift on TOS ever directly on the concrete floor. First off, the soundstage floor wasn't level, and they had to compensate for the steady dropoff from one end of the double length soundstage to the other by building up and bracing a new floor surface with joists. Second, the turbolift on the TOS bridge was on the UPPER level, which was raised, what was it, eight, ten inches? Now, if you're talking about the corridor, then yeah, that's directly on their built up level floor. But the bridge? Never!
Did the Connie-Refit not originally have 2 turbolifts? IIRC in TWOK the ship only had the one Turbolift
In TWOK there's two turbolifts, one to either side of the console directly behind Kirk. Kind of an amusing thing to hear given your avatar, btw. Actually, given your avatar, Kirk, McCoy and Saavik take the other lift when heading to the transporter room to board Spacelab.
Its been a long day....!! Yeah sorry my mistake, it looks as if they modified the placement of some consoles, they moved the Science Station from behind the Captain's Chair to the 3 o'clock position
Yep, I really noticed the console shuffle when I watched TMP and TWoK close to each other. BTW, we seem to be bouncing between the same threads. Good thing there's two turbolifts!
I don't know, though I'd suspect the move was advantageous in terms of filming angles. With the TMP layout if you're looking at Kirk head-on Spock is directly behind him.
That is a good point, there is the possibilty that there are two turbolift shafts that lead to that door.
^^Yeah, they kept having to find awkward angles to get Kirk and Spock in shot together in TMP. Moving Spock's console to the 10 o'clock position meant you could place a camera at the weapons station and shoot straight across the bridge.
Yeah, I was specifically talking about the corridor scene where Kirk and Mitchell first head for the bridge ("Hold it, Jim!"). TrekCore cooperates at last: http://www.trekcore.com/tos/hd/albums/1x03hd/wherenomanhasgonebeforehd032.jpg Except that the floor there isn't exactly seamless. There's a definite change in floor color at one of the thin seams, the one flush with the inner surfaces of the doors. No matter whether intended or unintended, this perfectly excuses the shot. We can then split hairs (or door panels) on the issue of whether there are inner doors or not: http://www.trekcore.com/tos/hd/albums/1x03hd/wherenomanhasgonebeforehd033.jpg But the myth about seamless turbolifts in TOS seems busted. The bridge set definitely had a seam there, and it would seem clear the lift in the side branch of the eventual, series-version corridor set would have at least the same sort of seam we see in the pilot. As for TNG lifts, I haven't managed to find a screencap of the alleged "overcarpeting" yet. But since the textiles used for their clothing are shown having "seamless seams", we might extend the courtesy to their carpeting as well... As for there always being a turbolift at the bridge station, that only sounds logical and expected to me. These aren't exactly analogous to elevators, after all - they are more like military staff cars, and it's the most natural thing in the world to have one (or three) waiting at the bottom of the marble stairs to the HQ, with the chauffeur in attention. Each "staff car" doesn't need its own "road", either: all three can drive down the same shaft, provided there are side alcoves at each stop for slipping past. Timo Saloniemi
Another query about TOS Turbolifts... Why was it necessary to pull the lever if all they needed to do was speak the destination? Was this some kind of failsafe that wasn't required in later models?