Not my OC
I always thought the glaring western motifs were a tribute to the original concept of Star Trek being “A wagon train to the stars.”
Nah, it’s for the same reason they never went to a jungle world.
Back in the day they just shot everything in the desert outside of LA. It’s the whole reason westerns were a thing in the first place, free setting.
So there was a bunch of props and sets from the studio, and Star Trek could do it for free.
I mean, wasn’t even MASH in the desert for some reason?
The Original Series straight-up used the Downtown Mayberry set from The Andy Griffith Show twice.
Star Trek used a LOT of stuff from other properties due to money. But I still feel like the western sets were used by choice. Especially in Enterprise, which was meta at that point.