Star Trek: Ranking The Main Bridges (2025)

Let's just get this out of the way up front: Space station Deep Space 9's Operations Center is not a main bridge. Ops is also not really the heart of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (that would be the Promenade, the most identifiable location on the station and the setting for most of the action in the show).

DS9's Ops is a set that's emblematic of the series – a confusing, hard-edged, Cardassian-styled location that in no way looks like a great place to work (Raktajino-dispensing replicators aside). Ops is dark and shadowy, with various steps and raised consoles arranged with seemingly no real reason, and an elevated commander's office looming over everything like a micromanaging boss.

As a set, DS9's Ops is an incredible achievement by veteran Star Trek production designer Herman Zimmerman (you'll hear a lot about him), a jumbled up mess of a command center that's a far cry from the easily recognizable, ergonomic Starfleet bridges that both the characters and the audience had been used to for decades.

The bridge of the Voyager-A isn't awful by any means - it's simply a dull, metal-on-metal, grey. The consoles sure are nice with those LCARs, but we'll take the OG Voyager any day.

Next.

La Sirena's bridge is more of a cockpit, but it retains the iconic helm console and captain's chair configuration of Star Trek's past vessels.

According to Star Trek: Picard's production designer, Todd Cherniawsky, the huge, open design of La Sirena's interior is meant to reflect the feelings of isolation and emptiness of her commander, Captain Cris Rios. La Sirena's bridge resembles a cargo bay or an engineering section more than a bridge, with cargo containers stacked along the bulkheads and the ship's warp core against the rear wall.

The sheer size of the set, along with the new, late-24th century holographic interfaces, make La Sirena's bridge an impressive setting, serving as a contrast to the bridge of contemporaneous Star Trek: Discovery's ship and helping to create a unique aesthetic for Star Trek: Picard.

Star Trek: Lower Decks' USS Cerritos is the quintessential TNG-era starship, and so is its bridge. A pretty straightforward reinterpretation of the Enterprise-D and Voyager bridges at first glance, the Cerritos bridge is surprisingly detailed and stylish for an animated sitcom.

With roughly the same arrangement of consoles as the Enterprise-D (actually the redesigned Enterprise-D from Star Trek: Generations), the Cerritos bridge incorporates the classic LCARS computer interface styling into the walls and even the carpets.

The Cerritos' bridge is a great design that harkens back to the '90s golden era of Star Trek, surprisingly comforting and oddly faithful when the rest of the franchise is doing its best to carve a new aesthetic niche.

The bridge of the Titan-A is the focal point for much of the action in Star Trek: Picard's third season. However, the audience had already seen this bridge before - sitting atop the USS Stargazer. For the Titan-A, Production Designer Dave Blass went back to an old idea by Mike Okuda.

'Modular Bridges' had been around for years. In essence, Starfleet mass-produced bridge modules and could swap them out when the occasion arose. This was initially set to explain why the Enterprise-A had several different bridge designs (more on that later).

The Titan-A, similar as it was to the USS Stargazer, and the briefly glimpsed (via viewscreen) USS Enterprise-F, was a powerhouse of slick visuals and shiny flooring. The darkness may not have universal appeal, though it lent itself well to the darker themes of Picard's final year. The neon blue strip lighting, as well as the white under-stair lights, served mostly to highlight rather than floodlight. The seats evoked memories of the Enterprise-E, while the large Observation Lounge directly to the aft of the Captain's chair seems to be an homage to that scene in Star Trek: First Contact.

The Titan-A, and indeed the overall design of 25th Century Starfleet, was put in sharp relief with the return of the Enterprise-D. It also asked the immortal question: with, or without, the carpets?

For it's tenure as the newly christened Enterprise-G - they seem to have opted for the latter. 

The bridge of the USS Dauntless NCC-80816 is heavily based on the ship that appeared in Voyager's fourth season finale Hope And Fear. There, the alien Arturis attempted to trick the crew of Voyager with his ship - the USS Dauntless NX-01-A - to lure them into assimilation.

The Starfleet take on this ship wasn't the first time it slipped into the Federation's ranks. The Enterprise episode Azati Prime featured a Dauntless-class, similar to Arturis's ship, zipping past a window of the Enterprise-J. The actual Starfleet ship borrowed many of that alien interloper's features.

The bridge is an almost exact recreation (the Doctor must have had his holoimager handy) down to the tan carpets and walls. The Captain's chair is positioned in the centre of the room, though the railings dividing them from the workstations look more consistent than the changeable forebears. 

Producer and Head Writer for season two Aaron Waltke described the ship as 'heavily inspired' by the original, with most of the crew calling it the 'Dauntless 2' unofficially. 

Matt Jefferies and Joe Jennings refit the iconic bridge of the USS Enterprise for the ultimately aborted spin-off series, Star Trek Phase II, opting not to redesign the set too radically. As Phase II gave way to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, production designer Harold Michaelson was brought in to oversee the sets, swapping out the chairs and rotating Chekov's station toward the camera, but otherwise retaining the Phase II bridge as-is.

The bridge of the refit 1701 was tweaked over the course of its use in The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock (and for its brief appearance as the Enterprise-A in The Voyage Home), with enough variations and modifications to make a list unto itself. Regardless, throughout the first four movies, the Phase II / TMP bridge maintained its basic configuration.

Unfortunately, the motion pictures era bridge of the Enterprise was devoid of most of the color from The Original Series, painted dull grey and never quite popping on screen as the heart and soul of the ship like its 1960s counterpart.

The bridge of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's USS Defiant was exactly what it was meant to be: The stripped down, utilitarian heart of a stripped down, utilitarian starship.

Fitting that simplified, warship-but-not-a-warship look, the Defiant's bridge more closely resembled the arrangement of the original Enterprise than it did the lavishly appointed Enterprise-D or USS Voyager.

Apparently a nightmare to shoot due to its small size, the Defiant bridge was a clear contrast to Deep Space 9's massive Cardassian command center, Ops. But compared to other settings in the franchise, the Defiant's bridge just isn't the most stylish or distinctive work of production design, despite the pedigree of its creator Herman Zimmerman.

Zimmerman would have another shot at a similar, submarine-eseque starship bridge for Star Trek: Enterprise to much greater results several years later. And the less said about the purple carpeting and highlights of the second Defiant's the bridge, the better.

Certainly one of the largest and most impressive bridges in the Star Trek Universe, the bridge of Star Trek: Discovery's USS Discovery is a hybrid of styles ranging from The Next Generation to the Kelvin Timeline.

Designed by Mark Worthington, Disco's bridge reflects the ship's unique bronze and gold exterior color scheme, with a high-domed ceiling and impressively large con and ops consoles. The set is distinguished from other bridges by the "working" holographic displays and dramatic lighting setup.

Discovery's bridge is a fairly straightforward amalgam of past Federation ships, but concept art has surfaced showing that the bridge was very nearly much more ambitious than the kind of bare final version that appears on screen. The NCC-1031's bridge is attractive and flashy but perhaps a bit unnecessarily grand, especially when compared to Star Trek: Discovery's superior take on the bridge of the classic 1701.

The same overall design was retained when the ship received its 32nd-Century upgrade to the USS Discovery-A, with some programmable matter doing much of the heavy lifting, but it was still very clearly recognisable as that refugee ship from the past. 

Herman Zimmerman's second stripped-down submarine of a starship debuted in 2000's Enterprise (aka Star Trek: Enterprise), and it's one of the franchise's most attractive and unique main bridges.

Unlike the sets from the comfy 24th-century that had dominated the franchise during the 90s, Enterprise's NX-01 was a metallic, harder-edged, prototypical Starfleet vessel with interiors to match. Dispensing with the carpeting (on the floors and the walls) as well as the warm lighting and rounded edges, the bridge of the NX-01 is probably the most grounded command center in the franchise, but sleek and futuristic. Or at least retro-futuristic.

The numerous, very clearly 20th-century flat screen monitors built into the set do kind of date the NX-01's bridge, but Star Trek's relationship with technology has always been a muddy one. Your mileage may vary on the revamped fourth season bridge, which did introduce carpeting to the set and added powder blue accents, but the seasons one through three NX-01 bridge is one of the greats – successfully communicating the distinct tone and era of the show while remaining unquestionably Trek.

Herman Zimmerman's bridge from Star Trek: First Contact, Insurrection, and Nemesis evolved over the years but remains one of the most interesting hybrids of Star Trek's 1990s set design.

The bridge of the USS Enterprise-E retains the comfort and warmth of her predecessor, but owing to the new ship's greater tactical edge, there's a bit of the USS Defiant's utilitarianism incorporated into its design. Clearly built on a big screen budget, the Enterprise-E's bridge is lush and vibrant, replete with Mike Okuda's famous LCARS displays and signage, with one of the strangest and coolest new additions... or subtractions.

In Star Trek: First Contact only, the main bridge viewscreen of the Enterprise-E was replaced by a blank wall on which images were "holographically" projected. While this was an interesting and logical advancement in Star Trek tech, the producers ultimately decided that a blank wall taking up a quarter of the Enterprise-E's bridge set wasn't the greatest use of space, so a traditional viewscreen was added for subsequent features.

Minor changes were made to the set throughout its film legacy, including the addition of colourful highlights to match Star Trek: Insurrection's lighter tone, and the removal of much of the color to match Star Trek Nemesis' heavier one. Nevertheless, Zimmerman's Enterprise-E bridge is a great set, and we should've spent more time there than just three movies.

Following the use and reuse of Matt Jefferies and Joe Jennings' Star Trek Phase II bridge in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock, and The Voyage Home, the refit Enterprise bridge was coopted by the production of Star Trek: The Next Generation for that show's various bridges of the week, leaving Kirk and company without a proper home.

As the Hilton-in-space look of Star Trek: The Next Generation was apparently all the rage, director William Shatner hired TNG's production designer Herman Zimmerman to give the new Enterprise-A a similar vibe for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. The Enterprise-A bridge was a brand new set, calling back to the simple and elegant design of The Original Series, while adding new flourishes like leather trim and intricate built-in lighting, as well new 23rd-century interfaces by Mike Okuda.

The Enterprise-A's bridge in The Final Frontier was heavily inspired by the bridge of the Enterprise-D, including the warmer earth-tone carpeting and paint, but that would dramatically change in the next installment, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. It's in that movie where the set became distinct, ditching the tan colors for brushed metallic surfaces and red leather trim.

The Enterprise-A's bridge in The Undiscovered Country is colder and grimier than it had appeared in the other film, but the lived-in look worked perfectly for The Original Series cast's swan song and remains one of the best bridge designs in the franchise.

The "pre-fit" bridge of Pike's Enterprise from Star Trek: Discovery is one of the most faithful and stylish sets in the franchise and certainly one of the best in the CBS All Access era.

Designed by Tamara Deverell, the new-old 1701 bridge is one of the franchise's most advanced in terms of set design, using powder-coated metal in its construction instead of the usual painted wood. The bridge's dramatic glossy black floors and blue lighting scheme create fantastic visual interest, which allows the traditional orange-red accents to pop. Deverell's ingenious use of an outer corridor surrounding the bridge allows it to be larger than its 1960s predecessor, matching the USS Discovery's grandeur without fundamentally altering the source material.

For Strange New Worlds, this design was inherited by the new production crew, led by Production Designer Jonathan Lee. Though he liked the set that was created for Discovery, he felt that for the new series, it needed to be warmer. He did away with some of the cooler blues and included browns, reds, and more motion graphics on the screens. 

Greenlighting a series required the construction of a new viewscreen, as the one depicted in Such Sweet Sorrow had been achieved with visual effects. The redesign was to evoke the feeling of control, but exploration. It was, after all, the brain of the star of the show. 

Among the numerous impossible tasks when JJ Abrams rebooted the Star Trek timeline in 2009, production designer Scott Chambliss was able to successfully translate the "cardboard" sets of the original Enterprise into something appealing and believable for a big-budget movie audience.

The redesign of the Enterprise's interior for Star Trek (2009), Star Trek Into Darkness, and Star Trek Beyond paid homage to Matt Jeffries' classic sets, embracing the 1950s and 60s "Googie" aesthetic, while also feeling believable as far flung futuristic design.

For over a decade, some have derisively referred to the Kelvin Timeline Enterprise's bridge as an Apple Store, but really, what Apple Store are they going to?

Like Tamara Deverell's Star Trek: Discovery Enterprise set, the Kelvin Timeline bridge is a reasonable balance between The Original Series' look and something completely new, exactly what the franchise needed for the rebirth that brought us the rich glut of Star Trek currently streaming on TV today.

The USS Protostar was the first of its class and, for a time, looked like it would be the only one of its class. The overall ship design originated from John Eaves, though director Ben Hibon and Art Director Gia Nguyen pivoted away from his designs, opting for something fresh and different from what had come before.

Star Trek: Prodigy may be in a state of limbo at the moment, but the bridge is still standing. It is bright, spacious, and although the Protostar itself may no longer be with us, the USS Prodigy - also Protostar-class - is currently commanded by Captain Gwyn, along with First Officer Dal. This also reflects the one change between Protostar and Prodigy - the single Captain's chair from Chakotay's ship has gained a partner for Gwyn's.

The consoles use blue LCARs, based on Mike Okuda's designs. There is no viewscreen, but a holographic display can pop up to allow the crew to speak to others. Speaking of holograms, the Protostar bridge can change its appearance. In All The World's A Stage, Matt Jefferies's Original Series design was overlayed on the Protostar, wowing several Enderprizians and more than a few members of the audience.

This holographic technology is something we would very much like to see in the long-gestating third season of Star Trek: Prodigy.

Designed by Richard James, Voyager's command center cleverly incorporates motifs and shapes from the ship's filming miniature, linking the exterior and interior of the USS Voyager in a way no other Trek series had quite done. Voyager's bridge is massive and wide, separating the characters and preventing the cast from properly sharing the screen.

There is another issue - the captain and first officer's chairs are set next to each other, giving equal weight to both positions. Where Captains Kirk, Picard, and Sisko all enjoyed a commanding presence in the center of their bridges, the franchise's first female captain essentially shared her standing with her first officer.

Unintentional politics and dark brown upholstered walls aside, Voyager's bridge did contain some of the best, most intricate Okudagram computer interfaces in the franchise and the use of actual computer monitors gave the set more life than her predecessors.

Matt Jefferies original 1960s bridge for Star Trek is the quintessential starship bridge – there's a reason its configuration has been copied by everything from Stargate to The Orville.

Yes the set used computer controls that look like Jolly Ranchers to us today, but as Jeffries himself attested, the Enterprise bridge was functional:

"We had some talks with the U.S. Navy during the third year of Star Trek and they wanted to know the theory behind the bridge – the slopes and various angles... We explained it to them and I gave them a full-sized vertical section. There is a letter in the file stating that the Navy did use that as a basis for one of their major communications centers."

Quaint by current television and movie standards, you could sometimes see the frayed carpeting and plywood slats, but the clean, simplistic, colourful design holds up today as logical and (best of all) memorable.

All of the starship bridges on this list originated as variations of the classic Enterprise bridge from Star Trek: The Original Series. Some designs hewed very closely to Matt Jefferies' original set, others have gone further afield. Arguably the most successful of these variations, though, is Herman Zimmerman's bridge of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D from Star Trek: The Next Generation – a reinterpretation for the 1980s that still feels fresh and futuristic today.

It's easy to laugh at the pink and baby blue carpeting, padded walls, and cushy chairs of the Enterprise-D bridge, but this was a unique vision of a comfortable, idealized future 24th century, something new when it premiered and something totally unmatched today. For seven seasons, one movie, and a glorious return in Star Trek: Picard, the bridge of the Enterprise-D was as familiar and comfortable as our own living rooms. It made us want to get to the future.

It was reworked for its big screen appearance in Star Trek: Generations; the lights were turned off, and the computer consoles were expanded to make a more dramatic impact. But the bridge that stood for the entire run of Star Trek: The Next Generation is the best bridge in the Star Trek franchise, representing a unique vision, still rooted in Star Trek's past, but communicating the franchise's optimism in the simplest visual language. This was the reason that this original design was brought back for Vox and The Last Generation.

The bridge of the Enterprise-D made you want to sit in its chairs, pull up a console, and boldly go where no one has gone before...