HOW MANY NIMON CONSOLES HAVE YOU SEEN TODAY?

This one has been a long time coming. It’s a look at these two black consoles from The Horns of Nimon. I first mentioned these props way back in January of 2025 where I noted a very similar prop I had found in The Goodies I later found another one in Blakes 7. But I never included it in an update as I thought there must be more of them out there. And, importantly, they must of come from somewhere as they definitely were not created for Who. Well, a thread on Bluesky from Zoe’s Feather Boa prompted a refreshed look for their origins. And, by gum, I’ve found it.

THE HORNS OF NIMON, 1979

Here is first of the two consoles in Nimon. The consoles clearly share common design sensibilities. They are curved in shape and in a shiny black plastic finish. Both also feature circular controls studded with lights on their left and the right sides.

THE HORNS OF NIMON, 1979

Here is the other one. It has some of the features listed above but there are plenty of differences. The two square monitors in the middle of the first console are not present here. Instead there are eight red lights. I’ll come back to those later

THE GOODIES, 1980

Here is that The Goodies appearance from the episode U-Friend or UFO. When I posted about it before I mentioned it’s not an identical match to either Nimon console. However it is very clearly from the same lineage. In particular you can see the distinctive circular control on the left. 

BLAKES’7, 1980

Tim Dickinson pointed this one out on the recent Bluesky thread. But I had already spotted it some time ago in a web site of Blake’s 7 screen grabs Tim had sent me! The episode probably doesn’t need introduction but just in case, it’s City at the Edge of the World.

FULL CIRCLE, 1980

Zoe’s Feather Boa pointed this one out to me. It’s closest in appearance to the second Nimon console. It has the semi circle controls on the sides. But this one is missing the eight red lights in the middle. All of these variants on a similar design got me thinking they must have come from a big production of some kind. But what could it be?

SATURN 3, 1980

Here it is, ground zero for all of these props. Saturn 3 has an overall aesthetic that perfectly matches the consoles. It’s all curvy black corridors and circular control panels. This film features a significant number of consoles, but because the film is directed with real pace and because the overall look of the film matches the props perfectly, it has not been easy to find exact matches. This close up however is a fairly good match for the first of the Nimon consoles

SATURN 3, 1980

And this one is close to second Nimon console. It has 12 red lights in the middle not eight (seconds after this screen shot Farrah Fawcett turns them on and they light up to say ALARM) and it doesn’t have the semi circle controls on the side but it is similar. And, as I have mentioned in the other appearances posted here, there seem to be a lot variants of these props. I imagine all of them are on set for this film but perhaps they don’t get the screen time that these two do.

Before I go just a word in the timings. You’ll notice Saturn 3 is dated 1980 and Nimon is from 1979. Although the film came out in 1980 it was filmed at Shepperton Studios at the beginning of ‘79 some months before Nimon in the studio.