LEGO Star Trek: U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 Bridge 11385 – Part 1

🖖 Back to Starfleet Engineering

Something a little different tonight! It had been quite a while since we last fired up the webcams for a LEGO stream—the last big build was the Enterprise-D during that wonderfully strange week between Christmas and New Year.

This time, we were heading back to the original Enterprise and beginning the LEGO Star Trek: U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 Bridge set 11385. There would be plenty of bricks, plenty of Star Trek conversation, and—as became immediately apparent—plenty of searching for one extremely specific tiny piece sitting directly in front of me.

The original plan was simple: fourteen bags, two streams. What could possibly go wrong?

Quite a lot, apparently.

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🌌 About the LEGO Star Trek Enterprise Bridge

This 1,701-piece set celebrates the 60th anniversary of Star Trek by recreating one of science fiction’s most recognisable locations: the bridge of the original U.S.S. Enterprise.

Alongside the main bridge, the reverse side forms part of an Enterprise corridor, while the set also includes a detachable main viewscreen and a separate transporter room. Naturally, there is a crew of familiar minifigures too, beginning in this session with Scotty—and, perhaps even more importantly, several Tribbles.

It is a fantastic concept for a display model, especially for anyone who has spent far too many years imagining themselves stepping onto that bridge.

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🚀 Where We Are in the Journey

This was Part 1, so everything started from a pile of unopened bags and gradually became recognisable Starfleet architecture.

There are fourteen numbered bags in total. The original intention was to divide them across two nights, but by the end of this session we had completed bags one through five and were already reconsidering that timetable.

At the current pace, the build will probably stretch to three streams: bags six to ten next, followed by eleven to fourteen on Monday if required. There is no rush—we are building this properly, enjoying the conversations along the way, and attempting not to launch Scotty across the room.

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🔧 What Happens in This Episode

Before construction even started, the evening had the unmistakable feeling of a Starfleet engineering operation being held together with optimism. We had fourteen numbered bags to sort, rather less desk space than would have been useful, and a slightly different camera setup to experiment with while trying to keep everything visible.

The trusty Logitech Brio was handling the overhead view, while the newly acquired DJI Osmo Pocket was being tested as a secondary camera. I picked that up partly in preparation for Comic Con, where my hip is going to make carrying the DSLR and all the usual photography equipment rather impractical. The little DJI has a gimbal and some rather clever tracking capabilities, so the eventual plan is to use it once the entire Enterprise build is finished and take you on a proper close-up walkthrough of the model.

For this stream, however, it introduced a more immediate problem: battery life. It would happily operate as a webcam, but it was running from its internal battery rather than properly charging from the PC. That put a slightly unexpected clock on proceedings before we’d even opened bag one.

The workspace itself was not exactly prepared to Starfleet specifications either. Normally I would have all the bags arranged beforehand, but this time we were effectively conducting a small jumble sale while counting our way through all fourteen of them. Remote controls and whatever else happened to be within reach were gradually recruited as barriers to stop tiny pieces disappearing off the edge of the table.

Chat immediately appreciated the unusual camera angles. FlyingFox21 celebrated the unexpected appearance of my hands, while Stryker_500 later seemed considerably more surprised by the revelation that I apparently have arms as well. At least the new setup was already providing discoveries.

Then we encountered the real enemy of the evening: stickers.

I knew the set used them, but the sheer quantity is genuinely disappointing. This is a £160 set with 1,701 pieces—the piece count very deliberately matching the Enterprise’s 1701 registration—and after the criticism surrounding the number of stickers in the Enterprise model, I had hoped they might have gone in the opposite direction this time. Instead, about 95% of the decorative details here still rely on stickers, with only a couple of printed pieces appearing much later in the build.

The reflective sections inside the transporter are fair enough. I can understand why those might be difficult, or perhaps impossible, to print directly onto the pieces. The consoles, screens, main viewscreen and even the tiny buttons on Kirk’s chair are another matter entirely. At this price, I really think more of those should have been printed.

We therefore made the executive decision that stickers were not happening live. I could not find my tweezers anyway, and the last time I attempted precision LEGO sticker application while sitting between the cameras, the results were not exactly something Starfleet would have signed off. They can be applied carefully off-stream when I can actually sit comfortably and look at what I’m doing.

My unofficial review score consequently lost four points for the sticker situation and another point for the price. I still really like the concept of the set and I’m looking forward to seeing it completed, but they have rather dropped the ball there.

With that controversy safely established, bag one introduced our first minifigure: Scotty. He was assembled and stationed nearby while we began work on the separate transporter room, which quickly introduced gears, rotating components and the first of many searches for incredibly specific pieces that were invariably somewhere directly in front of me.

 

This also established the evening’s official Starfleet engineering vocabulary. There were “knobbly bits,” “twiddly bits,” lantern pieces, tubey bits and, at one point, a “slidy thing with fan stuff on it.” If LEGO ever wants me to rewrite its instruction manuals into terminology everybody can understand, they know where to find me.

Chat became an unofficial engineering support team, regularly helping to spot pieces among the increasingly scattered collection on the desk. Garydsteel, however, received a slightly different position and became responsible for virtually every problem whether he had anything to do with it or not.

Missing piece? Gary.

Wrong orientation? Gary.

Something looked suspiciously unlike the picture in the instructions? Clearly Gary had been interfering again.

The established #blameGary approach soon found itself alongside #blamebussim, while Bus 27 continued to develop its reputation as some sort of travelling curse. Gary had already endured a particularly unpleasant public transport journey, so naturally the bus was now considered capable of influencing LEGO construction from afar.

Despite all of that, the transporter room gradually came together. Its internal mechanism allowed the transporter platform to spin, giving us a neat little representation of somebody being beamed away, and there was even a hidden Tribble feature. Naturally, introducing Tribbles into the stream led to important scientific discussions about whether they could be farmed for fur and, eventually, what they might taste like.

The transporter itself did not retain its official name for very long either. When I asked chat for wrong answers only, “Spock’s Sonic Shower” emerged and immediately became accepted terminology. We subsequently established that this particular deluxe sonic shower also had a tumble-dry feature, because apparently that is how 23rd-century personal hygiene works.

FlyingFox21 offered another interpretation involving a scale replica of my love of dysentery, which somehow developed into the possibility that the structure was actually an impeller capable of propelling dysentery at high speed. It was that sort of evening.

The Star Trek conversation was almost constant while we built. With Trek music accompanying proceedings, we wandered through The Wrath of Khan, Deep Space Nine, Strange New Worlds, Q, Quark, the Ferengi, uniforms and assorted thoughts on the franchise. EntertainJD revealed that the ear creatures from Wrath of Khan had left a lasting impression, and we ended up discussing some of the stranger creative decisions across different generations of Trek.

I also talked about Comic Con in November and how much I am hoping William Shatner will still be able to attend, since he is essentially the reason I am going. The combination of the soundtrack, the bridge slowly appearing on the desk and chat disappearing down various Star Trek conversational rabbit holes made the stream feel rather like a fan gathering with a LEGO construction project happening in the middle of it.

There were plenty of diversions outside Star Trek too. EntertainJD was celebrating a birthday, prompting birthday wishes from everyone and Gary’s characteristically understated “Merry Birthday.” Conversation drifted through delayed parcels, books, cars, public transport, the miserable wind outside and everybody’s plans for the weekend.

ShimCraft arrived after an evening at the pub involving karaoke and admitted that “there may have been some crimes committed,” which was immediately taken as confirmation that trouble had indeed occurred. Vvoornth, meanwhile, was working on a hippie-themed Pershing tank with peace symbols and suitable lettering, which is probably one of the stranger combinations to emerge from a model-building conversation.

The channel’s interactive games were also carrying on around the LEGO. EntertainJD successfully completed a Pokémon hunting contract using a laser pistol, while Gary later attempted to deal with an Ariados using a Claymore Mine. Despite receiving a subscription damage modifier, the Ariados managed to evade him twice and he still lost. His assessment that somebody should only need to “fart and it’s dead” seemed reasonable under the circumstances.

A Hunger Games round also broke out during the evening, with several regulars volunteering as tributes. I somehow emerged as the winner, which immediately resulted in accusations about killing Jade and suggestions that the judge may have been bribed. Even during a quiet LEGO stream, apparently there is always room for competitive survival and Pokémon-based violence.

Once the transporter room was complete in its deliberately unstickered form, bags three, four and five moved us into the main event: the Enterprise bridge itself. The first sections established the circular base framework and deck plating, and the scale of the finished structure finally began to become apparent.

 

This stage involved plenty of mirrored assemblies and repeated components. Some had to be built two, three or six times, and occasionally the tiny multiplier symbol in the instructions was spotted rather later than would have been convenient. At one point something appeared to have gone “drastically wrong,” and for a moment it looked as though we might need to dismantle a sizeable section.

Fortunately, the problem turned out to be confusion around one of those repeated steps rather than a genuine structural disaster. Another section became unnecessarily awkward because the instructions had us install a control console before completing the surrounding framework, leaving me questioning why they had not simply told us to attach it later.

The bridge was also worryingly flimsy for a while. As the curved sections expanded around the central structure, there were several moments when moving it felt rather more adventurous than it should have. Gradually, though, additional connections gave the framework more rigidity and the familiar circular shape started to emerge.

By bag five we were producing repeated floor segments and reaching step 100, which felt like a decent milestone considering it had taken roughly an hour just to reach bag three. The base deck was now substantial enough that you could begin to see where the seats, surrounding consoles and eventual doorway sections were likely to fit.

At that point, the original two-night plan was beginning to look optimistic. We had completed bags one through five of fourteen, so the more sensible proposal became five bags in the first session, another five in the next, and the remaining four on Monday if necessary. Bag six looks as though it should move considerably faster because much of it consists of the same small deck element repeated six times, which we can build simultaneously rather than rediscovering halfway through that the instructions wanted several copies.

If the build does reach Monday, that may actually help with the sticker problem. I can sit down quietly on Sunday while we are not live and apply the stickers to the completed sections. If necessary, I can even open the final bags, remove only the pieces requiring stickers, apply them properly and return them to their bags ready for the final stream.

The other reason to stop at bag five was rather less strategic. Sitting hunched over the desk between the cameras was absolutely murdering my back, while the studio lights had gradually turned the room into an oven. Combined with the secondary camera steadily working its way through its battery, it seemed considerably wiser to stop while we were still ahead.

Naturally, we attempted one final demonstration before doing so.

I held up the base framework of the bridge to show how much progress we had made, then brought the transporter room back over and decided to demonstrate its spinning action properly with Scotty standing inside.

 

Scotty immediately fell onto the floor.

Then the little spinning mechanism apparently broke off inside the transporter.

So instead of ending Part 1 with a triumphant demonstration of 23rd-century transportation technology, we ended with Scotty somewhere beneath the desk and the transporter requiring surgery before the next stream. It was an almost suspiciously appropriate conclusion to an evening where “What could possibly go wrong?” had become something of an unofficial motto.

By the time we wrapped up, though, bags one through five were complete, the transporter room had been built, and the foundations of the Enterprise bridge were clearly taking shape. The sound effects and jukebox had also decided to develop problems of their own, giving me another little technical mystery to investigate before the continuation.

We finished the night by raiding OurChickenLife, swapping Starfleet engineering for the rather more peaceful prospect of feeding chickens and ducks. Next time we will be straight back into bag six with Nurse Chapel, more bridge construction and, hopefully, a repaired transporter.

And tomorrow’s stream will apparently be more organised.

It won’t be.

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📺 Watch the Episode

You can watch the full chaotic beginning of the Enterprise bridge build here:

Watch LEGO Star Trek: U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 Bridge 11385 – Part 1

You can follow the entire build through the LEGO and Brickbuilding playlist, and there are plenty more videos over on the Dr Ravenholm YouTube channel.

If you enjoy the episode, give it a like, leave a comment and subscribe so you do not miss the next stage of construction.

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🔴 Join the Adventure Live

The Enterprise is far from finished, and the best place to witness the next engineering disaster as it happens is live.

Join the crew on Twitch or catch the streams through YouTube. The next build continues with more bridge sections, more Star Trek chat, and hopefully a repaired transporter room.

The live community is a large part of these streams—whether chat is identifying missing bricks, inventing new Starfleet technology or assigning blame to Gary.

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🛰️ Community & Links

There is plenty happening beyond the bridge, and you are always welcome to join the wider crew.

Stay connected while we’re off duty: join us on Discord for games, books, films, tabletop adventures and whatever strange conversation appears next.

Follow the transmissions: you can also find me on TikTok, Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, Threads and X.

For something to accompany your next voyage: my music is available through Spotify and Apple Music.

If you want to support the channel: visit the Fourthwall shop, Teespring store, or leave a tip through Streamlabs.

For more from outside the asylum: explore the Business Centre, download the service brochure, learn more about me, or visit the blog.

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🖖 Until the Next Shift

Five bags down, nine to go. The transporter needs repairs, the bridge is beginning to take shape, and an alarming quantity of stickers is still waiting somewhere in the future.

Until Part 2: keep your Tribbles under control, your tiny pieces within reach, and remember—if anything goes wrong, we can probably blame Gary.

Live long and prosper.

— Dr Ravenholm