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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
The series' original pilot, "The Cage," featured Jeffrey Hunter as U.S.S. Enterprise captain Christopher Pike--a variation of the role that would eventually catapult William Shatner to TV stardom. Filmed in 1964, the pilot was rejected by NBC the following year, but the network made a rare decision to order a second pilot. "Where No Man Has Gone Before" was filmed in 1965, and only one character from the previous pilot remained--a pointy-eared alien named Spock (played by Leonard Nimoy), whom Roddenberry had retained despite network disapproval. The second pilot was accepted, and production on Star Trek began in earnest with the filming of its first regular episode, "The Corbomite Maneuver."
Never a ratings success despite a growing population of devoted fans, Star Trek was canceled after its second season, prompting a letter-writing campaign that resulted in the series' third-season renewal. It was a mixed blessing, since Roddenberry had departed as producer to protest the network's neglect, and Star Trek's third season contained most of the series' weakest episodes. And yet, the show continued to "to explore strange new worlds…to seek out new life and new civilizations…to boldly go where no man [a phrase later amended to "no one"] has gone before."
There were milestones along the way. The first interracial kiss on network primetime TV (between Shatner and series co-star Nichelle Nichols) furthered a richly positive and expansive view of a better, nobler future for humankind. The series offered a timelessly appealing balance of humor, imagination, and character depth. And at least one episode (Harlan Ellison's "The City on the Edge of Forever") ranks among the finest science fiction stories in any popular medium. Beloved by long-time fans in spite of its cheesy sets and costumes, and the now-dated trappings of late-1960s American culture, "classic Trek" has aged remarkably well, and its sense of adventure and idealism continues to live long and prosper. --Jeff Shannon
The three 2004 DVD sets collect all 79 episodes of the show, including "The Cage" in both a restored color version and the original, never-aired version that alternates between color and black and white. Each set is supplemented by over an hour of featurettes incorporating new and old interviews with Shatner, Nimoy, other cast members, and producers, and there's also some vintage footage of Gene Roddenberry. Accompanying the 20-minute seasonal recaps ("To Boldly Go...") are a number of interesting featurettes: "The Birth of a Timeless Legacy" examines the two pilot episodes and the development of the crew; "Sci-Fi Visionaries" discusses the series' great science fiction writers; Nimoy debunks various rumors in "Reflections of Spock"; "Kirk, Spock & Bones: The Great Trio" focuses on the interplay among Kirk, Spock, and Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley); and, in what is probably his last Star Trek appearance, James Doohan (Scotty), slowed by Alzheimer's but still with a twinkle in his eye, recalls his voiceover roles and his favorite episodes. As they've done for many of the feature-film special editions, Michael Okuda and Denise Okuda provide a pop-up text commentary on four of the episodes filled with history, trivia, and dry wit. It's the first commentary of any kind for a Star Trek TV show, but an audio commentary is still overdue. The technical specs are mostly the same as other Trek TV series--Dolby 5.1, English subtitles--but with the welcome addition of the episode trailers. The plastic cases are an attempt to replicate some of the fun packaging of the series' European DVD releases, but it's a bit clunky, and the paper sleeve around the disc case seems awkward and crude. Still, the sets are a vast improvement both in terms of shelf space and bonus features compared to the old two-episode discs, which were released before full-season boxed sets became the model for television DVDs. --David Horiuchi
Product Description
Customer Reviews
Depending on when you purchase this the individual sets MAY be a better deal (as of 12/09 they are about $24 less)
This is for the Blu-ray three season set. Many folks are rating this based on THE PRICE (that's not what the star sysem is for folks--it's for the overall quality of the sets)my rating is based on the quality of the sets, their packaging and the original episodes themselves NOT THE PRICE.
In a nutshell: The show looks terrific and you can toggle between the original visual effects and the new ones with ease most of the time. The writing for the first two seasons was top notch with the third very much a hit-or-miss affair. The show looks stellar with new digitally prepared "prints" that have been cleaned up, color corrected and had damage repaired.
Extras are virtually identical to the last DVD set which also had the new visuals but we also get 3 new "Trek" extras (for all three seasons) Billy Blackburn's behind-the-scenes footage. This color footage was shot on location but without sound which gives us a unique look behind the production of the show. Ideally CBS/Paramount would have incorporated these into a new featurette with narration by Blackburn, Nimoy, Shatner and others discussing production for the various episodes but they are nice to have here with Blackburn's memories of working on the show.
Included is the original unaired alternate pilot for "Where No Man Has Gone Before" which keeps the original visual effects intact as well as alterned music and the edit is slightly different compared to the aired version.... Read more ›
First, the set I received had several defective disks (1,6,7 in the first season). The program freezes, then eventually skips from seconds to minutes of the show. Amazon has a good exchange policy, and I'm hoping I get a good set this time, but I won't know until I go through all the disks and that will take a while. At least one other reviewer has also recently (fall 2006) received defective disks, so it is likely that there is a bad batch at Amazon at this time.
- UPDATE: I received the replacement set and have watched all the episodes. It has defects too, but I'm keeping this one as they are relatively short, and only affect two episodes of the three seasons.
Second, as many people have noted in the single-season reviews, this has to be the most impractical packaging yet devised by man. The outer plastic cases don't stand upright on their own. They come with what looks like a sales display stand, and will stand upright in these, but I notice the individual stands have been reinforced and weighted in the bottom by what looks like leftover building material. Inside each case is a stack of plastic trays held together by cellophane tape.... Read more ›
But if I could give a separate rating to the quality of the transfer, I'd give it 2 stars. How ironic that a show that deals with humans using technology to achieve and explore has been released by humans witholding technology to maximize profit. Despite a new, cleaned up digital mix of the audio, the video portion of the DVD's still contains the little scratches and video noise that my original videotapes possessed when I bought them in the 80's. There have been too many old movies and TV shows digitally remastered and beautified for me to believe that they couldn't clean these episodes up and give us better picture quality. It's a crime that Paramount continues to milk the original Trek dynasty like this.
It's quite obvious that there will be yet another re-release of the series down the road, but I can't see waiting any longer. The Harry Mudds have won again.
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