TOS Corridor and Ladders

I was wathing "The Apple" the other night, and in the final scene, Kirk is shown coming up the ladder from someplace into the corridor. When the set was constructed, was the corridor build elevated from the ground level, or did the ladder system go down into a sub-level of some sort?

I've always wondered in real life how far it went down, the same way I've always wondered how far down the batpoles really went in the set build for Bruce Wayne's study on the 1960's Batman. I was another great example of little ways to make the sets seem much bigger than they really were.

 

The inside of the sound stage was inclined, apparetly if you opened all the doors, of all the sound stages on the lot, it would look like a long ramp. So the Star Trek set was elevated on one side, six or seven feet, to keep it level. That's where the three sided ladder was.

 

I think you're thinking of the soundstage where they filmed The Cage and WNMHGB, which was indeed on an incline. When they started to film the series proper however, the sets were relocated to Stages 7 & 8, which had no such issue.

The triangular ladder wasn't the only modification in Season 2 - the single-person ladder also received an update which allowed crewmen to descend downwards. Sadly, this ladder got hidden behind a red grill, so it didn't get a lot of screentime - but it shows up here and there.

The two ladders were quite some distance away from each other, so I don't think it was an inclined stage which gave them the neccessary depth. More likely, it was due to purpose-build pits (a.k.a. holes in the ground!)

 

About Batman,
Some of the Batman sets were in the Culver City Studios lot, the Batcave and the Bruce Waynes study were in seperate soundstages, (Wayne Manor in 15 and the Batcave in 16). The poles in the study had around a ten foot drop (according to Adam West). The Batcave poles were longer because of the scale of the set.
Here is a shot from the top of the set showing the Joker sliding down the poles (He accidently tripped the Shakespeare bust found the switch and thought this was a secret escape, p.s. Alfred had removed the Bruce and Dick labels for painting, and the Joker never made it to the Batcave as Alfred tripped the reverse batpole switch!)

 

So prior to this, they could only descend upwards?

In all the years I've watched TOS (since 1975), I've never noticed any ladders that were single-purpose only. How can a ladder be "down only" (or "up only")? Unless it's a case of traffic regulations mandating one-way ladders, I'm reminded of the Fiddler On the Roof song where Tevye sings about building "one long staircase just going up and one even longer coming down... and one more leading nowhere, just for show..."

In emergency situations, what would happen if somebody tried to go up/down the wrong ladder (let's say the other was damaged or otherwise inaccessible). Would it be physically impossible, or would the crewman just get a demerit for going the wrong way up/down a one-way ladder?

 

I've always liked the three-sided ladder and the way it was used by the rescue party on The Doomsday Machine. I'm glad the OP brought this topic up. Where would this ladder have shown up on the Enterprise blue prints?

 

Depends on who's drawing the blue prints. I'm currently working on a deck plans project myself and I'm placing those particular ladders as pass throughs between hull pressure compartments. They'd be easier to seal off in in emergency than stairways.

--Alex

 

My understanding is that they just dug a hole down a few feet.

 

Well, in relative terms, obviously. If the "deck" below the one portrayed by the set does not exist, but in fact consists of solid concrete or bedrock without convenient pits in it, one can't descend to "it" - but even though the "deck" above the one portrayed by the set is equally fictional, one can certainly descend from "it", simply by climbing atop the set first. And in reverse, one cannot ascend from a lower fictional deck (if there is no pit), but one can ascend to an upper fictional one.

In in-universe terms, I could easily see the conventional ladders of the TOS ship being declared one-directional to avoid jams, but the three-faced ladder would be ideal for two-directional traffic: passing and overtaking would be quite easy.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Timo make brain hurt.

 

OK, you got me there!

The single person ladder in it's original form can be seen in The Naked Time, when sword-wielding Sulu climbs up it after shouting "cowards!" It is the ladder which in Season 1 has the notice "Enviromental Engineering Personnel Only".

Copy & paste these links to see pics:

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x04hd/thenakedtimehd0574.jpg
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x10hd/thecorbomitemaneuverhd628.jpg

As for stairs being more difficult to close off than those tri-ladders, I'm not convinced. Firstly, the tri-ladders open directly into the corridor. Also, how would you go about "closing off" a ladder that runs vertically between several decks without a break? The sensible option is to mount both ladders and stairs behind doors, that ol' hi-tech stand-by!

 

A bit OT, but a personal anecdote about that second shot, the one from "Corbomite..." and often shown in the closing credits. When I started watching Trek in 1972 in syndication, I assumed the crewman with the vest was one of these Klingons my friend Kyle told me about. I wondered why there was an enemy aboard the ship amidst a gathering of legitimate crew. The reality, at that point I had only seen a handful of episodes and a lot of my knowledge of the show came from my buddy. Given I was only 10 and Kyle a year younger, well, I was bound to misinterpret a few things.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

And here's the sign before they corrected the spelling:

 

I believe I've heard there were pits in the stage floor for things such as this.

Also - where do those ladders go? I'd put them on the 2 decks that make the rim of the saucer. I believe these would have the most traffic and most systems to access above or below. Environmental Engineering Only - in my opinion - would lead into the undercut area and the deck above that.

 

I don't believe the single-person ladder behind the red grill ever descended down into the floor. I think that alcove with the ladder has a floor that's flush with the rest of the corridor/deck.

 

There are a couple of clear instances, but I don't have a my home computer with me at the mo - one example though was in Is There In Truth No Beauty, during a conversation outside Miranda's cabin.

 

I think he meant that the ladder only went up from the level of the corridor set, so an actor or extra could use it to climb upward from the level of the set, but not downward below the floor of the set. Of course, once you climbed up, you could come down again, but you couldn't go any lower than the floor of the set, because that's the bottom of the ladder.


As for the broader question, I've seen plenty of sets in TV shows that have had trapdoors, stairs or ladders going down, maintenance hatches or hidden compartments in the floor, swimming pools, etc. So I figure that most soundstages, like most live-theater stages, have "basement" levels or spaces below the stage floor that can accommodate such things as needed. Either that or they're built several feet above the stage floor in the first place, which might be necessary for installing wiring or supports or whatever beneath various set components.

 

Interesting! It looks like you're right (based on Is There In Truth No Beauty--as Marvick stops and turns and decides to dobule back and phaser Kollos.)

But somewhat odd, too: I see the hole in the floor behind the grille, but I don't see that the ladder actually goes down into it. It looks like the ladder stops at the same point it stopped at when there was a floor there. Curious.

 

TOS Corridors and Ladders - the new board game by Milton Bradley.

 

The ladder extended right into the pit:


The Deadly Years