I'm intrigued by the changes to the sets but confused as to what is actually changing, especially on the bridge. In Season 1 there were FOUR doorways to the main bridge: the turbolift, ready room, and two additional doorways flanking the forward viewer. The ready room had its entrance to the bridge AND a secondary door already, so adding a third one doesn't make sense. I think the writer got it wrong.
Hmm... I understood him as saying that the
bridge needed another dramatic entryway. Which may be so, as the turbolift entry to the bridge is "wild" (it'd have to be, right?) and limits the dramatic possibilities somewhat. So I agree that they are building an actual fixed extension of the set behind the HAL doorway - which is good for symmetry, and probably was an original design intent anyway.
As for how much they are building beyond that doorway... I'm quite ready to believe that the old Ready Room becomes a Science Lab, so there's no known demand for a specific new set behind the new door. Pike getting a new Ready Room behind the new door would make no sense. Of course, functionally it would be nice to give people a means of walking onto the bridge when turbolifts are down, but there are those forward doors for such rare needs.
Are we supposed to think this new corridor (and whatever lies beyond) was "always" there? The DS9 runabouts had a blinkie-based back wall originally, yet lacked a doorway that must have been there. Fan blueprints elegantly solved that by making the runabout's HAL wall a movable piece of computing gear, something that would slide back on rails to reveal an aft chamber that then leads to the supposed aft compartments of the craft. The HAL wall here could similarly be a sliding door if need be. I mean, the major console blocks or "stoppers" for the E-D Main Engineering side holes looked perfectly movable in-universe, considering the carpeting beneath and all; such things might be considered common for Starfleet.
We never learned what would be hidden behind the HAL walls of the runabouts or the stoppers of the E-D. Since those spaces obviously weren't regularly accessed, though, "maintenance-nonintensive machinery" would be a good bet. Perhaps the
Discovery under Lorca did less science than she will do under Pike, and the putative facility behind the HAL wall is key to making the sensors track Red Angels or whatever? As pure ancillary speculation, that is - TPTB themselves need not bother with creating a rationale there.
Lorca's mancave was just the Brig set (and a couple of others) adjusted as needed. I don't see them giving it any more or less solidity in the near future, not based on the statements so far.
Timo Saloniemi
