Star Trek: Picard Season 3 evoked a lot of classic nostalgia from The Next Generation era, partly because it reunited the cast that made the series iconic. The other part came from the painstaking efforts of production designer Dave Blass, who among other things has created a museum-replica quality set of the bridge of the Enterprise-D. CinemaBlend had a chance to talk to Blass about his other ideas for the franchise, assuming (and hoping) he'll get to return for future projects.
It's no secret that Picard showrunner Terry Matalas wants to continue on with with making sure upcoming Star Trek series are up to snuff, and is particularly interested in the rumored project titled Legacy, which would continue adventures with TNG-era characters in the 25th century. While nothing official has been announced regarding it happening, Matalas told CinemaBlend that decision-makers are aware of the positive fan response to Picard Season 3, and that viewers have voiced the desire for more adventures of that sort. I spoke to production designer Dave Blass regarding the recent physical release of the acclaimed season, and asked what he'd like to design for Star Trek: Legacy, assuming the series happens and he would be invited back. In his words:
I'd like to do a classic engine room. It would be great to do a shuttle deck with the actual shuttle there. But the engine room was always something that we really wanted to do and do like the whole engine core. And I think that what they've done on Strange New Worlds is phenomenal. But it's, you know, again, with the classic pulsing engine thing. My idea with Legacy would be to carry on what we did with Season 3 [of Picard], which is to make Star Trek sets look like Star Trek sets. They don't need to look like something else. It doesn't need to be bigger or better or whatever. It's like, you know, fans know what an engine room looks like. If we don't have that tower with the pulsing energy…I can do cooler, pulsing energy, and we can do something neat. But you, you know, to make it look like something else, we don't necessarily need to do that.
Dave Blass has a clear goal for a future Star Trek series, and that's to make the sets have a more classic look than they currently do. There's no denying that when the new era kicked off, the interior designs of the ships of old took a backseat to more sleek and modern designs that looked nothing like the days of The Next Generation.
As Blass said, the goal is to make the modern design more reminiscent of the past and not like another science-fiction series entirely. People want to look at a Star Trek ship and know it's a ship from the franchise, after all.
I can't sit here and say that I want to see the carpet come back in Star Trek ships, but I do believe that Dave Blass is onto something with his thoughts on design going forward. As one of the major sci-fi franchises in the world, it's important to have a familiar aesthetic. This is not to say there's no room for innovation and change, as I also agree with the show's need to evolve. From recasting iconic characters like Spock and Kirk to changing the design of alien species like the Klingon, there are going to be tweaks along the way to every show and thoughts from the fandom about every change.
With Star Trek: Picard over and Discovery ending in 2024, there is room for a show like Legacy to fit in eventually. With that said, the franchise is focusing on continuing Strange New Worlds, as well as developing a new series, Starfleet Academy, and the Michelle Yeoh-led movie Section 31. All this to say that it could be a while before we see a project involving more TNG characters in adventures, but we can all continue to keep hope alive!
Star Trek: Picard is available to air in its entirety with a Paramount+ subscription. There's also a wide library of most of the other Trek shows, so pick up a subscription and boldly go ahead and spend a day, week, or month bingeing one or more shows!
