Discovery, How they created the Mirror Universe.

stt-ff
May 17, 2018
2 min read

Updated: Jan 22, 2021

In “Star Trek Discovery,” which explores the Federation-Klingon war a decade before the original series, there’s a blending of old and new in the great tradition of creator Gene Roddenberry. This extends to the eye-popping world building as well, overseen by Tamara Deverell (“The Strain”), the franchise’s first female production designer.

For Deverell, it was an opportunity to visually re-imagine the CBS All Access series in a relatable way. This was in keeping with the emphasis on diversity and inclusion (Sonequa Martin-Green stars as Science Specialist Michael Burnham, a human raised by Vulcans).

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Creating the Klingon World

There is also more emphasis in mining the emotional depths of the combative Klingons, which is reflected in the look of the their world, particularly the Orion outpost in the finale (“Will You Take My Hand?”). “We created a series of illustrations for what a black market run by the Orions on the Klingon planet would be,” said Deverell.

“We had a Klingon drinking tent and we made all these different stalls. We were trying to use what we had because this was the last episode. We took one of the Klingon sets that we built for the sarcophagus ship, which was a graveyard chamber and rebuilt it as this Orion [sex] cabaret.”

For that, the production designer went back to the original series for some Orion architectural elements that serve as Easter Eggs. “We used Indian carved room dividers and Moroccan tapestry, and Far east fabrics,” she said. It was lush like a bordello in the 1800s. We were allowed to go crazy.”

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Above: Excerpts from Indie Wire