Customer Reviews

Star Trek The Original Series - The Complete Seasons 1-3

5 star:		(68)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Star Trek was a ground-breaking series, but a few of the episodes (especially early in Season 1 before the main characters come into their own) are pretty painful to watch. 4 stars overall for the 3 seasons, but many of the episodes are 5-star. No doubt you have seen the show on TV (edited to fit in more commercials), and other reviewers on Amazon have written excellent reviews for the single season editions so I won't go into details. I just want to summarize some information that may be helpful in deciding whether to buy this set now, or wait until later...

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. This fits inside a thin paper sleeve which will no doubt tear soon, and the accompanying paper booklet does not fit in the sleeve. So you have to go though several levels to get to the disks, and the booklet falls out each time.

Third, as others have hinted, Paramount has been remastering all the episodes with new CGI for the ships, and for some other effects. It's the same ship, it just looks real now instead of like a model on a string. The sound is also being remastered (and in a few cases the music is being re-recorded). The picture is also being cleaned up. These episodes are currently airing on affiliate stations as they are completed (also edited to fit in more commercials). You can go to the Paramount website and navigate through their 'home video' page links/search/etc until you find the Star Trek pages. There you can download previews and information. I've seen a couple of these remastered episodes airing locally, and TOS has never looked so good. Be aware that as of this writing, Paramount has not committed to releasing the re-mastered series on DVD, but I have no doubt that they will as they have a history of getting as much money from Trek fans as possible.

- UPDATE: The revised episodes are being released in dual format (High Def DVD and Standard DVD) beginning with Season 1 in November of 2007 - Star Trek The Original Series - The Complete First Season (Combo HD DVD and Standard DVD) [HD DVD]. As of this writing, Amazon's price for the first season is nearly as high as this set of all three seasons. If you are patient, no doubt the price will eventually come down, as this is Paramount's pattern.

The bottom line...if you want the series with all the original effects (cloth backdrops, the same planet tinted different colors, reused ship clips, etc) go for this set. I doubt if it will get any less expensive than it is at the time of this review. But download some of the remastered previews from the Paramount site first, and if you can, watch the remastered episodes on TV before making up your mind. They aren't altering anything that significantly changes the show, and it looks stunning compared to this set. If you want the remastered 'improved' version though, you will have to wait until Paramount releases it (season by season, and eventually the full set), and expect to pay a lot more than this set, unless you are willing to wait a year or more after release. Finally, if you decide to order this set, check all the disks as soon as possible, as it appears there are defective sets being sold. Hope this helps in the decision...live long and prosper :-)

I couldn't give Star Trek any less than 4 stars simply because it's Star Trek, a show that I've been watching since I was a baby, and has had an immense influence on my life. The Original Series is an important show, and finally being able to get it in an all-in-one package for a (fairly) reasonable price has taken too long. There was no way I as a rabid Star Trek fan wasn't going to beg for this for Xmas. I'm glad I have it in my collection.

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.

Don't get me wrong - I love the old gen. Love, love the old Gen. The transfers? Great - didn't have a problem there. The packaging? Yeah, the inside sleeve was a little cheap but otherwise - smooth sailing. And the extras? Outstanding.

BUT.

Why, why are they making us shell out all the big time cabbage for this set? Compared to other season sets, you have to mortgage your house to buy this one. They don't even give you anything special for buying the whole set other than wrapping them all together in a little cardboard sleeve. And it's bad enough Paramount is making a major cash grab...I discovered the other day that there are other extras that they've included on European sets BUT not the North American one.

They include:

Kiss & Tell - Romance In The 23rd Century (8:19): William Shatner and story editor Dorothy Fontana talk about the multitude of women that Kirk managed to get 'involved' with during the course of the show. Also includes Nichelle Nichols talking about some suggestive scenes between Uhura and Scotty and Walter Koenig talks about the revealing costumes the actresses wore on the show.

Trekker Connections (3:42): A little game for the viewer to play with cast members like six degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Star Trek's Favourite Moments (17:09): Cast and crew members from the newer shows such as Michael Dorn (TNG), Ethan Philips (Voy), John Billingsley (Ent), Jeffrey Combs (DS9), Vaughn Armstrong (Ent), Robert O'Reilley (TNG) and Tim Russ (Voy) talk about their memories of the show.

Collectible Trek (14:26): Paramount archivist Penny Juday talks about the money that some people will pay for genuine Star Trek collectibles.

Considering the serious gouging, it wouldn't have killed them to stuff these on here. There's also trailers for The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager DVD sets they didn't include but that's just as well since there's disclaimers to sell Trek DVD product all over the DVDs. I bought the set, they have my money and now they want more of it?

All in all, it is a tremendous set, considering the major cash you had to spend before buying all the episodes individually. It just would've been nice to see Paramount really roll back the price tag and roll out the red carpet for the Trek fans who've been lining their pockets all these years.

I got this set last December and slowly watched the episodes in order, after not having seen them for many, many years. If you're buying this set, it's obvious that you already love the original series, so I won't spend time debating which are the greatest episodes, but they're all here, with a decent amount of bonus features to boot, including a dedicated "Life After Trek" for each main cast member, interviews with the writers and producers, and text commentary from writers on selected episodes (typically the Okudas). The episodes are in air-date order, rather than production order; I don't know if this is a bone of contention with die-hard fans.

I give this DVD set 3 stars and not 5 because:
-I would have liked more bonus footage (gag reel? outtakes, deleted scenes? Shatner performing Rocket Man?)
-better film cleanup was needed for some of the episodes. Some are excellent, and the color looks great across the board, but you can see that the film is dirty/damaged in some places. There is one stock shot they use all the time which is really filthy (the Enterprise circling a planet).
-TOO EXPENSIVE!!! Paramount needs to find a way to make their trek stuff FAR CHEAPER!

The program content, Star Trek The Original Series, rates five stars. The DVD set drops a star for the slow loading menu that you have to keep going back to along with the other mandatory screens that you can't fast forward through. So it's about as fast to find and view an episode as with the off-air VHS recordings that I made back in the early 80's, but the picture quality is better.

I have been a fan of Star Trek since the original showing in the 60's and was eager to finally obtain the dvds. It is nice to have them, but it is disappointing that not only did Paramount not clean up the video but they used the edited versions for the dvds that were released back in the late 70's to fit in more commercials. None of the episodes are intact and all have scenes and dialogue missing. It is a shame that not only does Paramount fail to bother releasing the full versions, but they are hoping that we don't realize it when viewing them. While some argue they are uncut, the missing parts are indeed gone. For example, during the episode where the Enterprise is hijacked to Eden in the Neutral Zone, the discussion with McCoy about the leaders deformed and diseased ears is missing. While the cuts are not significant in length or may seem trivial to some, they do exist. The 35 mm film that Paramount used for the dvd's where those that were edited and provided for syndication after NBC dropped the program, not the original ones that they used.

As others have indicated the series must get five stars, but this DVD distribution must cost it at least a star. The transfer quality stinks. The disks themselves are assembled in a flimsy plastic wallet with a flimsy plastic spine. The menus are the worst part. There is no play all button anywhere. There are long menu delays between you and your voyage. There are annoying switches regarding optional voice-over narration, not off the main menu, but stuck right in the middle of the episode selection dialogue, to get in your face every time you browse. What a shame.

If these are the genuine paramount released NTSC Region 1 discs, then yes, they have been taken from the original cleaned up 35 mm negatives, they are uncut and they are not sped up. If you bought a set on say, Ebay or through some amazon seller that has these issues than you got a bootleg. The official Parmount releases are fine, look great, are at the proper speed and are uncut..

Where, exactly, does one start talking about THE original series that single-handedly launched the TV sci-fi genre like none that came before it and none has done since? What does one say about the one sci-fi show against which all subsequent sci-fi seems to be some kind of lesser imitation or spinoff? Should discussion begin with the original and imaginative concepts and themes - space warp, time travel, alternate realities and universes, powers of the mind and spirit, transporter beams - or should discussion start by talking about how masterfully familiar human interest themes are woven into a technological vision of the future? Or, maybe discussion should begin with how perfectly the show's central characters both complement and supplement each other at multiple levels of the human experience - the decisive commander-warrior, the rational half-human science officer, and the empathetic healer?

Ever since I began staying up late Friday nights to watch the original airings with my parents almost forty years ago, viewing rerun after rerun in syndication for the next fifteen years, sometimes twice a day, every day, and watching the spinoffs throughout the next fifteen years, the answers to those questions have always stayed just out of my reach. The problem has always been that my favorite Trek episode was usually the one I happened to be watching, or, if I hadn't been watching one, my top choices seemed to wander from episode to episode from day to day, even from morning to noon to night. I was vaguely aware that it had something to do with who I was, or what I was experiencing as a person at that particular moment.

For me, the highlights of season one exemplify my sentiments, from "Where No Man Has Gone Before", the powerful opening episode (which was aired out of sequence, for some strange reason) where two crew members, one a personal friend of Captain Kirk, become endowed with mental powers that grow to such strength as to make them a danger to the ship and crew, to the question and problem of time travel raised in "The City on the Edge of Forever", which is regarded by many fans as possibly the best sci-fi episode ever produced.

Oh, but then there's "Space Seed", whose sequel was produced in the feature film, "The Wrath of Khan", where the Enterprise is commandeered by a rogue group of genetically-engineered super-leaders from the 20th century. Ricardo Montalban may have turned out the two most memorable performances of his career as the charismatic but overly-ambitious Khan. It is even more impressive when one considers that genetic engineering was barely a blip on the scientific radar in 1965 when the episode was written and filmed.

Who can forget "Balance of Terror", which was Trek's rendition of the movie classic "Run Silent, Run Deep", which tells the story of two seasoned commanders playing a deadly game of cat and mouse in in deep space? This episode features Mark Lenard, who would also act the part of Spock's father in several future TV episodes and the feature film, "The Search for Spock".

Season 1 also gives fans the first glimpse of the mischievous but lovable space-rogue Harcourt Fenton (aka "Harry") Mudd in "Mudd's Women". Viewer beware - do not allow the episode's light-hearted tone to obscure it's message, that physical beauty is merely an outward manifestation of one's true, inner beauty.

After the resounding success of season one, season two delivered more of the same while yet retaining the original and imaginative themes and character development. Deforest Kelley, acting the part of Dr. McCoy, is now billed as a leading part in the series, and we are introduced to the young, quirky, and often funny Pavel Chekov.

Season two gives us our first look at the mysterious Vulcan ritual of "pon farr" - the boiling of the Vulcan blood - which drives Vulcans to mate every seven years. "Amok Time" places Kirk between a rock and a hard place as he is maneuvered by a scheming Vulcan female to battle his friend and first officer Spock. The theme of the first Star Trek feature film is also foreshadowed in season two as the crew of the Enterprise are sieged by Nomad, an old Earth space probe that was reprogrammed by an advanced civilization to fulfill its original mission - return to its creator, at all costs.

Season two also led the sci-fi genre as it explored the subject of alternate realities and universes in "Mirror, Mirror", where a transporter accident causes Kirk and his landing party to switch places with their counterparts in an evil, chaotic universe. Rationality is constant in both universes, though, as "evil" Spock figures out what happened and aids "good" Kirk and co. in their return home.

"The Doomsday Machine" tackles the problem of weapons of mass destruction 35 years before the concept became a household term. Always on the cutting edge of sci-fi, season two brings the viewer back to Harry Mudd, who returns in "I, Mudd" a whimsical adaptation of Asimov's "I, Robot" crossed with "The Stepford Wives". Environmental responsibility is addressed in the perennial fan favorite, "The Trouble with Tribbles", which features a warm fuzzy exotic species that overruns both the Enterprise and a deep-space station while consuming a critical supply of super-wheat.

Season two is also rich in material that examines Earth's own history. Imperial governments are critiqued in "Bread and Circuses", where Kirk, Spock, and McCoy encounter the survivors of a previous space-wreck who have modeled a society using Earth's ancient Roman Empire as a model. "A Piece of the Action" revisits the issue of culture contamination as Kirk and Co. encounter an entire planet culture organized around a book called "Chicago Mobs of the 20s". A social experiment runs out of control in "Patterns of Force" as a society is transformed into a 23d century version of Nazi Germany.

At a time when most computers were used for experimental purposes in scientific labs, "The Ultimate Computer" addresses the questions of what might happen if computers ever get smart enough to act on their own volition. History is studied directly for the first time ever in "Assignment: Earth", as the crew of the Enterprise employ their knowledge of the "whiplash effect" to purposefully travel through time. Their investigation of the first moon launch is interrupted as they intercept the mysterious spy-master Gary Seven beaming in from a far-away planet.

Season three is often criticized as being the least original and interesting of the three original Star Trek seasons. Although there may be some truth to that sentiment, I believe it is a matter of degree. To say it is the least interesting of the three is not the same as saying that it is not worth watching. There are still many good episodes to stir the imagination.

In a theme repeated in future Trek spinoffs, Kirk feigns madness leading to his capture by the Romulans in order to execute his master plan to commit espionage aboard a Romulan ship in "The Enterprise Incident". "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" is a powerful allegory of the irrational and destructive nature of racism. The feasibility of artificial intelligence was correctly surmised long before the leading researchers in the field reached the same conclusion in "Requiem for Methuselah" where Kirk and Co. encounter a super-genius who has created a seemingly perfect robot spouse who, in the end, is shown to be nothing more than a sophisticated machine incapable of human feelings. "All Our Yesterdays" revisits the time travel theme in a wonderfully written story about Kirk, Spock, and McCoy's encounter with an automated librarian who is the caretaker of the archives of a great civilization that abandoned its homeworld as their sun nears the end of its life in a catastrophic explosion.

As I watch all these episodes again for what must be the eighth or ninth time, I still see things for the first time I somehow managed to miss throughout all my previous viewings, and I still find myself pondering the large questions of life: who and what is man?, love and hate, war and peace, faith and reason, and all the other issues related to our purpose in this life. The voyage never ended for me.

The Star Trek Collection is a worthy hobby and certainly the largest of the television series DVD Collections (The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise). At around 1400 minutes per box, you are looking at approx 30 boxes with 700 hours of viewing. That is 1 month of non-stop Star Trek. No DVD series comes remotely close to that. The TOS series ends with series III. The total number of TOS episodes from season I to season III is 80. Running time for TOS is approx 60 hours. Get going collecting right now and build up on each succession over the years. By the end you will have a very serious anthology that defines the word awe. This is the kind of item that requires 1 hour a day of your time for the next few years. It is a cherished memory that served your fathers and will serve your children also. Our very planet, Earth, has advanced because of Gene Roddenberry's admirable concept. Roddenberry nailed the premise of the series when he said that he wanted to create a show with characters that we could look up too. `The Bridge' members are like our family. Watch what they do. Then go and spend your life striving for the same on Earth. What engineer, medic, scientist, teacher, worker can not say that Star Trek has not influenced them? The show is this significant in the development of our species. Even Christians respect and quote its authority and it is not hard to see why. The DVD case is beautiful. Make sure to retain the cardboard holder that it sits into as this helps stability on the shelf (although the box can still stand alone the bottom is a little narrow). The shell cracks open down the centre to reveal a box. Sliding out of the box is a small booklet insert with discs in a well designed plastic holder that flip from disc to disc. There are 4 episodes per disc, and 8 discs in total. However the last disc, disc 8, only has two episodes, for a grand total of 30 episodes. The rest of disc 8 is devoted to Star Trek interviews and trailers with the usual expected extras...and then some more. Several of the shows come with a commentary. All the episodes have been remastered to the point that scratches and artefacts are hardly visible. The special effects have been touched up slightly (no strings), however they still retain an overall early look and feel, especially the initial episodes that have budget restrictions. The episodes are ordered not in the sequence they where filmed, but in the sequence that they aired, however each episode has been numbered according to the order they where filmed in. This means on one disc you have shows 4, 2, 12 and 1, in that order. The sound has also been remastered to 5:1 Dolby Digital! Since the show was shot in full frame, these dimensions are retained.

Star Trek, The Original Series (TOS), Season One, is a fine example of the growing stages of any television series. Viewing the episodes in the order they where filmed shows the vision shaping. Spock is the only character to be retained from the pilot episode `The Cage'. Kirk appears after this one. Chekov does not appear until Season Two. Yeoman Smith appears in quite a number of Season One episodes before retiring from the show. The little known Nurse Chapel also appears here as well as the other series. The Enterprise itself is a mere hunk of plastic that does not improve much until Season Two and is funny to see. There are very little space shots in Season One because of the limitations of visual effects. The main viewer of The Bridge looks like a projector screen and is avoided much of the time. When something does appear there it looks completely phoney... and funny. Spock's makeup design goes through a few changes. However, even though we can laugh at much of Season One now, the series does gel and soon we have some fascinating sci-fi theory and execution, even though what we are watching is the equivalent of a stage play. Nobody can critic the quality of the television acting and not since Flash Gordon had the world seen anything like it before. The stories (mostly by DC Fontana) are slightly narrow in their field of vision, however these where to mature in later seasons. Season One of TOS is mostly about alien illusions, shape shifters, psi-power, viruses, alternative universes, intergalactic slavery, military trials, deities, time travel and close hand to hand combat with aliens. There is also the unforgettable award winning `The City on the Edge of Forever' starring Joan Collins. `Operation: Annihilate!' has the flying face huggers type creatures that the movie `Alien' ripped off. Kahn appears in this series. We have both Klingons and Romulans also. The classic `Devil in the Dark' sees Kirk and Spock fight an underground cave monster. Kirk goes hand to hand with a giant reptile in the episode `Arena'. Surprisingly enough very few episodes actually contain all the characters at one time, including Sulu and Scotty. This does not happen until Season Two and then occurs often in Season Three. In TOS Season One characters are sort of alternated from episode to episode. The bottom line for TOS: Season One is that it is a classic. Although it is not necessarily the best of the Seasons, it works well as a very good foundational study for Trekkies who will absolutely adore seeing the variations in design and theme. All in all this is the funny season for 21st century viewers. You are supposed to laugh at this one more than thinking about its topics. And what a laugh it is! Just watch Kirk roll about the desert scrub with a seven foot man in a rubber reptile costume. How can you not want that!

Star Trek, The Original Series (TOS), Season Two, starts to get a budget based on the ratings of TOS Season One. The Enterprise has undergone a new design and looks more than just a hunk of plastic hanging from a string... although not by much. The Bridge looks bigger with more components and consoles. Chekov, who was not in Season One, makes his first appearance here. Season Two has more space shots and attempts are made to film the Enterprise making manoeuvres. Costumes are brushed up a bit, but Kirk's new green sweater might attract some debate. The intro credits have an irritating *ding* sound every few seconds. Both the Green sweater and the *ding* are done away with in Season Three. Apart from a few questionable episodes the series does takeoff in the right direction. There is an instalment with the character Dr. Zefram Cochrane who appears in the movie First Contact. There are themes of rapid aging, furry pets, alien abduction, telepathy, Nazis, advanced computers and time travel. Scotty appears more often than usual. We are introduced into our first space station that looks like pre-deep space nine. The alien costumes are given a sprucing up. In one episode there is a gathering of about twelve various life forms. The big plus side is in the quality of the dialogue between the characters. Spock and Bones go at one another more often. There is tension on deck as well as post-mayhem humour and analysis. At the end of each episode Kirk usually makes a statement to round up the day's affairs. They even crack a joke or two. It is worth it for the episodes "Trouble with Tribbles" and "Patterns of Force", along with being an important instalment for any collector's series. The main thing you will like about Season Two is the improved interaction between the characters. The camera also pans and dollies more, with lots of handheld making the visuals less static than in Season One. The credits and end credits also undergo a revamp, including titles that appear as the episode starts and ends and not just along with the music. There is lots of experimentation and improvement here that has since stood the test of time. The budget boost was certainly worth it.

Star Trek, The Original Series (TOS), Season Three, continues to improve on visual effects and camera work, based on the big budget of Season Two's success. Although the bridge and the Enterprise model have not undergone much of a revamp since Season II the characters are beefed up and the acting is more refined. Kirk looses his green sweater that attracted some debate in Season Two. The credits are now in blue and the music no longer has the irritating *ding* sound every few seconds. There are themes of body organ theft, genetic manipulation, memory loss, alien possession, insanity, time travel, apocalypses, dimensions, psychic powers, empathy, love potions, discrimination, alien abduction, over population, immortality and the sixties. Scotty undergoes several different hairdos. This series is also the one where Kirk kisses Uhura, in "Plato's Stepchildren", the first interracial kiss on American television. In fact Kirk goes on to kiss all the women in Season Three! It is worth it for the episodes "The Cloud Minders", "The Tholian Web", "Spectre of the Gun", "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" along with being an important instalment for any collector's series. The final disc contains the pilot episodes "The Cage" in two different versions. The `original version' is in fact a copy of a black and white broadcast even though it was shot in color. The color edition can be found in the "restored version". Anyway both pilot versions are here in Season III. "The Cage" was eventually remade into an episode and aired. This aired version can be found in TOS Season One. The main thing you will like about Season Three is how it genuinely makes attempts to expand on science-fiction concepts. Additionally there are quite a few story twists that will surprise. At the same time this was to be the final season for TOS, cancelled in the middle of the height of the 60s (summer of 1969) due to low ratings. It is sad when you come to the end of Series III knowing that you have spent the last few months enjoying being beside Kirk, Spock, Bones and Scotty but this did not stop Gene Roddenberry from pitching the idea to turn Star Trek into motion picture films. Thanks to that we have these box office successes to keep us going. Now boldly onto Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) Series I!!!!!!!