You�re setting something 100 years from now and 100 years before the Enterprise. The original series now looks dated, but you�ve got to go before that, but in the future. Quite a tough job.

The new series takes place 150 years from today, which is pretty far in our future, but it�s 100 years before the era of Kirk and Spock. So what we have to try to do is convince the audience that they�re looking at a crew aboard a starship that is less sophisticated than the original series Enterprise, but clearly much more advanced than something like today�s space shuttle. How do you split the difference? So many elements, design elements on the original series look a bit dated today because, of course, that show was created 35 years ago. I think that they�ve done an astonishing job on the design of the sets for the new series and when you see them I think you�ll agree that it�s probably the best looking ship we�ve ever seen.

Clearly we have much higher production values today in television. We have more money to spend on set design and development and we have more techniques available to us than they did in the 1960s. I don�t think anyone in the audience would expect us to go back to, say, 1950s television production standards to do this new series because it is taking place in an era before the original series. But what we can do is we can suggest a ship that is more utilitarian, that is smaller, that cannot travel as fast, that has technologies that were well established in the original series, but are experimental. in this new series.

The lighting is different. There is a sort of a � claustrophobic is too strong a word, but � there is a sense that they are in something that maybe looks more like a 22nd Century nuclear submarine than a than a hotel, which is kind of how the ships in the other series tended to look. They�re also very, very subtle and I think very, very elegant and there are clever touches in things like the lighting fixtures and the textures of the of the walls that suggest an earlier era. I�m not an historian of design by any means, but there are some touches that almost look a little art deco and at almost a sort of a subtle, sub-conscious level. I think it�s going to suggest an earlier era in the mind of the audience simply because we understand the way design in our day to day lives has evolved over the last 30, 40, 50 years.