Presented below are some detailed images of the new Captains Chair design to be featured in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, the
highly-anticipated pre-TOS era television series that is set to premiere
on Paramount+ in less than one month's time, on May 5, 2022.
Starring Anson Mount as Captain Christopher Pike, Rebecca Romijn as
Number One and Ethan Peck as Spock, Season One of the series will
consist of 10 episodes and will run through July 7th.
The Captains Chair featured in this photostudy is currently on display at Star Trek: Mission Chicago, the ViacomCBS
sponsored fan convention taking place from April 8 - 10, 2022 at the
massive McCormick Place center in Chicago, Illinois. It is being used as a special photo-op station, where fans can pose while seated in the chair and be photographed to receive a souvenir special effects shot of themselves with the green-screen background of the picture digitally replaced by surrounding U.S.S. Enterprise Bridge workstation imagery. This particular chair, while not an actual screen used fixture from the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds filming sets at CBS Stages Canada in Mississauga, Ontario, was likely crafted by production or studio personnel that followed Strange New Worlds Art Department guidance. The attractive design is highly reminiscent of the original Captains Chair from Star Trek: TOS and features a central black cushion arrangement with narrow angled armrests that closely aligns with the famous appearance of Captain Kirk's chair from The Original Series; which actually made use of a mass marketed MidCentury Modern furniture piece designed by Arthur Umanoff and sold by Madison Furniture Industries in the 1960s as a modular seating arrangement in their Dimension Twenty Four Collection -- commonly referred to as a Madison Chair.
Special thanks to my friend and fellow Star Trek fan T.J. Babinetz, currently on site at Star Trek: Mission Chicago,
for his very gracious permission to display his detailed photography of the Captains Chair; which documents its appearance and intricate design features in a careful and meticulous way.
Some additional views of the overall chair appearance ...
Some closeup shots of the right hand armrest and control panel details ...
Note that the right hand control panel enables the Captain to trigger various starship operational status modes with buttons labelled "Battle Stations", "Yellow Alert", "Red Alert" and "Cancel Alert" as well as tie-ins to various ships departments such as "Ops", "Engineering", "Tactical" and "Comms". The panel also features a "Raise Shields" button and a four-way keypad associated with forward/rear and port/starboard photon torpedoes. In what is likely an Art Department inside-joke, one button contains the label "Spore Drive" - a reference to the unique propulsion system featured on the U.S.S Discovery from Star Trek: Discovery ... which was never part of the original starship Enterprise design in known TOS history ...
Some closeup shots of the left hand armrest and control panel details ...
The left hand control panel allows the Captain to signal additional starship operational modes, such as "General Quarters"; perform various communication functions via buttons labelled "Hail", "Answer", "Intercom", "Ship to Ship", "Encrypted", "Open Channel" etc. and famously, initiate the Captain's Log recording by depressing a "Record Log" button. A four way keypad is associated with forward/rear and port/starboard phasers.
Below, a composite image presents the Strange New Worlds Captains Chair design alongside the screen used Original Series Captains Chair for comparison purposes. The image of the TOS Chair was taken when it was consigned for sale in the historic Profiles In History Bob Justman Star Trek Auction held on June 27th, 2002. (The TOS chair sold for a then record $304,750 to Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, for display in his Seattle Museum of Pop Culture memorabilia holdings.)
Anson Mount as seen in a recent Star Trek: Strange New Worlds character teaser shot, sitting in what appears to be a near identical command chair design ...
