In my opinion, the least realistic of the engine room sets we’ve seen was Main Engineering on the Enterprise-D in The Next Generation. I know that this set was hastily constructed at the last moment, but I think a bit more could have been done to make this a believable set. For one matter, the set itself was always undergoing major modifications. For much of the first season, there was a corridor running smack through the center of the set. This corridor was later patched up by doors and then wall panels with small control screens and isolinear processors. Oddly enough, the corridor reappeared in Generations. Also, the doors in engineering shifted from leading to turbolifts to being entryways to the Jefferies tube network. Aside from that, I’ve always felt that having such a big and powerful ship controlled from a tiny engine room stretched believability. I mean, there were only really four sit-down control stations in all of that set. Then you had the Master System table and the Master Situation display, and another four screens. Then there’s also the three mini-stations tucked into the back of LaForge’s office. It just always struck me as a small cramped space that was incapable of holding all the engineers that would be necessary to run the engineering systems. I mean, the bridge was freakin’ huge and Main Engineering was freakin’ small.

The engine room set from The Original Series was higher up on the believability scale for me. You had the guts of the engine components on the floor of the main level and behind the grill fa�ade on the back wall. You had highly technical looking control stations and monitors as well as a couple banks of computer equipment. Compared to the Enterprise-D’s set, the original Enterprise had a nice industrial feel to it. While the Enterprise-D had a nice cozy feel, the original Enterprise gave the impression of an entirely Spartan work environment. What doesn’t do it for me with this set is that there is so much dead space. The main area of the engine room is two decks high, yet the only things reaching up that high are the machines behind the back grill panel. There’s a balcony that leads to a back control room and an upper level office that Scotty frequently went to, but it was just a bunch of wasted space. Not particularly efficient, in my opinion. Another problem is that there is a lack of control stations for the engineers to sit at. There’s one that Scotty sat at in “The Naked Time” and a wall mounted unit that resembles TNG’s Master Situation display, but there really isn’t much else. I would expect several more stations than that. Coincidently, this can also sum up my opinions on the Enterprise-E’s engine room. What it has going for it are the massive reactor and conduits lining the back wall of the set. It has an industrial feel to it, and there seem to be more stations available. However, it seems like there is a big waste of space again.

The engineering set for Voyager I liked. It seemed like it could be what I expect for an efficient design and believable look. There were plenty of control stations in the lobby and in the two alcoves flanking the warp core. It seemed like there a good presence of machinery here with the warp core and the control processors behind it. There is a warm and metallic feel to this set. The colors generated by the warp core provided a nice compliment to the shades of gray in the rest of the set. The use of space here seemed much better than previous lead ships. It was a two-deck design, but the second deck was used in a nice manner. You had the massive control station on the second deck with about four to six small personal stations along the side and back walls. However, I would have made this second level a little more busy with larger stations and possibly some control processors back there. But, overall, I think that Voyager’s engine room set is the most believable of the 24th century starships. The Defiant is a close second, though. The Defiant used the space efficiently. The small cramped feel of her engine room matched perfectly with the size of the ship. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t really get into the look of the warp core. I don’t know, but it just didn’t appeal to me very much.

Finally, here’s what I think about Enterprise’s engine room set. This set is a very believable and fairly efficient design, and I have to say that it’s probably my favorite now. You have a massive yet compact warp reactor that is all contained in a two-deck area. The engineers can check the entire core thoroughly by just walking around it and climbing the two ladders. Appealing to my fondness of the warp reactor are the control stations that are built into it. I just find this incredibly interesting as well as the engineers’ ability to actually climb on it to check it over. It looks so solid and sturdy compared to the cores of the Enterprise-D and Voyager (which look elegant and incredibly fragile). The set has a nice “down and dirty” feel to it, too. It’s a fairly cramped space that looks reasonable compared to the size of Enterprise herself. Also, the use of the crawlways and metal stairs just reminds so much of the engine rooms of today’s naval warships. It has such a realistic feel to me. For as much as I like the set design, there’s some stuff that I don’t like. First, the balcony level of the set is a bit wasteful. There’s practically nothing up there other than a sensor station (in “Broken Bow” ;) and an equipment cart. I know that walkway isn’t too wide, so I don’t think that any control stations could fit up there. But still, I’d bet that equipment cabinets or the like could be squeezed in. The second thing I don’t like is the arrangement of the stairs. From “Broken Bow,” we saw Tucker climb down the flight of stairs from the balcony level and then climb up another set to get to the main controls for the reactor. Surely, there could been a connector used here somewhere to connect the two balconies?

Anyway, that’s what I think. What do the rest of y’all think? Am I way off base or am I actually making some sense here? Let’s hear it!

{Edit: Attack of the damn smilies from hell...}

[ October 24, 2001: Message edited by: Siegfried ]

[ October 24, 2001: Message edited by: The_Tom ]

"For much of the first season, there was a corridor running smack through the center of the set. This corridor was later patched up by doors and then wall panels with small control screens and isolinear processors. Oddly enough, the corridor reappeared in Generations."

Could yo explain that a little. I'm not much of a buff on the behind the scenes stuff. Did they use part of a corridor set for the engineering set or something?

The E-D engineering set was built with (i believe) railings and the central core area adapted in some way from the ST:TMP engine room, either that or they were built new, but the one man elevator looks familiar. The warp cor was new.
But right next to that area they added several of the corridor set pieces (the walls around the 'pool table') they had a couple doors in them.. that was a radial corridor, leading straight to and away from the core. It was crossed by two curved corridors that were originally supposed to connect the straight corridors on the 1701 set from TMP.

So if you walk straight away from the warp core you had
1)A station to the left and Geordi's 'office' to the right, then
2)A corridor bisecting the area you were in, left and right
3) the pool table with a door on either side
4) The end of the corridor area (where the cutaway MSD was, and another intersection of a curved corridor left and right

After the first handful of episodes (i believe) the corridor described in 2) was closed off, with some wall panels that had readouts and red alert lights. The corridor was still there in 'Naked Now', when engineering definitely didnt need more traffic. You can tell the wall panels because the walls around them are the hexagonally bent corridor walls built for TMP, and the panels themselves are flat.

The best use of the Engineering set for me had to be in "Pathfinder". It was perfect that Barclay preferred to use the upper stations as they were removed from the main action, which reflects strongly on his personality. There's also this fantastic shot the director composed which showed the upper floor from below, with Barclay and Harkins on opposite sides above.

Also, note that the Voyager Engineering set was not completely scratchbuilt... The upper stations along the back were originally constructed for the E-D as the Nacelle Tube set - note the downward-facing monitors along the side. The walls and suppot beams were repainted and then incorporated into Voyager. It's good that they still found ue, though. I also believe that parts of the walls from the E-D set upper floor were incorporated intot he Voyager upper floor.

Finally, I don't mind the big open space on the main floor down there - it allows for a lot of action and more movement than the E-D set, which was dominated by the pool table everyone had to walk around. This open space was often compenated for by that free-standing console often seen in Sickbay and the Cargo Bay sets, for composition purposes. It also let more "science" stuff happen on the set, as you could bring in larger props to analyze for stuff.

Mark