Those Stupid Tables

[jgdst]

The laptop on Chakotay's right was originally a CB radio, which "coincidentally" was noticed missing shortly after Ms Bujold's departure. It was replaced by a cigar box, a stock ticker, and a magazine rack before the producers finally settled on a computer interface (in order to appease the Okudas' legal team). However the cost of the interface explains the lack of hatrack in either the bridge or Captain's ready room, which was instead referenced only through dialogue; as were certain members of the cast, such as Chakotay and the irrepressible Lt Shlomo.

Ms Bujold's pilot series starring her as a sassy back-talking trucker who harbors an orangutan was alas, not picked up. But she would later find success as the Commander of a Battlestar.

I heard that creative differences between her and the orangutan led to its premature cancellation. Mainly, the orangutan, being of a Royal Shakespeare Company background, couldn't understand Bujold's delicate, serrated Canadian drawl.

I believe that orangutan was later incorporated into the design of Chakotay's Okuda-style interface, in order to give him a more cheery look...

Obviously this didn't help the issue, and so the groove in the tables was increased four fold. Lest we forget the episode where Naomi Wildman is born and incubated in one of these grooves (VOY: Deadlock).

I hear they're incorporating a groove into the new film's Enterprise. [There's a thread about it in the Trek XI forum called The Enterprise's New Groove.]

 

[Timewalker]

However the cost of the interface explains the lack of hatrack in either the bridge or Captain's ready room, which was instead referenced only through dialogue...

Now, now... you should know that there is only ONE science fiction icon who is allowed to have a hatrack in his command center -- THE DOCTOR!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

AFAIK, the briefing room table actually has a holographic projector on its surface, that's why it looks so odd.