Disgusted, my father threw my report card on the table. “Douglas, if you spent half as much time on your school work as you do on that television show, you’ll turn out ok!”

 

This is just plain crazy. Although I never finished them, the detail in these models is wacky, and I’ll print some closeups down the line to prove it.  I built this model of the TOS sets early in my quest to learn 3D . It was a real education, and a real asset when we recreated parts of them full scale for “Trials and Tribble-ations”.

What’s fascinating, is that once you study these ingenious designs, you can clearly see their roots in three camera sitcoms as developed by Lucille Ball’s team for “I Love Lucy”. Star Trek was a Desilu production.

These sets were built for speed. See how big, wide, and open it is on either side of the arc? You could shoot all day in five different rooms and never have to make a big move. Just roll the equipment over a little, and you are on to the next set up. The most difficult set to shoot was the bridge, with it’s split level configuration.  Bob Justman learned that lesson well, and when the boys reconvened for TNG, the new bridge set was built with ramps as part of the design.

Smart.