Kirk's chair in Mirror,Mirror

[Crewman47]

Something I meant to ask after I watched this episode a couple of weeks ago but I thought that Kirk's chair of the Mirror Enterprise looked alot cooler than Kirk's own chair and was wondering why Kirk himself never thought this and adopted the design for himself. I mean imo it looked alot more comfortable with the high back and curvier design than the square one that he got stuck with.

Anyone else think that Kirk should've had that chair instead of the one he had?

 

[Unicron]

Which chair are you referring to?

 

[Crewman47]

His Bridge chair

 

[KeepOnTrekking]

I thought the other chair looked better, too.
But maybe it was too comfortable for Kirk and he kept the original box chair version once he got home so that the discomfort kept him at a state of attention to deal with the unknown surprises of being a starship captain on deep space patrol.

 

[Sisu]

The higher bridge chair was the purview of Commodores (eg Commodore Wesley) in The Ultimate Computer.

 

[Cranston]

I thought the high-backed chair looked more comfy too, but it might have interfered with framing closeups by blocking the view of Uhura behind him.

And that's just not acceptable.

 

[Mike Have-Not]

A visual of the chair would be nifty

 

[Crewman47]

Kirk's chairs as requested:

 

[Classic Fan]

I always thought Shatner looked uncomfortable in that chair. He just doesn't look natural when sat in it. His back is too straight.

Here...

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

He looks damn cool in it though

Perhaps its a custom made armoured back, to keep anyone who enters the bridge from stabbing him in the back

 

[Classic Fan]

The Squire of Gothos said:
He looks damn cool in it though

Perhaps its a custom made armoured back, to keep anyone who enters the bridge from stabbing him in the back

Hell yeah, he looks damn cool. Cooler than Spock in an Afro Wig... Actually, no, nothing is that cool.

 

[sbk1234]

The Squire of Gothos said:
He looks damn cool in it though

Perhaps its a custom made armoured back, to keep anyone who enters the bridge from stabbing him in the back

I always thought that, too. I guess that means that Commodore Wesley was concerned about assassins...

 

[Ronald Held]

It looks too much like a throne to be used on a Federation starship.

 

[gastrof]

Ronald Held said:
It looks too much like a throne to be used on a Federation starship.

And yet, as already pointed out, it WAS in use on Federation starships. We saw at least one of Enterprise's sister ships had the "Mirror" type high-back version of the center seat.

Apparently captain's option. 'What type of chair do you want on the bridge?'

 

[Ronald Held]

I can see it as a Captain's option, but it does not seem to suit our universe's Kirk, IMO.
I also can it it reused as a matter of not wasting resources for a show.

 

[Wingsley]

The "center seat" on a 2260's Constitution-class starship is definitely THE COOLEST piece of furniture in all of STAR TREK lore. No exceptions. All skipper's chairs, post-TOS, pale by comparison*. (*- one debatable exception: Capt. Styles' chair aboard Excelsior in TMP-3 is also uber-cool)

Thank you Crewman47, for bringing this topic up!

As for the high back, maybe it looked too throne-ish for regular TOS, so it was reserved for flag officers. I think it would be neat to have a design competition and supe-up the captain's chair, and see if someone couldn't make it even better without going overboard.

I wonder who designed that chair to begin with, and how they came up with the higher back for it...

 

[Ronald Held]

Good question. Who is alive that could answer that, Bob Justman?

 

[Maurice]

Well, the chair and its wooden arms were pre-existing and part of a line of furniture often used in waiting rooms. The Trek people added the thick sides and the cyclinder below, but the part where Captain's ass meets the cowhide was store bought.

 

[DumbDumb2007]

They put the high back back on for Commodore Wesley on the Lexington. Wesley should be revisited at an eariler age in Star Trek 12.

 

[137th Gebirg]

It made sense that such a chair design would be used in the mirror universe. If senior officers were always in danger of assassination, it would make sense that the high-back would be there as protection against a phaser blast to the back of the head from a subordinate. I figure that the chair itself was designed to be phaser-resistant, as well as the high-back to prevent a sneak attack.