Posted in: Paramount+, Star Trek, TV | Tagged: Dave Blass, paramount, Star Trek Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Terry Matalas

Star Trek: Picard S03: Blass on Recreating Enterprise-D & What Got Cut

Star Trek: Picard PD Dave Blass discusses what went into creating the Enterprise-D for Season 3 - and what didn't make it onto the screen.

Star Trek Picard production designer Dave Blass and showrunner Terry Matalas have been on one hell of a journey restoring The Next Generation to its full glory, not only getting the cast back together but bringing back the original designers from the syndicated series back into the fold to recreate the U.S.S. Enterprise-D. While promoting the Star Trek: The Picard Legacy Collection that features all seven seasons of TNG, the four theatrical films, and all three seasons of Picard, Blass spoke with TrekMovie about the process of bringing back the Enterprise-D, bringing the key figures to make it happen, and what didn't make the final cut.

Star Trek: Picard: Building Season Three & the Enterprise-D

When it came to planning season three, it was a matter of what sets and scenes would go together. "The challenge is that we did season 2 and season 3 [filming] back-to-back," Blass said. "So about halfway through season 2, Terry and his team kind of formed up and started working on season 3. And then we started getting hints and ideas of what we were going to do. But in season 3, we start the season with Picard and Laris in his study, and he gets the signal from Beverly that happens on the same stage where the Enterprise D was. So we literally ended up, you know: 'Okay, shoot the scene because I got to build a spaceship here.' But two days before we shot that, we were still in season 2. We finished season 2 on a Friday, and we started season 3 on a Monday. I remember Terry coming to me saying, 'Yeah, we want to do the D.' Then it was like, how do we do that and how do we afford it, and what version of it we were going to do? That was an evolving process. There was a scene in season 2 where Picard was being interviewed by a psychiatrist played by James Callis, who was his father. Initially, that was written for Picard's ready room on the Enterprise-D. So we had gone down that route, and it was too expensive to build a whole new set, so we reworked something on the La Sirena set. But it was in our mind that we knew the D was possibly going to be there, but how and why was still to be figured out. It did take us three months to build it, so it was something that we ran into really quickly."

Upon bringing back familiar TNG designers in Doug Drexler, John Eaves, Michael, and Denise Okuda, "I don't think we ever disagreed about anything. But it's terrifying, as someone who is such a fanboy for these people. I had John Eaves' book, I had three copies of the Enterprise Tech Manual [written by Rick Sternbach and Mike Okuda]," Blass said. "I had Mike sign mine in Vegas, the one that I got as a Christmas present when I was in college. So to just give notes—it's like, 'Okay, here I don't think this is…' But you will never meet a more cordial group. They just want to do good stuff. So I'd be working with them, and they'd get frustrated because we couldn't do this, and ideally, it was a situation where we would all be around a conference table, all sketching on pads and coming up with something, but everyone was working from home because of COVID, so we never really had the camaraderie that they had back in the old days with everyone together. But we really went deep. Like bringing Dan Curry in to design Worf's new weapon. There was no, 'Hey, why don't we do it?' I was like, 'Why don't we let Dan do it?' Because if Dan does it, it's going to be right. We don't have to compare it to what we would do. So I get the credit because he designed it."

Cutting Jean-Luc's Library

There was one set that Blass regretted having to cut out. "Film production is a collaborative effort, and everyone's just screaming to get through it, and a lot of times what the focus is doesn't end up being—and again, I design it for every possibility of what you possibly could want to do," he said. "One of the things that made me pull my hair out was in Picard's library, it was a two-story set with a whole walkway up above with all this detail and bookshelves and history knickknacks, and you never saw it. Initially, Picard was looking for a book in the first scene, and my idea is we see him up top, and he's walking around trying to find the book, and then he comes down the spiral staircase, and we reveal the whole room. And then it was like, 'too much shoe leather.' It takes too much time out of the episode to shoot all that, so he's just on the ground floor and does the thing. And so, in the end, I think there was just one shot where you could kind of see there was a second floor. But that's on every single show and everything you've ever done."

For more, including filming the scenes for Matalas Prime, LeVar Burton and his reaction to seeing Geordi LaForge's office, recreating the LCARs on the Enterprise-D, and additional compromises Blass and Matalas had to make, you can check out the interview here. The Star Trek: The Picard Legacy Collection is now available. You can stream TNG and Picard on Paramount+.

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