Think of ‘Star Trek’. Any series, it doesn’t matter which. Now picture a scene, whatever your idea of an iconic moment from that show is. Whether you just conjured up an image of Tom Paris at the helm, Spock manning his science station, or Picard in the captain’s chair, odds are whatever scene you pictured took place on the bridge. And of course, it would. After all, the bridge isn’t just the nerve center of a starship. In less fanciful terms, it’s perhaps the most used set on any ‘Trek’ and more importantly, it’s the set on which we’re most likely to see all of our characters at once.
Throughout the ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ series’ lengthy development, its producers have (at one time or another) been impressively tight-lipped about everything from the show’s setting to the look of its sets. And while the trailers released to date have featured a bridge, we’ve been left waiting for anything more than a fleeting glimpse of the bridge. You see, unlike prior ‘Star Trek’ series, ‘Discovery’ is set to follow a pair of Federation starships: the Shenzou (on which lead character Michael Burnham will be serving when we meet her) and the titular Discovery. It is the Shenzou’s bridge that has thus far featured in publicly available footage.
That all changed with the arrival of this month’s ‘Variety‘. In a cover feature that deals with (among other things) the casting of Sonequa Martin-Green, co-creator Bryan Fuller’s departure, and CBS’s high hopes for the show’s ability to boost CBS All Access subscriptions, we were finally granted our first look at the bridge of the Discovery. The set, which has a look that calls to mind a mixture of ‘Star Trek: Enterprise’ and ‘Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country’ more than anything seen on the original series, can be seen here:
Set ten years before the original series, ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ introduces us to Commander Michael Burnham, a human orphan raised on Vulcan who has been serving as the First Officer of the USS Shenzou for several years. Under the command of Captain Phillipa Georgiou, the Shenzou is involved with an incident that leaves the Federation on the brink of war with the Klingon Empire. In the wake of this, Burnham joins Captain Lorca and the crew of the Discovery as they try to set things right.
‘Star Trek: Discovery’ will premiere on CBS with a special two episode event on September 24. The remainder of the season will then be released via the CBS All Access streaming service, with a new episode arriving every Sunday. The series cast includes Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Jason Isaacs, Anthony Rapp, James Frain, Michelle Yeoh, Terry Serpico, Maulik Pancholy, Sam Vartholomeos, Chris Obi, Shazad Latif, Mary Chieffo, Rainn WIlson, Rekha Sharma, Kenneth Mitchell, Clare McConnell, and Damon Runyan.