Could you please describe your job?

The production designer is responsible for the look of the TV show. I like to say that everything you see on the screen, except for the actors, is in some way influenced by the environments the art department creates. The art department is run by the production designer and the art director [Louise Dorton]. No TV show gets done without some large army of skilled artisans and craftsmen that go to make up the physical investiture you see on the screen. The production designer guides the hands of the draftsmen, the carpenters, the painters, the graphic artists — all the people involved in creating the visual effect of the future.

When did you start working on Star Trek?

My first job on Star Trek was Star Trek: The Next Generation. I worked on the pilot in 1987, the first season and part of the second season. I was then asked to do "Star Trek V" ["The Final Frontier"] so I left the show to do that. I didn't come back to Star Trek for several years until Deep Space Nine when I was asked to design [the] Deep Space Nine [station]. I stayed with that series for the seven years. Meanwhile, I worked on all the features from "Star Trek V" to "Nemesis."

When did you start working on Enterprise and did it conflict with the ending of Star Trek: Voyager?

There wasn't a conflict with Voyager. It was winding down and the producers, Rick Berman and Brannon Braga, were creating a new show in a different time period entirely from Voyager, so there was no conflict. We were able to do this because Voyager was over by the time the pilot for Enterprise was being put together. We were able to take advantage of a lot of the seasoned veterans from Voyager, Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: The Next Generation. To put together a new crew of people that really knew Star Trek inside and out was very fortunate.

What are some of the challenges a new show like Enterprise presents?

Enterprise is much closer to our reality — the early years of the 21st century — than any of the previous Star Trek stories. Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek was in the 23rd century and Star Trek: The Next Generation was another hundred years after that. Instead of going forward, Enterprise is going back to the roots of Starfleet and the whole Starfleet legend by being only a hundred years or so from now. The challenge was to still make it futuristic, but make it more recognizably connected to what is going on in aerospace today and projected to what will be happening in 2150, the time period of Archer and his crew. It's actually been a lot of fun and a breath of fresh air for the franchise to get things the actors can work with; levers, pulleys and gauges. It's more hands on and not quite so slick. Things can go wrong, prototypes haven't been tested. These are things that make for good drama that we can build into the sets.

At what point do you become involved with the episode and at what point do you hand off your part of the episode?

We're finished with the episode once the cameras roll on each set. Then the post production group takes over and puts the opticals to the show, the sound is dubbed, music is mixed, titles are put on. All these things happen with other departments of the production company. Wherever it's necessary to interface, for instance with opticals, our illustrators John Eaves and David Duncan will be called on to give the CGI houses preliminary sketches of the exterior of a new alien ship or the exterior of a colony on a planet. Those things are still under the control of the art department, but always with the collaboration of the department that has to produce the final product. We all work together pretty well. It seems like second nature.

What other departments would you say you work most closely with?

We certainly coordinate with Bob Blackman on costumes and Michael Westmore on the make-up. When you are dealing with aliens, alien culture has to reflect what the aliens look like and those two are much more responsible for what the aliens look like than anyone in the art department would be. What we do is flesh out the environments so that it's believable that these aliens live in that environment.

Are you pleased with the way Enterprise has turned out?

I'm delighted with Enterprise. I think it's the best thing we've done in quite a while, and we've done a lot of good things. I like the cast immensely. Not to take anything away from the other casts, it's just that I think this cast, for this property, at this time (2150) — they're athletic, they're fresh. They're all good actors and an ensemble group that has fun. You can tell that they all like each other and that makes for great chemistry on screen.

Do you have a favorite area of the ship, or a particular set that stands out in your mind?

The bridge is everybody's favorite. It certainly is mine. All the things about the bridge are ideas that we pulled together from years of experience doing these shows. I think it shows — it's a smaller bridge, more intimate, deeper. It's got more dramatic possibilities because it has all the consoles in the right place, facing the screen, facing the captain. And it has some of the characteristics from our previous series. For instance, we have Spock's viewer which is now T'Pol's viewer. One of the key elements at the science station is something that was prominent in the TV series and in the motion pictures. We also have Uhura's earpiece that Linda Park [Hoshi] is now using. We paid homage to some things that really worked from the classic series and created a bridge where all of the things the actor touches works. All the buttons light up, all the levers really move and do something. This gives the actors a sense of reality about the place and I think it helps the stories be more consistently in the 22nd century as opposed to the 23rd or 24th centuries.

How did you feel when you saw the Enterprise pilot "Broken Bow" on the big screen at the Paramount premiere?

I loved it. I wish we could see all the shows on the big screen. They would all translate to the big screen because our director of photography, Marvin Rush, is easily the best DP doing television shows. He could move into features anytime. His work is outstanding.

Do you have a particular favorite episode from Enterprise so far?

Aside from the pilot, I guess the episode in the Vulcan monastery ["The Andorian Incident"] was the most challenging just because of the nature of the number of sets and the quality they had to represent P'Jem, the monastery. It's hard to pick one. I like them all! The writers have done such an incredible job. In the first season of a TV series, quite often you'll get a great looking pilot and then they'll pull back the ambition of the show and try to make it with less money or hire guest stars that cost them less. Paramount is not doing that. Paramount's allowing the writers to write, if anything, even better scripts than the pilot script. And it shows.

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