CBS released today a great new video of the Captain Georgiou’s USS Shenzhou bridge set being built on stage in Toronto, a process that took weeks to complete at the Pinewood Toronto Studios.
Watch as the giant, empty production stage slowly fills with the massive starship set, complete with all the integrated lighting and technology we’ve heard about for the last several months.
Spotted in the fast-paced video is a close glimpse at the Shenzhou‘s dedication plaque, which reveals that the Walker-class starship was built at the San Francisco Fleet Yards — just like the original Enterprise (NCC-1701) — but also confirms the reporting from the Fan Expo Canada production panel on the ship’s quote from the Zhuangzi:
All existing things are really one.
Also barely visible is the traditional inclusion of series production staff as ‘Starfleet Command,’ with executive producers Alex Kurtzman, Gretchen Berg, and Aaron Harberts listed first.
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There are also a few more tidbits of set information revealed by IGN tonight, including some expansion on yesterday’s first report from the outlet’s visit to the Toronto sets.
We learned a while back that Bryan Fuller’s original costume designs were similar to the coloring of the Original Series look, but IGN seems to have seen these text costumes during their visit:
While the costumes on Discovery are a new spin on the traditional Starfleet uniform… early designs more accurately called back to the original show featuring Captain Kirk.
Those costumes, which IGN glimpsed on set, followed the traditional gold/blue/red design and were even used for camera tests. They also felt similar to the look seen in [“The Cage”] but with some added zippers and trim.
Doug Jones‘ Lt. Saru, like Phlox before him, is an alien crewmember – one augmented in post-production by visual effects in certain scenarios.
While Phlox had that creepy Denobulan smile, or the seldom-seen ‘pufferfish’ inflation defense, Saru’s Kelpian species has some different kinds of anatomical abnormalities:
While most of his look is achieved via makeup and prosthetics, the character does have one CGI element. “I have a certain thing in my anatomy called threat ganglia that go and pop out,” says the actor.
“They don’t pop out when I see a threat — when a threat is apparently right in front of me — that’s not when they go off. They go off when there’s an unseen threat. So if a Klingon was out on the other side of the door but I can’t see him yet, but I’m feeling something’s not right — that’s when my threat ganglia should go off.”
IGN also reports that the varied number of displays and maps of the Federation / Klingon conflict contains some familiar names to Trek fans: planets like Galorndon Core, Sherman’s Planet, and prison asteroid Rura Penthe.
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Co-executive producer Ted Sullivan continues to share behind the scenes photos from the Discovery set, with some new looks from the series.
Mary Chieffo as Klingon battledeck commander L’Rrell:
Jimmy Chimarios as a character so far known only as ‘Polygon’ (name via IMDB):
A look at the floor detailing aboard the Klingon torchbearer ship:
Finally, a view of an officer manning one of the Shenzhou‘s engineering panels:
Keep checking back often for more Discovery news!
