The Saratoga (etc) bridge sets

[cardinal biggles]

It looks like they might have borrowed some set elements that were kept after filming on TUC wrapped. The angled profile of the aft consoles is similar to that of the bridge stations on the TFF/TUC bridge. But it looks like they were also going for a similar set arrangement to the TNG battle bridge in its latter form (also seen as the Hathaway, Enterprise-C, starbase courtroom, the bridge of Baran's ship, et. al.). The Saratoga set looks narrower because the front wall is just the viewscreen; it's lacking the longer curved walls that come out on both sides on the battle bridge.

 

[Tomalak]

It looks like they might have borrowed some set elements that were kept after filming on TUC wrapped. The angled profile of the aft consoles is similar to that of the bridge stations on the TFF/TUC bridge. But it looks like they were also going for a similar set arrangement to the TNG battle bridge in its latter form (also seen as the Hathaway, Enterprise-C, starbase courtroom, the bridge of Baran's ship, et. al.). The Saratoga set looks narrower because the front wall is just the viewscreen; it's lacking the longer curved walls that come out on both sides on the battle bridge.

It's the redressed battle bridge/movie bridge set that was adapted again and again for TNG. I think the most recent major redress prior to Emissary was for the Sutherland's bridge in Redemption, though I could be misremembering.

Actually you might be right, the back consoles might have come straight from the Excelsior bridge. The Excelsior set was rebuilt again for Flashback, and then reused as the generic Starfleet bridge when needed - with a few modifications it became the Prometheus and Equinox in Voyager.

 

[Tomalak]

Yeah, it's the front of the battle bridge with the aft section from the Excelsior. It turned up again a few weeks later as the cargo ship in The Passenger, and again as the Nebula-class Prometheus in season two.

 

[TommyR01D]

I seem to remember that at one point I made a slideshow of all the incarnations of the Battle Bridge trying to track its evolution.

• Enterprise (Refit) in TMP
• Enterprise (Refit) in TWOK
• Reliant in TWOK
• Enterprise (Refit) in TSFS
• Grissom in TSFS
• Saratoga in TVH
• Enterprise-A in TVH
• Enterprise-D (Battle) in E@F
• Stargazer in TB
• Enterprise-D (Battle) in TAoF
• Lantree in US
• Starbase 173 (Courtroom) in TMoaM
• Hathaway in PP
• Enterprise-C in YE
• Enterprise-D (Battle) in TBoBW
• Brattain in NT
• Enterprise-D (Interrogation) in TD
• Bozeman in C&E
• Saratoga (again) in E1
• Khazara in FotE
• Prometheus in SS
• Pasteur in AGT
• Odyssey (Battle?) in TJ'H

I've rather lost track of it after that but I think it might end up becoming a few Kazon ships and even the Raven.

Essentially the Battle Bridge, in all its redresses, comes down to two distinct formats - there's the small version (Stargazer, Prometheus, Saratoga) where it's basically a rounded trapezium and has everyone facing forward (ironically predictive of Voyager) and the large variant - mostly favoured for older ships - where the doors are at the sides and the whole back wall is a series of rear-facing panels (It nicely illustrates the halfway stage between the doughnut bridge shape of TOS and the arched back bridge shape of TNG.).

We also know that for TFF the Enterprise-A got a brand new bridge set (the Battle Bridge was seemingly no longer usable for this purpose), this was kept for TUC, then converted into the Excelsior, then the Enterprise-B. The Excelsior-class bridges both featured a large recess behind the captain's chair which also appears on the later redresses of the small variant Battle Bridge. This set was presumably destroyed before 1996 because for Flashback they rebuilt the Excelsior's bridge from scratch. This later appeared as the Prometheus, the Dauntless and the Equinox, which suggests that the doughnut design was making a comeback in Starfleet in the 2370s.

Additionally there was the Galaxy-class bridge for TNG, which was wrecked in GEN and replaced by the Intrepid-class bridge for Voyager, which in turn was junked and replaced by the NX-class for ENT. Finally we have the Sovereign-class bridge for FC, INS and NEM plus the Defiant-class and the Ops set for DS9. That means there would be five standing bridge sets at various points in the 1990s.

 

[Leto_II]

^ Also (great list, BTW), the Saratoga seen in DS9 "Emissary" is very likely a different Saratoga from the 23rd century starship seen in TVH -- different registry numbers, etc. (Although I suppose registry numbers can indeed change over time, so who knows.)

 

[cardinal biggles]

This set was presumably destroyed before 1996 because for Flashback they rebuilt the Excelsior's bridge from scratch.

Not destroyed so much as scavenged. It's been pretty well-known for a while that the Enterprise-E bridge used the turbolift alcoves from the Enterprise-A bridge. The perimiter stations on the E-E shared the same side profile as the perimeter stations on the E-A, but I chalked that up to Herman Zimmerman being the production designer on all the Trek films from Final Frontier through Nemesis. Turns out those actually were the stations, as these construction photos from First Contact reveal:

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/bonus_fc/productiondocs/fromatoe/atoe_005.jpg
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/bonus_fc/productiondocs/fromatoe/atoe_008.jpg

You can see circular cutouts from some of the original displays. And in the second screenshot, it's pretty clear that they hadn't removed the original Okudagrams yet. This also explains why some set diagrams show a pillar in the middle of the station behind Picard; they must have removed it at some point during construction so that big MSD cutaway of the Enterprise could stretch across both halves of the station.

I can't believe I never noticed that before.

 

[Lt. Washburn]

Good catch!

 

[publiusr]

You have better eyes than me.