Picard season three is the king of 'bottle' shows.

Something that only recently occurred to me, but I feel like season three is basically just set in two main locations.
We've spent very little time anywhere other than the Titan and M'Talas Prime. There are other spots of course, but we've ostensibly been in those two places for five episodes straight without feeling contained or constrained, which is quite impressive. I wonder how expansive the season will be in the back half.

 

Likely not much more than we've already seen. The money that went on the amazing locations in season one has gone on the TNG cast in season 3.

Although I imagine COVID costs have played a big part too. This season was also set up by the lackluster season 2, which provided the Titan (Stargazer) and Ten Forward sets.

 

Also I think we had Dr. Breen's laboratory/office from Season 2 get heavily rederessed as the small starship used by Crushers (the narrow steps give it away).

I think the feelings of cheapness and clastophobia gets staved off when got the elaborate space battles and space landscapes.

Picard always felt a bit cheap next to DSCO and SNW.

 

I’m feeling a bit claustrophobic this season. Not so much the ship scenes but the Raffi and Worf scenes are set on a planet but it feels like they inside a small building. I miss the on location scenes from the first two seasons.

 

We see enough of M'atalas Prime's city scape (day and night) through elaborate CGI - in broad daylight it looks a lot like a modern day Earth city with big slums in Thailand or the Philippines.

 

I noticed that as well. Must be trying to save money for something big later

 

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.

 

Regardless, this season has been amazing.

 

Yeah, the above the line costs for Picard must be insane compared with Disco. They're also shooting in LA to accommodate Stewart, which must drive costs up.

All the TNG vets in Season 3 must only compound this, so it's not a huge surprise they're mostly studio-bound.

Season 2 obviously used a lot of location shooting which probably made sense from a Covid perspective.

It all feels very authentic Star Trek to me. It's like how Star Trek 2/6 only had a bit of second unit outside the studio, whereas 4 and 5 had a lot of location.

 

Now we just need to see them go exploring a cheap cave set.

 

They'll probably have an outdoor location shoot, like at San Francisco bay, etc, where they thwart the Frontier Day plot.

 

And that M'talas Prime alley, hopefully Raffi and Worf have put that planet behind them.

 

I'm going underneath the assumption they're saving up the budget for Episodes 9-10.

 

Or the after party.

 

Well if what LeVar said was true...

 

What did he say?

 

Big spoilers

Spoiler

Theres a recreation of the Enterprise D bridge sometime this season.

He also tweeted a picture of Season 3 Geordi standing on the bridge but it was quickly deleted

 

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.

 

Eh it’s fine. This has made a lot of room for some great character moments that were missing in past seasons.