Voyager was blindingly bright compared to Picard. “It was cool on Voyager when we turned off the lights for Red Alert. What if we left the lights off all of the time?”
Watching through TOS again I’ve noticed that most episodes the bridge is lit, but some episodes it’s dark, even when not under alert conditions. I just realized today that whatever the technical reasons for it, in-universe it’s indicating day shift/night shift like on a seafaring ship.
They did it purposefully on TNG, and then Voyager/First Contact the lights dropped during alert conditions. Voyager also did the night shift lighting a couple of times. DS9 has such a huge room for Ops that it was always lit unless the plot called for a power outage.
Add: I just remembered, The Defiant doesn’t drop the lights during red alert, but it does when the ship is cloaked. Interesting distinction.
DS9 had a whole station to show the day/night shift. They would turn down the lights in the promenade and close Quarks after hours, but leave the light on in Ops, which really makes more sense anyway.
We’re in danger! Go to nightclub mode!
Discovery: “Activate the wall-mounted flame throwers!” =/
“But everybody hated it when all these other shows went dark”
“…We’ll make it work”
Narrator: They didn’t.
I mean, when the lights worked. But Voyager was getting messed up all the time, so a lot of episodes are of a half-destroyed ship bathed in darkness.
Meanwhile on Deep Space 9:
This is why the pyrotechnics have been getting progressively more extreme, to compensate for the ships getting darker. All the energy not used for lighting has to go somewhere.
Deep Space Nine was right there…
Absorbing all the light that the Kurtzman era won’t use.
