John Eaves is the man responsible for the design of the next Star Trek starship, the titular Enterprise of Series V. Interviewed at the WonderFest Convention in Kentucky, he revealed a few tantalising details about his work for the new Trek series.

"From where I'm at work on the show, the story is brilliant. I think the series is going to be really good," he told the LCARS Computer Network.

Eaves said the new ship would be smaller than Kirk's Enterprise, but added that the final design is still being worked on. He hinted that fans of the Akira class ship, last seen in 'Star Trek: First Contact' will be pleased with his final design. As for the uniforms and make-up, "Bob Blackman is doing the uniforms, which he always has. Mike Westmore is doing the makeup. And both their magic is shining like it always does. They have no trouble coming up with what's going to be perfect for that time, yet pull to what Star Trek is supposed to be."

As senior illustrator for the show, Eaves will largley be responsible for the look and feel of much of the technology in the series. "The look of the show is, I think, is Star Trek, but it's not," he commented. "The stories I think are a lot more along the lines of what the old show and TNG used to be. More high adventure as opposed to, like a political theme that is turned into a sci-fi show, which a lot of [Deep Space Nine] would be, kind of current events turned into a show for sake of vested interest. And this is more definitely a high adventure show, where it's going to go."

"It's mostly exteriors that we're having trouble with," he said. "Interiors went pretty well, the bridge through went quick, the corridors, all that look in turn all the look of the Enterprise is definitely retro before Kirk, but to today's standard of what good design would be."

Fans who are worried about "backward continuity" in the new series should be comforted by Eaves' words about how Enterprise will fit into the Star Trek time line. "It's going to be probably the introductory ground for what we know as Captain Kirk's Star Trek and I think everything from his time will be discovered or planned through out the length of the series. It seems that's what they want to do with it."

You can read the full interview with John Eaves, including his thoughts about the first Enterprise episode and Scott Bakula here at the LCARS Computer Network.

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