TOS Turbolift

[Just a Bill]

Any excuse to break out my obsessive collection of the TOS sets

Nice collection of screencaps! For whatever it's worth, those were shot in several different locations around the set. I haven't been able to determine whether it was all the same exact set of quadruple turbolift doors vs. different quad sets at different sites, but in any case here are the site identifications from my recent survey of every turbolift appearance in the series. (The letter/number designations I use here are explained further below.)

The Corbomite Maneuver, site H for entry; possibly T1 for inside shots.

The Naked Time, site C1.

Tomorrow is Yesterday, site A1.

Amok Time, site T1.

Is There In Truth No Beauty?, site C2.

And now for my codes. No single set plan is ideal for showing all turbolift sites simultaneously; here I've used what I believe is the last one available, as seen in The Making of Star Trek. It notably does not show how in season 1 the engineering corridor was angled a bit more clockwise and the curved corridor was thus shorter by one or two sections at the top.

A – Anticlockwise end of curved corridor. A1 debuted in The Enemy Within. The turbolift was briefly shifted to A2 for one shot in What Are Little Girls Made Of?, then returned to A1 through Space Seed. For season 2, set upgrades would push the corridor's end further anticlockwise, moving the lift to position A3; this site debuted in The Trouble With Tribbles, and lasted through Turnabout Intruder.

B – Bridge.

C – Clockwise end of curved corridor. C0 appears on the set plan for The Enemy Within, but was never used, probably due it blocking stagehand access to the ward room door mechanism. C1 debuted in The Man Trap with the weird "blob-out" wall that made the corridor appear to make an outboard turn at that end, as seen on the set plans for Charlie X and Balance of Terror. (This season-one corridor bend-out continued through to at least Space Seed, and can sometimes give the impression that a C1 scene is an A1; so you have to look carefully.) In season 2, C1 was replaced by a cleaner, more inline C2 setup that was first seen in The Doomsday Machine; its last appearance was in The Way to Eden.

D – Dummy turbolift made by replacing the yellow side doors of the briefing room with red ones; this is the only lift site that has no filmable interior. Clearly depicted as a turbolift only in Wink of an Eye, Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, and The Mark of Gideon. The red doors were still visible in The Savage Curtain and Turnabout Intruder, although with no other evidence of turboliftery (no black number placard, no red/green wall appliance, and nobody going in or out).

E – Engineering corridor. Appeared only twice (Mudd's Women, Is There in Truth No Beauty?), and was adjusted with the season 2 corridor upgrade.

H – Hangar deck access overlap. Debuted in The Corbomite Maneuver (see Mytran's screencap above). This site was used repeatedly throughout season 1, skipped season 2 entirely, and then finally reappeared in season 3 for just one episode, Elaan of Troyius.

T – Transporter overlap. T1 also debuted in Corbomite and also was used repeatedly in season 1, at least through Little Girls, then lay dormant until season 2 (Amok Time). This site was used sporadically through that season until The Deadly Years, and then for By Any Other Name the lift was moved slightly over to position T2, another site that was last seen in Elaan. The position marked T3 appears on the set plan for Journey to Babel, but as far as I can tell was never actually used. (Perhaps that marking was intended to identify the T2 site, but it is too far clockwise to represent what was seen on screen; so maybe it was just a hypothetical location that was never dressed/shot, or that never survived the final edit of any episode.)

As far as I can tell, turbolift outer doors were always red with one and a half exceptions. The only "true" exception is in The Naked Time, where site H inexplicably had blue doors during its three appearances in that episode. The "false" exception occurs in The Changeling, where we see Kirk standing in front of a pair of opening green doors, followed by Nomad seeming to exit a lift through those doors. In reality, the plot has Nomad exiting the sickbay (whose doors Kirk is indeed standing in front of), but for the probe's close-up the editor used footage from a scene of Nomad entering the bridge. We clearly see the turbolift interior, before a camera cut shows us McCoy cradling Chapel on the sickbay floor. Of course I do not count this as a turbolift appearance; just an unfortunate editing cheat.

 

[Mytran]

Good summary! I agree with most of your conclusions, just a couple of further thoughts:

I haven't been able to determine whether it was all the same exact set of quadruple turbolift doors vs. different quad sets at different sites

FWIW, I am of the opinion that they only had one turbolift set and thus one set of (additional) inner doors to use. The turbolift set seems designed in such a way that it divides smoothly into 3 equal "wild" sections, plus the doors. Since there's never a need to show more than one turbolift in a camera setup, why build more?

I also think that the same inner door section was ported over the shuttlebay foyer set, since it has a noticeably less wide opening span than the blue doors (JTB, TIS).

The Corbomite Maneuver, site H for entry; possibly T1 for inside shots.

Definitely T1 - not only can you see the red banding at the top of the corridor wall, but the same camera setup is used later in the episode when Mc accompanies Kirk to his cabin and as they exit the weird bulbous corridor segment (outside Sickbay) can be seen to their left:

The Naked Time, site C1.

A little bit of editing trickery here - Kirk approaches the turbolift doors at C1, but then the shot switches to A1 (the yellow engineering door is a dead giveaway). I imagine this was done because there is more room around A1 to position the cameras.

E – Engineering corridor. Appeared only twice (Mudd's Women, Is There in Truth No Beauty?), and was adjusted with the season 2 corridor upgrade.

I don't think E1 was used in Mudd's Women, I think it used H and employed some clever editing - after Spock escorts the ladies down the corridor the shot changes to the same triangular archway / red door entry used by Kirk in TCM, right down to the same "TURBO LIFT 7" label above it.
Here's links to the 2 shots, for an easy comparison:

https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/screencaps/season1/102-corbomite-maneuver/corbomite-maneuver-br-076.jpg

https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/screencaps/season1/103-mudds-women/mudds-women-br-126.jpg

Regarding Is There In Truth No Beauty - while E2 is not used as a turbolift, the red doors do make an appearance when Kirk and pals run into the Engine Room to apprehend a manic Marvick. For some reason the triangular archway has been removed and there's a yellow wall-plant to the right. Another curious contribution from Season Three!

 

[Henoch]

With regards pneumatic pressure, we've seen multiple times crew in the actual shaft or doors accidentally opening to the empty shaft. There was never evidence of a continuous high pressure system. Although, did we ever see the empty shaft in TOS?

Sort of on the Constellation ("A3" location on the above turbolift map), but this might just represent a cross-corridor.

 

[Mytran]

Sort of on the Constellation ("A3" location on the above turbolift map), but this might just represent a cross-corridor.
View attachment 50148

The greenish doors (just barely visible) might represent a medical room of some sort. That seems to be the implication when McCoy makes his entrance at the start of Amok Time:

 

[Just a Bill]

Good summary! I agree with most of your conclusions, just a couple of further thoughts:

Thanks! There's more obsessive-compulsive detail in my survey data, and I hope to write up a more comprehensive lift history in the near future; but for now I'll just dig out a few more details in response to your thoughts. (I'll probably have to split this across more than one reply, so apologies in advance if I double-post.)

FWIW, I am of the opinion that they only had one turbolift set and thus one set of (additional) inner doors to use.

I believe that was true for the first several episodes. Then there's a subtle change in what I call the "swirl windows," the moire material that appeared (usually) in the lifts' center-rear window, and this change seems to imply a likely second lift interior.

Across the three seasons I've catalogued four different swirl patterns (disregarding rotations and flips). The Cage had no lift windows, and the second pilot had a double-window vertical stack. Once the series was picked up, one of the swirls was removed from the stack and stored somewhere, and the panel that remained became our Swirl 1.

Swirl 1 appears in the bridge lift from 1x01 WNM through 1x08 Balance. It's the only swirl pattern we see in the first three non-pilot episodes. In 1x03 Mudd and 1x04 Enemy, sites A1 and E1 are introduced and they use Swirl 1 exclusively, suggesting that there was only one lift set and when the interior was filmed in the corridors, it was physically dragged over from the bridge.

Swirl 2 makes its first appearance in 1x05 Man Trap, in lift A1, and it also graces site H in 1x06 Naked and 1x07 Charlie. Lifts C1 and T1 have still been stealing Swirl 1 from the bridge in 1x05 and 1x06, but 06 is the last time this will happen. Up through 1x08 Balance, I am still content to believe in just a single turbolift interior set (with a swappable extra swirl, for some reason), but now a subtle (and permanent) change is about to happen.

Swirl 3 debuts in 1x09 WALGMO? (or rather, it re-debuts; this is actually the panel that was removed after the second pilot, but is now pulled out of mothballs and flipped vertically). Significantly, it replaces Swirl 1 as the standard swirl for the Bridge lift -- permanently. For the rest of the series, the only swirl that will be seen in lift B is Swirl 3. (Swirl 1, now retired from Bridge service, will make a cameo just two more times in the series: at T1 in 1x09 and at C2 in 3x07.)

This is the point at which I become convinced a second turbolift set has been added. Here's why:

• Starting with Charlie X, there is never an episode where the "bridge swirl" also appears in a non-bridge lift. In Charlie and Balance, B still uses Swirl 1 and it isn't used elsewhere; after Balance, B uses only Swirl 3, and Swirl 3 is never used anywhere other than B.
• If the entire lift set were still being hauled back and forth between the bridge and the corridors for the next 70 episodes, for the shows to appear as they did, the stagehands would have to have left the swirl window (or swirl wall) behind every single time. Why? It wouldn't make any sense to purposely take everything except the swirl, put in a different one for the corridor scene, then take everything except that swirl back to the bridge and re-install Swirl 3. Having the same swirl at both ends of the trip would have been more believable, so why deliberately make things look more fake for no benefit?
• In-universe, it's nonsensical for a swirl to start out in one pattern at the beginning of a lift trip and end up in a different pattern by the time they reach the destination. It's also nonsensical for the same pattern (and thus always the same individual cab) to be at the bridge every time we see it. In-universe reality would have been best served by always having the same swirl everywhere (all cabs are 100% identical), or using different swirls but using only a single swirl for each trip and moving it along with the "one set" for all scenes shot as part of that journey.
• But the constraints of TV production allowed neither of those luxuries. They had to live with many inconsistencies for the sake of staying on schedule and budget. For the last 70 episodes filmed, consistently the bridge lift used only Swirl 3 and the other lift sites never used Swirl 3. The only way I can credibly explain this is if there's one interior set at the bridge, and one (or more) additional interiors floating about the corridor complex. One or two wild lifts sharing three wild swirls, and one fixed lift using one dedicated fixed swirl. If this isn't the explanation, then we need a rationale for why they were forever moving everything except the swirl.
• Finally, we should keep in mind that some episodes, such as 1x20 and 3x07, showed lift interiors at three or more different sites; something that could be a problem for the shooting schedule if you're trying to do it all with just a single lift set. The first of these was The Man Trap, which required four such lifts: A1, B, C1, and T1, all with visible swirl windows. Now I do believe that there really was only one lift at that point, and can easily see how this could have been a problem on set (especially if the challenge wasn't noticed at scriptwriting time). They somehow get through it, though, then just a few episodes later along comes the script for Little Girls, with its need for three different interior lift sites. "Here we go again...."

So all of this tells me the story that they started out with one lift set, figuring it would be sufficient and they would film all the talking scenes in the bridge lift. Non-bridge entry/exit scenes would often be shot so as to hide the interior (as would later be done for "dummy" lift D), and occasionally the lift set could be moved around to get interior coverage in the corridors. But as they got a few episodes under their belt, it became apparent that they would be using the lifts a lot, directors would not be content with most of their interior shots being locked to the bridge location, frequent movement of the one set was time and money they didn't really want to keep re-spending every episode, and it put the bridge at risk of increased set degradation and decreased filming availability. (The bridge is the one set that almost always needs movable turbolift doors, and it's very hard to hide the interior from the camera).

It doesn't take much imagination to see, sometime between filming of The Man Trap and preproduction on WALGMO?, one of the producers or directors saying "okay folks, enough is enough; this is going to keep being an issue and we really need another lift interior before we start filming 09."

I can't prove it ... but I do think it's the best fit I've seen for the data. I am happy to change my tune if somebody has a more compelling explanation.

Thanks, @Mytran. More comments on your other thoughts to follow. Must get some sleep for work tomorrow.

 

[Christopher]

Swirl 1 appears in the bridge lift from 1x01 WNM through 1x08 Balance. It's the only swirl pattern we see in the first three non-pilot episodes. In 1x03 Mudd and 1x04 Enemy, sites A1 and E1 are introduced and they use Swirl 1 exclusively, suggesting that there was only one lift set and when the interior was filmed in the corridors, it was physically dragged over from the bridge.

I still think it was probably a lot easier to move than the word "dragged" suggests. After all, it was just a few detachable wall panels and maybe a floor disc -- I was thinking six panels, but Mytran made a good case for just three pieces. (Pretty sure we never saw a ceiling piece.) Wall panels on film/TV sets are much more lightweight than they appear, because they're designed to be routinely and easily moved.

And as I discussed before, it's obvious that most scenes shot inside the turbolift were not filmed while the lift was physically in place behind the bridge doors or the corridor doors, because the big cameras they had back then couldn't have fit through the doors, and it would've constricted the available camera angles. The only time it would've been attached to a doorway for an interior scene was in a shot like the ones above where the camera "within" the lift was pointed directly at the door to show someone entering or leaving. Otherwise, they presumably just set up the lift in a standalone position where the camera could easily get to it -- with panels removed as needed to get camera angles from the side.

• Finally, we should keep in mind that some episodes, such as 1x20 and 3x07, showed lift interiors at three or more different sites; something that could be a problem for the shooting schedule if you're trying to do it all with just a single lift set.

Not really, because all the scenes on a given set would be filmed back-to-back, then the camera, lights, etc. would be moved to film all the scenes on a different set, and so on over the course of about a week. And again, the "lift" was probably just three fairly lightweight wood panels that would be quite easy to move along with all the heavy cameras, stage lights, audio recording equipment, etc. that would also be getting moved from set to set, along with whatever set walls or bridge wedges needed to be moved into or out of position to accommodate the camera angles, and whatever furnishings needed to be moved in or out to redress a set. Moving lots of heavy things around is a natural and necessary part of the filmmaking process, and the turbolift is just one more item on the list.

Naturally, all the turbolift interior scenes in a given episode (where it didn't have to be attached to a door to show someone entering or leaving) would be shot together with the lift set up in a standalone position, possibly on the last day of filming since it would be an easy thing to pick up.

It doesn't take much imagination to see, sometime between filming of The Man Trap and preproduction on WALGMO?, one of the producers or directors saying "okay folks, enough is enough; this is going to keep being an issue and we really need another lift interior before we start filming 09."

I can't prove it ... but I do think it's the best fit I've seen for the data. I am happy to change my tune if somebody has a more compelling explanation.

I think you're right that they started with one lift and built another when they had the time and budget. But I think you're really overestimating how difficult it was to move the lift around and projecting far more drama onto the decision than there would've been. Even with just one lift, it would've been a simple matter to move it around and plunk it down in a freestanding position on the stage floor so they could get a better camera angle. Building a second lift would've more likely been a matter of convenience than a solution to some challenging problem. Given that the bridge was the most complicated set, with whole wild segments that had to be moved around routinely to accommodate different angles, it makes sense that they would've wanted to leave the bridge lift car in place permanently -- not because moving the lift car was difficult, but because bridge shots were so complex to set up that anything that streamlined the process was welcome.

 

[Phaser Two]

Thanks! There's more obsessive-compulsive detail in my survey data, and I hope to write up a more comprehensive lift history in the near future; but for now I'll just dig out a few more details in response to your thoughts. (I'll probably have to split this across more than one reply, so apologies in advance if I double-post.)


I believe that was true for the first several episodes. Then there's a subtle change in what I call the "swirl windows," the moire material that appeared (usually) in the lifts' center-rear window, and this change seems to imply a likely second lift interior.

Across the three seasons I've catalogued four different swirl patterns (disregarding rotations and flips). The Cage had no lift windows, and the second pilot had a double-window vertical stack. Once the series was picked up, one of the swirls was removed from the stack and stored somewhere, and the panel that remained became our Swirl 1.

Swirl 1 appears in the bridge lift from 1x01 WNM through 1x08 Balance. It's the only swirl pattern we see in the first three non-pilot episodes. In 1x03 Mudd and 1x04 Enemy, sites A1 and E1 are introduced and they use Swirl 1 exclusively, suggesting that there was only one lift set and when the interior was filmed in the corridors, it was physically dragged over from the bridge.

Swirl 2 makes its first appearance in 1x05 Man Trap, in lift A1, and it also graces site H in 1x06 Naked and 1x07 Charlie. Lifts C1 and T1 have still been stealing Swirl 1 from the bridge in 1x05 and 1x06, but 06 is the last time this will happen. Up through 1x08 Balance, I am still content to believe in just a single turbolift interior set (with a swappable extra swirl, for some reason), but now a subtle (and permanent) change is about to happen.

Swirl 3 debuts in 1x09 WALGMO? (or rather, it re-debuts; this is actually the panel that was removed after the second pilot, but is now pulled out of mothballs and flipped vertically). Significantly, it replaces Swirl 1 as the standard swirl for the Bridge lift -- permanently. For the rest of the series, the only swirl that will be seen in lift B is Swirl 3. (Swirl 1, now retired from Bridge service, will make a cameo just two more times in the series: at T1 in 1x09 and at C2 in 3x07.)

This is the point at which I become convinced a second turbolift set has been added. Here's why:

• Starting with Charlie X, there is never an episode where the "bridge swirl" also appears in a non-bridge lift. In Charlie and Balance, B still uses Swirl 1 and it isn't used elsewhere; after Balance, B uses only Swirl 3, and Swirl 3 is never used anywhere other than B.
• If the entire lift set were still being hauled back and forth between the bridge and the corridors for the next 70 episodes, for the shows to appear as they did, the stagehands would have to have left the swirl window (or swirl wall) behind every single time. Why? It wouldn't make any sense to purposely take everything except the swirl, put in a different one for the corridor scene, then take everything except that swirl back to the bridge and re-install Swirl 3. Having the same swirl at both ends of the trip would have been more believable, so why deliberately make things look more fake for no benefit?
• In-universe, it's nonsensical for a swirl to start out in one pattern at the beginning of a lift trip and end up in a different pattern by the time they reach the destination. It's also nonsensical for the same pattern (and thus always the same individual cab) to be at the bridge every time we see it. In-universe reality would have been best served by always having the same swirl everywhere (all cabs are 100% identical), or using different swirls but using only a single swirl for each trip and moving it along with the "one set" for all scenes shot as part of that journey.
• But the constraints of TV production allowed neither of those luxuries. They had to live with many inconsistencies for the sake of staying on schedule and budget. For the last 70 episodes filmed, consistently the bridge lift used only Swirl 3 and the other lift sites never used Swirl 3. The only way I can credibly explain this is if there's one interior set at the bridge, and one (or more) additional interiors floating about the corridor complex. One or two wild lifts sharing three wild swirls, and one fixed lift using one dedicated fixed swirl. If this isn't the explanation, then we need a rationale for why they were forever moving everything except the swirl.
• Finally, we should keep in mind that some episodes, such as 1x20 and 3x07, showed lift interiors at three or more different sites; something that could be a problem for the shooting schedule if you're trying to do it all with just a single lift set. The first of these was The Man Trap, which required four such lifts: A1, B, C1, and T1, all with visible swirl windows. Now I do believe that there really was only one lift at that point, and can easily see how this could have been a problem on set (especially if the challenge wasn't noticed at scriptwriting time). They somehow get through it, though, then just a few episodes later along comes the script for Little Girls, with its need for three different interior lift sites. "Here we go again...."

So all of this tells me the story that they started out with one lift set, figuring it would be sufficient and they would film all the talking scenes in the bridge lift. Non-bridge entry/exit scenes would often be shot so as to hide the interior (as would later be done for "dummy" lift D), and occasionally the lift set could be moved around to get interior coverage in the corridors. But as they got a few episodes under their belt, it became apparent that they would be using the lifts a lot, directors would not be content with most of their interior shots being locked to the bridge location, frequent movement of the one set was time and money they didn't really want to keep re-spending every episode, and it put the bridge at risk of increased set degradation and decreased filming availability. (The bridge is the one set that almost always needs movable turbolift doors, and it's very hard to hide the interior from the camera).

It doesn't take much imagination to see, sometime between filming of The Man Trap and preproduction on WALGMO?, one of the producers or directors saying "okay folks, enough is enough; this is going to keep being an issue and we really need another lift interior before we start filming 09."

I can't prove it ... but I do think it's the best fit I've seen for the data. I am happy to change my tune if somebody has a more compelling explanation.

Thanks, @Mytran. More comments on your other thoughts to follow. Must get some sleep for work tomorrow.

First, fantastic work—just awesome. Thanks for marking up the stage plan. I always thought they had done something to the lift in that section of the Constellation! Thanks for confirming. Their attention to detail and care was incredible—as is yours!

I agree that they built additional turbosets. The cost-benefit analysis would have been obvious, I should think. Move around one turboset every week, sometimes more than once, and allow for the possibility of it getting damaged in constant transport (and further, even risk creative impacts if a director or producer started altering shots or editing scripts because they were concerned about time to move the single turboset or the cost to do so)—or just build a couple more. Good call by them and good analysis on your part IMO.

 

[BK613]

Pretty sure we never saw a ceiling piece.

We did.

https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/screencaps/season1/121-tomorrow-is-yesterday/tomorrow-is-yesterday-br-153.jpg

(Willing to bet that the bridge turbolift was its own thing. Can't image them lifting the wild wall panels up to the platform level every time someone needed to walk through those doors.)

 

[Just a Bill]

(Willing to bet that the bridge turbolift was its own thing. Can't image them lifting the wild wall panels up to the platform level every time someone needed to walk through those doors.)

Agreed. Also, we know the doors were different widths between the bridge and corridor lifts, and I imagine this could have had some impact on inter-usability as well.

Their attention to detail and care was incredible—as is yours!
...
The cost-benefit analysis would have been obvious, I should think.

(1) Agreed; I continue to be amazed by the craftsmanship evident in even small aspects of TOS. (2) Thank you for your kind encouragement. (3) I've felt the same about the C/B analysis for some time now, and it's nice to know I'm not the only one seeing it that way.

It doesn't really matter much one way or the other in most contexts, certainly not for anyone building a physical or digital layout of the in-universe ship, but since my goal is to make a credible model of the Desilu set layout, from a TV production perspective, the probable number of turbosets — nice coinage there, BTW, I'm stealing it right now — is a relevant data point for me. (It's not like I wanted this answer; having to build only one would have made my life easier.)

I also have a possibly-unpopular opinion on wall segmentation. First I'll show one of my many (too many) WIP candidates for lift construction at model scale — I think this is attempt #8b — so we have a reference system for the panels. I asked Spock and he said that since we humans divide the clock into 12-hour segments, that would be a logical numbering system. (He also called it serendipitous, which surprised me as I was expecting fortuitous.)

I currently envision 1+2 and 10+11 as permanent pairs, because I have yet to find a production reason why they couldn't/shouldn't be (and it simplifies design and construction for me). But I'm pretty confident that 3, 9, and 12 would have been separable from their neighbors.

• The three narrow flat panels are pushed outward from the curves by about an inch or so (real-world scale), making the joint between them a natural separation point. (In my scale model, it's very convenient to detach there, but the line between 1 and 2 is less so. Perhaps this also translates to full scale?)
  
  
• Panels 4 and 8 are separable from 3 and 9 because there's at least one episode where a bunch of people are unloading from lift B and some of them (McCoy, in whichever one I always remember) clearly enters the lift from backstage, walking right through 4's footprint. If 4 is permanently affixed to 3 and 2, that's just not possible.
  
  
• For the Wolf in the Fold freefall scene, panel 4 was uncharacteristically moved over to replace 8, so the intercom and buttons would be on the left side. I think this was so Pevney could put the camera down near C2 and capture a continuous Kirk-Spock walk & talk down the corridor and straight into lift T1 without a cut, maintaining continuity on the lift controls across the cut to the door-closing scene. This would have been impossible if both 4 and 8 were not individualized.
  
  
• Panels 3, 9, and 12 were occasionally mispositioned, revealing a dark mesh window at position 12 (Corbomite, Naked, Elaan, Is There?, Day Of) and/or swirls at 3/9 (Deadly, Is There?, Let That Be). If the window material was affixed to the panels, then Mytran's 11-12-1 joined panel would not have fit into a joined 2-3-4 or 8-9-10 position, and vice versa, because the widths and edge bevels were different. The Wolf freefall scene mentioned above, for example, reveals that the clockwise edge of panel 4 is different from that of any other panel. 4 and 8 each had one beveled edge (about 45°, and on opposite edges of each other), while the other panels' edges were straight 90°. This is because most edges of the curved panels are cut at 90° to the material to agree with the edge of their nearest curved neighbor and align with the stud the edge is mounted to, while the two edges adjoining the door-wall have a little bevel to make that diagonal meeting-line look better (basically the bevel is perpendicular to the lift doors and parallel to the lift centerline, thus making it diagonal to its own panel). Now, it's possible that the windows themselves were easily removable, but my opinion is that they were securely affixed to the walls to keep them flat, especially since the ones I call "mesh" appear to have been some kind of fabric weave; and the recessed frame around them appears too thin to serve as a "sewing/embroidery hoop" to keep the material taut. (There's more construction detail to be delved into here, but this bullet point is already way too long.)
  
  
• Power management should also be considered. Panels 1, 2, 4, 8, 10, and 11 each need power for control-handle and intercom lamps with local, individual on/off switching (activated by the actors, not the stage crew). Permanently joining 1+2 and 10+11 cleans up the wiring a bit (one pigtail or daisychain connection for two panels), while doing so in a 2+3+4 context would require extra cords back to the supply, or would run wires across the 3/6/9 panels which sometimes need to be moved, and which also have the complication of a rather large lighting mechanism (drum or conveyor) being spun directly behind the windows. (I am building a sweeping-light mechanism for my lift, and let me tell you it is no picnic, especially at model scale. Having additional wires to route in front of it is the last thing I need.)
  
  
• And of course finer granularity on the panels allows for more options when positioning the camera or making a manway for actors to enter/exit the set. The more segments you can leave in place, the better the stability for what will be in the shot (especially given the circular nature of the plan). In my model, it's a lot easier to construct, move, and store the pieces if they are separate and interlock quickly, which is why you see mortise & tenon joints on my panels. Not that I expect this is exactly what was done at full scale, but the point is that a compromise between decent stability and ease of separation is what I need for my model, and what I expect was needed at Desilu. I assume they probably executed this with a different fastening approach, but I will point out that my model's mortise & tenons use scale 2x4s & 2x6s and I believe it would have been feasible in the real world to literally shove the ends of 2x4 rails into slots in 2x6 or 2x8 studs and that would have held together sufficiently for filming, while affording super-fast breakdown and reconfiguration. Just mind all the power cords!

 

[Christopher]

Yes, that's pretty much what I've been envisioning, and it makes sense that the lighted panels could be separate pieces, since the windows would probably be the most fragile parts and might need replacing more often. Those pieces definitely look lightweight and quite easy for stagehands to move around.

It occurs to me that even if the bridge lift was permanently in place, it might have had at least one of the side panels removed by default so that people could get in and out of it easily, since few bridge camera angles would reveal their absence.

 

[Just a Bill]

It occurs to me that even if the bridge lift was permanently in place, it might have had at least one of the side panels removed by default so that people could get in and out of it easily, since few bridge camera angles would reveal their absence.

Hmm, that's definitely plausible. The missing-panel space that McCoy walks through during his bridge entrance is the home of panel 4, which hosts the intercom & arcade button cluster. Whenever we see that cluster (whether the 2- or 5-button variety) it's virtually always in a corridor-attached lift set, which is also where all or nearly all the lift walk-and-talks happen (by which I mean, a scene inside a lift where the doors are closed, that lasts longer than just enough time to show people walking in or out).

I do have a very few entries in my catalog with lift B in a non-entry/exit context, but they all "don't count" for various reasons. One is the Kirk/Spock/Mitchell ride to the bridge in the second pilot, which was literally a different turbolift configuration, and the two others are both from Wink of an Eye's unique case of the bridge lift being jammed open (and empty) by passage-of-time shenanigans (so they were shoehorned into this category as the closest fit).

I do have two others (Corbomite and WALGMO?) where I put the site of a lift conversation as T1 with a question mark, due to uncertainty, so if either of those was actually lift B (doubtful) then that would count. Otherwise, I don't believe there is a single case of definitively, unquestionably seeing the intercom control cluster in the bridge-attached lift set.

So yeah, now that you mention it, it's actually possible that the bridge lift never had its own intercom, and may not even have had a panel 4 at all! A fascinating thought; thank you for putting this on my radar.

 

[Mytran]

Thanks! There's more obsessive-compulsive detail in my survey data, and I hope to write up a more comprehensive lift history in the near future; but for now I'll just dig out a few more details in response to your thoughts. (I'll probably have to split this across more than one reply, so apologies in advance if I double-post.)


I believe that was true for the first several episodes. Then there's a subtle change in what I call the "swirl windows," the moire material that appeared (usually) in the lifts' center-rear window, and this change seems to imply a likely second lift interior.

Across the three seasons I've catalogued four different swirl patterns (disregarding rotations and flips). The Cage had no lift windows, and the second pilot had a double-window vertical stack. Once the series was picked up, one of the swirls was removed from the stack and stored somewhere, and the panel that remained became our Swirl 1.

Swirl 1 appears in the bridge lift from 1x01 WNM through 1x08 Balance. It's the only swirl pattern we see in the first three non-pilot episodes. In 1x03 Mudd and 1x04 Enemy, sites A1 and E1 are introduced and they use Swirl 1 exclusively, suggesting that there was only one lift set and when the interior was filmed in the corridors, it was physically dragged over from the bridge.

Swirl 2 makes its first appearance in 1x05 Man Trap, in lift A1, and it also graces site H in 1x06 Naked and 1x07 Charlie. Lifts C1 and T1 have still been stealing Swirl 1 from the bridge in 1x05 and 1x06, but 06 is the last time this will happen. Up through 1x08 Balance, I am still content to believe in just a single turbolift interior set (with a swappable extra swirl, for some reason), but now a subtle (and permanent) change is about to happen.

Swirl 3 debuts in 1x09 WALGMO? (or rather, it re-debuts; this is actually the panel that was removed after the second pilot, but is now pulled out of mothballs and flipped vertically). Significantly, it replaces Swirl 1 as the standard swirl for the Bridge lift -- permanently. For the rest of the series, the only swirl that will be seen in lift B is Swirl 3. (Swirl 1, now retired from Bridge service, will make a cameo just two more times in the series: at T1 in 1x09 and at C2 in 3x07.)

This is the point at which I become convinced a second turbolift set has been added. Here's why:

• Starting with Charlie X, there is never an episode where the "bridge swirl" also appears in a non-bridge lift. In Charlie and Balance, B still uses Swirl 1 and it isn't used elsewhere; after Balance, B uses only Swirl 3, and Swirl 3 is never used anywhere other than B.
• If the entire lift set were still being hauled back and forth between the bridge and the corridors for the next 70 episodes, for the shows to appear as they did, the stagehands would have to have left the swirl window (or swirl wall) behind every single time. Why? It wouldn't make any sense to purposely take everything except the swirl, put in a different one for the corridor scene, then take everything except that swirl back to the bridge and re-install Swirl 3. Having the same swirl at both ends of the trip would have been more believable, so why deliberately make things look more fake for no benefit?
• In-universe, it's nonsensical for a swirl to start out in one pattern at the beginning of a lift trip and end up in a different pattern by the time they reach the destination. It's also nonsensical for the same pattern (and thus always the same individual cab) to be at the bridge every time we see it. In-universe reality would have been best served by always having the same swirl everywhere (all cabs are 100% identical), or using different swirls but using only a single swirl for each trip and moving it along with the "one set" for all scenes shot as part of that journey.
• But the constraints of TV production allowed neither of those luxuries. They had to live with many inconsistencies for the sake of staying on schedule and budget. For the last 70 episodes filmed, consistently the bridge lift used only Swirl 3 and the other lift sites never used Swirl 3. The only way I can credibly explain this is if there's one interior set at the bridge, and one (or more) additional interiors floating about the corridor complex. One or two wild lifts sharing three wild swirls, and one fixed lift using one dedicated fixed swirl. If this isn't the explanation, then we need a rationale for why they were forever moving everything except the swirl.
• Finally, we should keep in mind that some episodes, such as 1x20 and 3x07, showed lift interiors at three or more different sites; something that could be a problem for the shooting schedule if you're trying to do it all with just a single lift set. The first of these was The Man Trap, which required four such lifts: A1, B, C1, and T1, all with visible swirl windows. Now I do believe that there really was only one lift at that point, and can easily see how this could have been a problem on set (especially if the challenge wasn't noticed at scriptwriting time). They somehow get through it, though, then just a few episodes later along comes the script for Little Girls, with its need for three different interior lift sites. "Here we go again...."

So all of this tells me the story that they started out with one lift set, figuring it would be sufficient and they would film all the talking scenes in the bridge lift. Non-bridge entry/exit scenes would often be shot so as to hide the interior (as would later be done for "dummy" lift D), and occasionally the lift set could be moved around to get interior coverage in the corridors. But as they got a few episodes under their belt, it became apparent that they would be using the lifts a lot, directors would not be content with most of their interior shots being locked to the bridge location, frequent movement of the one set was time and money they didn't really want to keep re-spending every episode, and it put the bridge at risk of increased set degradation and decreased filming availability. (The bridge is the one set that almost always needs movable turbolift doors, and it's very hard to hide the interior from the camera).

It doesn't take much imagination to see, sometime between filming of The Man Trap and preproduction on WALGMO?, one of the producers or directors saying "okay folks, enough is enough; this is going to keep being an issue and we really need another lift interior before we start filming 09."

I can't prove it ... but I do think it's the best fit I've seen for the data. I am happy to change my tune if somebody has a more compelling explanation.

Thanks, @Mytran. More comments on your other thoughts to follow. Must get some sleep for work tomorrow.

Splendid analysis of a detail I never picked up on or even thought to examine!
I think you're probably spot-on regarding the timing of when a second turbolift set was constructed, I stand corrected.

Except...the shot of Kirk strolling down the corridor and entering the T1 turbolift in The Man Trap and Little Girls are the same shot - and it was an unused shot originally filmed for The Corbomite Maneuvre.
So, one less turbolift requirement for those episode but without doubt the wear'n'tear on the Bridge turbolift must have been a concern, as the swirlies clearly demonstrate.

Pretty sure we never saw a ceiling piece.

We did.

https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/screencaps/season1/121-tomorrow-is-yesterday/tomorrow-is-yesterday-br-153.jpg

And also:

https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/screencaps/season2/208-changeling/208-the-changeling-br-436.jpg

 

[tharpdevenport]

Man, and I thought there was a lot of talk about the color of Kirk's extra uniform. 14 pages of turbolift talk.

 

[Christopher]

Ah, okay, a simple grill ceiling to diffuse the stage lights. That makes sense. I was thinking of something more along the lines of the roof of the TNG turbolift set, so I didn't consider something more basic.

 

[Just a Bill]

Definitely T1 - not only can you see the red banding at the top of the corridor wall, but the same camera setup is used later in the episode when Mc accompanies Kirk to his cabin and as they exit the weird bulbous corridor segment (outside Sickbay) can be seen to their left:

Yeah, sorry, I should have been clearer. All I meant was that those entry/exit scenes are T1, but I can't prove that the inside-with-the-doors-closed movement scene was also T1, since there was a camera cut. It probably was, but in some cases where it might not have been, I note this with a question mark. Pretty moot, really, but I'm pedantic about things like that. (FYI, my survey also agrees with you on the Naked Time C1/A1 switch. I was mainly just tagging your images and not really trying to identify all the transitions, but my list does include differences between a trip's entry, ride, and exit when they are discernible.)

I don't think E1 was used in Mudd's Women, I think it used H and employed some clever editing - after Spock escorts the ladies down the corridor the shot changes to the same triangular archway / red door entry used by Kirk in TCM ...

It's definitely hard to figure out which A-frame that lift is behind in MW, and a lot of editing trickery does go on here. The challenge is that the shots are framed very closely and I cannot find any point of reference that definitively places the second lift at H. Assuming that there truly was just one turboset available this early in the series, we might speculate that Corbomite's lift H scene was filmed late enough in its production, and the MW lift was filmed early enough in its own, that no bridge lift openings were required in between and the two H scenes were essentially back to back without a redress. The economy achieved would lend strength to the Mudd's = H interpretation. But the production diaries tell the opposite story.

Corbomite's very first scene filmed was Kirk's medical exam, and Roddenberry insisted they shave his chest (since there's apparently no body hair in the future). It stands to reason that the shirtless turbolift and captain's quarters shots would have been filmed directly afterwards, rather than several days later after Shatner's torso would have a five o'clock shadow and need re-shaving. On the other end, the first 2 or 3 days of filming for Mudd's were on the bridge, with at least two turbolift openings required, followed by the transporter/corridor/lift stuff, and then finally the planetside scenes. So this seems to neutralize the redress-economy speculation; they probably had to move the turboset to the corridor complex separately for each episode, so they could pick whatever location they wanted.

It's hard for me to find any significant difference between the two corridor A-frame scenes. But once the lift doors open, we see the center window in lift panel 12 is the dark mesh for shirtless Kirk, but Swirl 1 for Spock and the ladies, suggesting again that the set was rendered separately for each episode.

I also have to consider that E1 is clearly depicted on all three of the surviving Season 1 set plans: Enemy, Charlie, and Balance. If it wasn't used in Mudd's, then it probably was literally never installed in that location at any time. A lift at the end of the E corridor would then only have appeared once in the entire series, in 3x07, and by then it would be position E2, which lacked the wide rectangular foyer drawn on these plans for E1. This of course doesn't mean they had to use E1, but it does make me want to ask "then why is it on the plans for at least the first third of that season?" (I think I understand why C0 was never used, but I would have no explanation for a phantom E1.)

So to be clear, I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying I'm struggling to find evidence that helps us prove your theory (an outcome I would be on board with). I don't like mysteries that never get solved, and I would be happy with a resolution either way that feels solid, or at least has the majority of circumstantial evidence in its favor. In the absence of this, I've given my tiebreaker vote to the position implied by the character blocking, even though I know there's a camera cut big enough to drive a D7 through. And I may have totally missed something obvious! So please don't hesitate to show me if I'm wrong.

... right down to the same "TURBO LIFT 7" label above it.

My video references are the TOS-Rs on Paramount+. Sometimes I can't get enough resolution to make out the TL numbers on the placards, so I have some entries on my list like "7?" and "2 or 3." Can you clearly make out the 7 in Corbomite with 100% certainty? And if so, would you (or anyone else) like to take my list of questionable observations and see if you can confirm or refute some of them?

Regarding Is There In Truth No Beauty - while E2 is not used as a turbolift, the red doors do make an appearance when Kirk and pals run into the Engine Room to apprehend a manic Marvick. For some reason the triangular archway has been removed and there's a yellow wall-plant to the right. Another curious contribution from Season Three!

Yep. In cases like these I was sometimes conflicted about whether to consider red doors a lift or not. Ultimately I decided there needed to be at least one additional piece of evidence:

• Black TL # placard overhead
• Red/green door appliances
• Character(s) entering or exiting in a turbolifty manner, or known to be heading to another part of the ship
• Location used as a lift elsewhere in the same episode, and nothing changed about its appearance
• Turbolift hum sound effect
• Location that was almost always a lift

AND, nothing to contradict liftiness, such as a room or section placard at the immediate right or left of the door, or a non-lifty doorbell appliance.

 

[Just a Bill]

Except...the shot of Kirk strolling down the corridor and entering the T1 turbolift in The Man Trap and Little Girls are the same shot - and it was an unused shot originally filmed for The Corbomite Maneuvre.

Wow, how did I not notice this!? Especially with that very conspicuous redshirt who was clearly loitering in the ladder alcove, just waiting for his cue to awkwardly walk out behind Kirk.

I'm kind of fascinated with the scene about a minute earlier in Little Girls, where Android Kirk obliviously walks right past Spock who's kneeling/sitting on the floor next to the Jefferies Tube. This is the only time in the series when the A1 turbolift was pushed over to the A2 position, which seems to have been necessary to enable Jerry Finnerman's clever (as usual) camera work in this scene.

Those three wild walls just southeast of the A1 position would have been removed to allow the camera, DP Finnerman, and probably director Goldstone to work in the empty space between the curved corridor and the Jefferies tube. The camera (lower black dot) starts out at hip height, in front of the tube but aimed straight into A2. Finnerman sweeps left about 90° as android Kirk exits A2 and walks by very close, his left hip filling the frame. Spock, kneeling in front of the tube, is now in view. Camera locks on him for about two beats as android exits frame. Spock sees him, shouts "Captain!", and stands up. Camera rises a bit (I think) and pulls/zooms back to keep him in frame.

Spock's eyeline here (green arrow) seems to be in the direction of the yellow door, not actually looking at the android, in what I believe is an attempt to convey more of a straight path for the android. We don't really notice because Shatner is already off camera and has jogged over to the curved corridor. As Spock pursues, Finnerman simultaneously rises, turns again, and wheels over to roughly the second black dot, then captures both characters entering Kirk's quarters. All of this is a single continuous shot.

The sequence intrigues me because I initially assumed the lift was at A1. Only when I noticed that the Jefferies Tube position was RIGHT THERE did I then watch the scene over and over again to work out how it all fit together. My initial sense that the android took a more direct course from lift to quarters turned out to be pretty wrong.

 

[Phaser Two]

the probable number of turbosets — nice coinage there, BTW, I'm stealing it right now

I'd like to report a cr—ah, who am I kidding? Imitation, flattery, all that. Stonn, it is yours.

For the Wolf in the Fold freefall scene, panel 4 was uncharacteristically moved over to replace 8, so the intercom and buttons would be on the left side. I think this was so Pevney could put the camera down near C2 and capture a continuous Kirk-Spock walk & talk down the corridor and straight into lift T1 without a cut, maintaining continuity on the lift controls across the cut to the door-closing scene. This would have been impossible if both 4 and 8 were not individualized.

Yeah, I think that's right. I believe this because that is one of my favorite "little scenes"—by which I mean scenes that they added in just to be cool and build detail—in the whole series, so I have a decent visual of it.** And I think you got it right. They had the make the shot as continuous as possible or Redjac attempting to squash Spock with the doors would not have worked, nor would the almost immediate freefall. As it is, it's still a bit abrupt.

(**Speaking of crimes, that scene was cut in syndication, most likely because it was "little," perhaps because of the tricky camerawork, and also perhaps because Nimoy seems to have said "Apparently our FRIENDS learned very quickly" when he should have said "friend," singular, meaning Redjac. But now back to segmenting the turbosets.)

 

[Christopher]

(**Speaking of crimes, that scene was cut in syndication, most likely because it was "little," perhaps because of the tricky camerawork, and also perhaps because Nimoy seems to have said "Apparently our FRIENDS learned very quickly" when he should have said "friend," singular, meaning Redjac. But now back to segmenting the turbosets.)

I suspect it was "our friend's learned very quickly," i.e. "our friend has learned," which is more grammatical in that context. (What's stranger is Spock referring to Redjac as "our friend," which is uncharacteristically frivolous.)

 

[scotpens]

I suspect it was "our friend's learned very quickly," i.e. "our friend has learned," which is more grammatical in that context. (What's stranger is Spock referring to Redjac as "our friend," which is uncharacteristically frivolous.)

Spock did occasionally display an ironic sense of humor.

 

[Just a Bill]

Yesterday I had to reposition A2 (the one on my main chart is really approximate), and looking at this again this morning, I think I still have a mistake. My lift position is probably too close to the Stage 9 infrastructure to be practical.

So I was thinking I should push the lift into the set more, basically sliding along the J-tube wall. But that's also impractical, because there needs to be room at the edge of the front wall for door retraction and the stagehand who's performing it. But then I realized there's another option.

The camera setup is nearly straight on, so we only see lift panels 10+11, 12, and 1+2.

Depth can be a tricky thing to judge, but I'm also getting the sense that those back walls are a little closer to the doors than they would normally be. So I'm thinking they made this one-off, bespoke lift position fit into the available space by leaving out panels 3, 4, 8, and 9 and bumping the back panels forward. Below I've moved them roughly a foot and a half (at human scale), but it could have been more depending on how tight the space actually was.

There's probably no way to know what they actually did, but thinking about possibilities like this might help me be more flexible in my interpretations of confusing/ambiguous setups.