Star Trek: Every Starship Enterprise Ranked From WORST To BEST
8. NCC-1701 (SNW)
The reimagined Enterprise that made its debut in Will You Take My Hand? was a team effort. Outgoing production designer Todd Cherniawsky tasked John Eaves, Scott Schneider and William Budge with bringing an earlier version of Kirk's ship to the screen. When Cherniawsky departed the show, Tamara Deverell took over.
This version of the ship aligns more closely with Doug Drexler's ideas for the NX-01, featuring a more metallic exterior. The nacelles, while perpendicular on Jefferies' design, are swept back here, more closely resembling the ship first seen in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
John Eaves imagined a ship that was several refits away from the ship that was made famous by The Original Series, while remaining visually recognisable as the same ship. As it first appeared in Star Trek: Discovery, it had to resemble contemporary ships (such as the Crossfield and Walker classes) without veering too far from familiar territory.
The result successfully blended the old and new aesthetic of the shows. The ship underwent minor revisions when Strange New Worlds was picked up for a series, and, as of the writing of this article, it remains to be seen if this Enterprise will undergo further refits before that show comes to an end.
A detail that was added to the lore in Those Old Scientists directly links this ship with the NX-01, in that the first piece of the new Enterprise contains a piece of the last. While perhaps not as directly connected as the USS Titan-A and the Enterprise-G, this subtle addition to continuity further cements the NX class in Star Trek's history, now updated with this version of the Constitution class.