It’s true the producers are making the most of limited sets and locations (I suspect much of the budget has gone on casting this season), but this is far from the definition of a bottle show. A bottle show was a money saving exercise restricted to existing sets, using little to no visual effects and with a bare minimum of guest actors (and ideally none at all). For this season they had to build all the sets (or redress some) and they have a truckload of visual effects and a fairly enormous cast. I bet it cost a bomb.
I think most of the sets are recycled from season 2, since they were filmed back-to-back. The
Titan sets are surely redresses of the
Stargazer sets, since it would make no sense to tear them down and immediately build another very similar starship from scratch. Then you've got returning sets like
La Sirena, Ten Forward LA, and Chateau Picard (in episode 1). I gather that the
Shrike interior is a redress of
La Sirena's lower level. The
Eleos was probably a redress too (see comment #3), and M'Talas Prime doesn't look much different from the disreputable planet in season 1, so it's probably made at least partially from recycled pieces, and since it's mostly an outdoor-bazaar kind of thing, it wouldn't have been a difficult build.
And yes, you can quibble that it doesn't fit the exact definition of a bottle show, but it
feels like a bottle show because the story is limited to the same few claustrophobic sets over and over. Also, the definition of a bottle show doesn't require a lack of guest actors. TNG's "The Drumhead" had five notable guest stars, including no less a luminary than Jean Simmons. DS9's "Duet" had six.
Leverage's self-referentially titled "The Bottle Job" had eight credited guests and was set in a crowded bar.
