#command chair

[Images © CBS/Paramount, Star Trek Timelines, Ex Astris Scientia, Donny Versiga, probably others]

The Original Series: USS Enterprise

Even though it’s all too clear that the designers just took an existing black leather office chair and built some bullshit around it so they could wire it with glowing buttons, the original chair from The Original Series looks super clean and futuristic. The way the angles all point forward implies action. The swiveling is good for your captain’s sightlines of their crew. The wooden armrests are a little retro and have that natural connection back to Earth. Even the candy-looking buttons are eye-catching, albeit a little too close to the armrest to keep from jettisoning Finney a couple extra times. It’s chic and classic, and the black chair and the base that I’m resigned to calling light grey accentuate each other really well. Grade-A chair. Would sit.

The Motion Picture: USS Enterprise Refit

The movies require chairs that look good on the big screen for the Enterprise refit, but boy do these miss the mark. The colors of the chairs on the bridge match the blandness of the uniforms that we criticized so harshly recently. And what is with this flat, foam-looking shape? As Caitlin says in the podcast, this chair looks like a massage chair from Brookstone. The little thigh-squishers look silly as hell when they’re in use, and all the buttons seem to be on the side – so while you can’t just hit your hand on the armrest and accidentally go to red alert, I wonder if a captain can even find which button is which. Just a strange choice for Star Trek overall.

The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock: USS Enterprise Refit

For some reason, each movie refused to stick with the command chair that was featured previously and needed to redesign a new one. The chair that we first see in The Wrath of Khan somehow makes the TMP chair worse by making it an eggshell white that looks entirely out of place with the rest of the military aesthetics and also clashes more harshly with the silver metal thigh pieces. What’s most distracting about these chairs is the new reupholstering of the chair’s back, which just screams “Seashell!” because of those radiating lines. I really cannot take this one seriously because it looks like it belongs in a vacation resort.

The Wrath of Khan: USS Reliant

The Reliant (and I believe the Grissom in The Search for Spock) recycle the TMP chairs again, but instead of giving it the new TWoK clamshell look, they just use a dark grey color. So for once, there’s some consistency, I guess.

The Search for Spock: USS Excelsior

Captain Stiles and his fancy baton get to nestle down in some one-off chairs on the Excelsior that are somehow goofy and bland at the same time. The shape of it looks like a bunch of black foam muscle rollers stacked on top of each other – comfy but a little bit confusing. But the biggest eyeroll goes to the armrests that pivot in when the ship is at red alert like the safety restraints on a roller coaster. No, that’s just too silly, Excelsior. We refuse to keep our arms, legs, and belongings inside this ride at all times.

The Voyage Home: USS Enterprise-A

We only see the briefest glimpse of the Enterprise-A’s new captain’s seat at the end of The Voyage Home, and it’s another recycle of the TMP chairs but painted yet more new colors. This one is the old blue but with a silver spine painted down the middle of it. The stripe makes it go faster!

The Final Frontier: USS Enterprise-A

Even though we just got this new ship, the chairs get swapped out almost immediately for The Final Frontier with the first in a long line of chairs that could easily be pulled out of a nice office conference room. It is rather smart that the eject-Finney button has moved forward into the ends of the armrests so it’s less easy to just lean on them or put your coffee down on them, but that also means the buttons and captainly business you have to deal with in the chair is also greatly slimmed down. Which isn’t a problem if a captain mostly just tells their crew what to do, but it’s something I always notice.

The Undiscovered Country: USS Enterprise-A

Not to be outdone, The Undiscovered Country changes up the chair yet again. It seems to be almost exactly the same as the TFF chair, but instead of being all black, it’s now a very nice shade of grey with black accents. Why did we need to do that? I have no idea, but it’s still a fairly nice chair and the color contrast makes it a little more visually interesting, so there’s that.

The Undiscovered Country: USS Excelsior

The Excelsior is also back and it too required a new chair! I guess Sulu just doesn’t have the same sitting style as Stiles. This one is also similar to the TFF and TUC Enterprise chairs, but this one is a really pretty bright blue that makes me like it way more. Other Trek chairs don’t really go for bright, lovely colors, and this one really stands out. Plus the burgundy uniforms look quite nice against them. Everyone gets to pop!

The Next Generation S1: USS Enterprise-D

Finally we get to The Next Generation. Of chairs, that is. And we start off with some really unflattering shapeless tan faux leather. I’ve always found that the vent hole in the back of the chairs on the Enterprise-D bridge just looked off-putting and make them seem wide and uncomfortable. The material just looks sad and lumpy and too plush, like they’ve been pulled out of the back of an old station wagon. The consoles in the arms that flip up are a nice idea and allow the captain access to the jettison-Finney buttons only when necessary – again, no setting your earl grey down on some important toggle switches – but we didn’t get to see them used terribly often.

The Next Generation S2-7: USS Enterprise-D

After season one, the same chairs got a little bit de-chunked. The hole in the back isn’t so huge as to be an eyesore anymore, though I still am not a fan of it. A chair with a solid back seems more captainly to me for some reason I can’t nail down. The material, even in the lighter shade we eventually see, still does look chunky and uneven instead of clean and smooth. The flip-up consoles are also lost in favor of higher armrests with the consoles built into the ends, which is a little more familiar and functional if less dynamic. The armrests I’ll say are a wash, but the upholstery itself is an improvement, albeit just slightly.

The Next Generation: USS Enterprise-C

We catch mere glimpses in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” of the previous chair in the line of ships named Enterprise. And it’s a really boring brown leather number. The flip-up consoles may or may not be back in the armrests (it’s hard to tell what those dark shapes are, so it’s either that or just a blank space where they were), and I do prefer a chair without a hole in the back, but there’s really not much else to say about these except “yawn”.

The Next Generation: USS Sutherland

There’s another incredibly basic chair in “Redemption II” when Data gets control of the Sutherland. It seems extremely similar to the C’s chair but I can’t see anywhere a console might pop out and the material looks a little more textured. So far, it might be the comfiest looking captain’s chair in TNG, if I have to pick something to say about it.

The Next Generation: USS Pasteur

Missed this one in our podcast coverage, but you get to see it here! Luckily there’s not much to say because Crusher’s ship in “All Good Things…” is literally the same as one of the season-one TNG chairs with the wide back hole but coated in white instead. Looks like the consoles are gone again too. The unflattering shape of it does look better in white than that drab tan, but it might be because the material may be less lumpy and more firm.

Generations: USS Enterprise-B

Back in time again, the Enterprise-B’s chair aesthetic is more of a minivan-seat look. The armrests stick out the furthest yet to include all the buttons in the control panels, and they just look super easy to walk into at any given moment and bruise your thighs. The color is pretty decent: a sort of dark teal that’s pretty nice. Not Sulu’s Excelsior nice, mind you, but still pretty nice. A perfectly serviceable chair, even if something about the shape of it says assisted living center to me for some reason.

First Contact, Insurrection, and Nemesis: USS Enterprise-E

Following up from the D, the TNG movies introduce us to the final iteration of the Enterprise, so far anyway. The E is back to sort of lumpy leather-looking material that looks like it came straight out of a gamer’s mancave. Something about the deep mahogany color of it screams “trying too hard to look classy” and just coming across as pretentious. A hole is in the back of it again for spontaneous tickling as well.

Deep Space Nine: USS Defiant

All through this list, I’ve been looking for more consoles for the captain to play Tetris from their station, and we finally really get some great screens within reach on the Defiant. The chair itself looks rather like a dentist chair or a barber chair with all that business surrounding the pretty typical seat. But it’s the access to different screens that tells us clearly that the Defiant is a ship that requires constant action, unlike the big starships which require constant delegation of tasks. That’s some good design work!

Voyager: USS Voyager

Boring. The chair itself is a bunch of browns that look pretty drab, more lumpy material, and no bespoke panels. Instead, a console flips out from a little unit between the captain and first officer chairs (which is a fun effect, but seems a bit pointless), so Janeway and Chakotay have to share the same screen and crane their necks to even see what’s displaying because of the lateral positioning. More than other bridges, it’s clear there is nothing for a captain to do while in the captain chair, so we surmise that Janeway may stand more than her contemporaries, which is pretty typical treatment.

Voyager: USS Excelsior

When we revisit Sulu’s Excelsior in “Flashback”, it’s incredibly clear that no one could find the original chair from The Undiscovered Country lying around and they had to quickly throw together something similar enough that only eagle-eyed fans would notice the difference. Cue the eagle-eyed fans now. The color is right, which is most of the battle with this very pretty chair, but it’s definitely shorter and less authoritative. If we didn’t like the original version so much better, this one would probably be fine, but it’s definitely a rung or two under the TUC chair.

Bonus: Cut scene from Nemesis

Oh how thankful we are that they cut the goofy seatbelt gag from the end of Nemesis. We never actually get to see this chair, at least not in the TNG movies, but come back next week because we expect this might be the same as a chair we’ll review when we get to Enterprise!

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[Images © CBS/Paramount, Star Trek Timelines, Ex Astris Scientia, Donny Versiga, probably others]

Enterprise S1-3: Enterprise NX-01

Let’s start out with the earliest chairs we see in in-universe chronology. The chairs of the NX-01 could have been ripped straight out of a Ford Taurus. We’re definitely digging the really chunky armrests that give the captain a ton of knobs and switches to noodle with. Overall, the seat itself doesn’t look too comfy because the padding looks lumpy and uneven though. Chair level: adequate.

Enterprise S4: Enterprise NX-01

Last week we took a sneak peek at the seatbelted chair that got cut from Nemesis, and it looks like it found a happy home under Archer’s butt! As a chair, it’s bulkier but possibly comfier than many of the chairs we’ve seen so far. We’re left with the impression that this one would make a great gamer chair, complete with manual steering column, of course!

Kelvin movies: USS Kelvin

We move onto the big budget of the Kelvin movies and their very custom chairs. The one we see in the flashback scene on the Kelvin looks the most like it could fit in as a precursor to TOS chairs, so at least that’s something. It’s got a nice burgundy color too that is nicer than the burgundy we saw in the Enterprise-E color. The shape looks like the designers actually put some effort in. Not terrible.

Kelvin movies: USS Enterprise

When you’ve rebooted a universe, you might as well reboot the chair aesthetic too. Now here’s a chair that’s just trying too hard to look futuristic, with curvy lines like we’ve never seen before, armrests that zag inward, and a base like a child’s toy. The whole thing looks like a plastic chair out of a dollhouse version of the Apple store. It’s like the charming retro look of the TOS chair got sterilized and stripped of all its character. Movies have too much money, man. A much cheaper chair had so much more success in saying “Star Trek” to us than this antiseptic ripoff.

Kelvin movies: USS Vengeance

Do you even swivel, bro? The USS Vengeance rolls in with this evil look to it, all huge and dark and chrome and menacing. This one is emphatically one of the least comfortable chairs we’ve seen in the franchise so far. The thigh huggers are back too, for some unclear reason. The whole thing looks more like a torture device than a captain’s seat, which may be what they were going for.

Kelvin movies: USS Franklin

Finally, a chair that isn’t shiny and new! This guitar case–shaped thing looks like an in-universe antique, which is totally fitting of where we find the Franklin lying around. Like the Vengeance, it’s another chair that I wouldn’t want to sit in because it just looks hard, uncontoured, and not padded enough. But at least the shape is reminiscent of Star Trek so it’s in the right place. Just throw a pillow down before you take command.

Discovery: USS Shenzhou

When we get to Nu Trek, we get yet another aesthetics change. The Shenzhou chair’s honeycomb shape is a rather nice look that is simple and elegant. The little angles and the way a black chair shape is nestled in a frame remind us of the TOS chair, but with more money and more chrome. We get more of a burnt sienna color than the really light grey of Kirk’s old chair, but I also couldn’t imagine anything in season one Discovery using light colors or shades. Overall, a nice focal point and decent chair.

Discovery: USS Discovery

Remember how last week I said the leaning angle of the original TOS chair gave it the impression of forward movement like some of the progressive themes of the show? Well Discovery took that little angle and flung themselves into it so hard that it looks like the chair is trying to shove you out of itself. The seat itself is decent, but I end up missing the nice frame of the Shenzhou chair, and preferred its burnt sienna to this sort of dullard camel color. Overall, this one seems a little too big and the arms too far away from you, like this chair has to swallow you for you to sit in it.

Discovery: USS Enterprise

Is it me or is it getting hot in here? It is impressive as hell how they took the basics of the design of the TOS Enterprise chair and made it work in Discovery. This chair is tweaked just enough to work in the Discovery aesthetic without just redesigning the whole thing like the Kelvin movies did. We see a little more of the wood from the armrests now outlining the base and it looks sharp as hell. The angles are a little more pronounced but they totally work. I am ready to throw my panties at this chair. We’re still just before Strange New Worlds is out, and I will WALK if they replace this masterpiece.

Picard: La Sirena

Now this one is deffo a car chair. Which isn’t a bad thing, to be honest! Considering La Sirena is just a cargo ship and Captain Rios is more a no-nonsense kind of guy, it makes a ton of sense that we’d see a more mass produced piece of equipment. This chair does everything it needs to, and it even has the mermaid logo in the headrest. A simple chair for a simple ship.

Lower Decks: USS Cerritos

With the freedom to animate any chair design in anyone’s imagination, this is what Lower Decks gives us? The chair of the Cerritos is a downright copout. It looks almost two-dimensional, and not just because it’s animated. Sure, we can say that the California-class ships are supposed to be less nice than other ships, but that’s no excuse for the chair looking like a literal lego and about as comfortable on the backside. And the colors. Hard meh. Would not sit if you paid me.

Lower Decks: USS Titan

What makes me dislike the Cerritos chair even more is how we see much better drawn chairs in the same damn show when we see the Titan and the Archimedes. Riker’s Titan chair reminds us an awful lot of George Pike’s Kelvin chair or Georgieu’s Shenzhou in terms of its hexagonal shape and dark brownish colors. For a cartoon chair, it looks pretty good! How hard was that, Cerritos chair?

Lower Decks: USS Archimedes

Even Sonya freakin’ Gomez has a halfway decent chair in Lower Decks. We are definitely seeing inspiration from the movie chairs, in that it would fit right in in an office setting. But this one could be the maroon little sibling of Sulu’s blue Excelsior chair we liked so much last week, but in animated form. We see the same kind of headrest, padding, and armrests, so the designers clearly did their homework. Which sounds about right considering how many references are in that show.

Prodigy: USS Protostar

The Protostar is a really state-of-the-art shiny toy, and it deserves an absolutely over-the-top futuristic chair, and boy does it deliver. You can only recline in this really comfy beanbag chair. Seriously, this thing needs a matching ottoman because any captain is going to do more splaying out than remembering to do any work. I want that job. The overdesign of this chair is actually a thing of beauty, and you won’t hear me using that as a compliment in nearly any other circumstance. I kind of want this chair in my study, but again, I’d get no work done because of all the napping.

Bonus: Picard: USS Stargazer

Fresh off the presses! Season two of Picard debuted after our recording of this week’s corresponding episode, but there’s a new ship, new bridge, new uniforms, new combadge, new everything! Including this new captain chair on Rios’s Stargazer. I’ll not spoil anything beyond that and telling you that of course this chair, like so much of modern Trek, comes complete with the required Starfleet delta. Ya know, for marketing more toys.

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Which seats will be the tops for our bottoms and which have us preferring to stand? Check out our bests and worsts!

Favorites

Honorable mention - TUC: Excelsior

Caitlin - PRO: Protostar

Jake - DS9: Defiant

Ames and Chris: DIS: Enterprise

Least Favorites

Ames - TWOK: Enterprise Refit

Caitlin - TNG movies: Enterprise-E

Chris - LOW: Cerritos

Jake - TSFS: Excelsior

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