Trivia / Building of Adventure

• Star Trek: Throughout its various television incarnations, episodes that took place entirely on the ship, (or station in the case of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), used existing sets, and did not feature major guest stars. Called "bottle shows," they were a common cost saving measure employed to keep costs down either because money was starting to run out for the season or the production staff wanted to save money for an episode that required location shooting or more extensive special effects.
  • The infamous Star Trek: The Next Generation second season finale "Shades of Gray" is considered to be a bottle show and a Clip Show. The episode was shot in three days to save time and costs after overruns that took place earlier in the season, such as with the episode "Elementary, Dear Data." Consisting largely of Riker's "memories" over the past two years, the scenes making up the framing story only took three days to shoot compared to the week of shooting most episodes took.
  • Some of the more well received episodes were also bottle shows. The production staff considered the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Doomsday Machine" to be a bottle show due to largely using existing sets and splicing in footage from earlier episodes.