In the beginning, there was Picard

As you may have noticed, I’ve been reviewing a lot of Star Trek episodes. I finally decided to get organized and review entire seasons of the series. It’s hard to believe that almost 20 years have passed since the original series aired. (I was only twelve at the time; don’t I feel old.)

I’m still debating as to whether or not to recommend the first season; as you may have noticed, I don’t think too highly of the first-season episodes. Many series, in their first season, have to establish themselves. While The Next Generation had a prior series to build upon, it also had the added burden of trying to differentiate itself from said series.

The Next Generation begins 75 years after the original series (hereafter referred to as TOS) ended. I’m sure everyone’s heard of Spock and Kirk and Dr. McCoy. The new Enterprise, NCC 1701-D, has Captain Jean-Luc Picard in command with Commander William Riker as his first officer.

Their first mission is to the Farpoint station; along the way, they meet Q, an omnipotent being that puts them on trial for the crimes of humanity. They get out of it, but seem to find other dilemmas. In “Justice", Wesley Crusher (son of the ship’s doctor, Beverly Crusher) is sentenced to death. The ship has to find a way to save him without violating the Prime Directive.

If you want to get all of the details, I’ll be posting links to the individual episodes later in this review. I don’t really want to get into those here; I’d like to concentrate on the season set as a whole. (I rented it from NetFlix, so I can’t comment on packaging.)

My main gripe with the season set is the lack of bonus features. There are a few segments on the last disc, but they’re mostly interviews. (One is about the characters while another is about how TNG came into being.) Most of the non-Trek series that I’ve rented have some sort of commentary about the episodes or something. Yes, what TNG season one has is interesting, but it doesn’t really cover a lot of stuff that I haven’t seen before. I think that they might have been better having stuff on the individual episodes.

Also, as I said, TNG was trying to break away from TOS in its first season and it wasn’t doing a very good job of it. Several episodes, like The Naked Now and The Neutral Zone, were obvious imitations of episodes from TOS. (It wasn’t really until the third season that the show started to pick up.)

There are certain aspects of the first season that seemed to have been developed well. Riker has a history with the ship’s counselor, Deanna Troi. (She’s half human and half Betazoid, an empathic race.) Dr. Crusher was widowed due to a decision that Picard had to make. (Her husband, Jack Crusher, served under him.) Many of the things established during this season would go on to set up later season pretty well.

I would think that you would have to have seen The Original Series to like this one, but I’ve heard of people liking one of the other spin-offs but not others. The Next Generation does have a much higher quality that TOS. Granted, the two series aired several decades apart, but there seems to have been a lot more detail to TNG.

Also, the episodes in first-season set are generally of very high quality. Even though they aired a while ago, they seem to have been remastered or something. There are a few scenes where the quality suffered, but aside from that, you’d think that they were made yesterday.

It’s pretty easy to navigate each disc. When you put it in, you go to a menu to select the episode you want. With the sets for the first to seasons of Deep Space Nine, the DVD player couldn’t seem to tell one disc from the other. (You know how with some DVD players, the DVD player will resume a movie if you take the DVD out mid-movie? The one I played it on would ‘resume’ from one disc to the other.) I didn’t get that with this set, but that could have been because I didn’t get the DVDs too close together.

Here’s the breakdown of the episodes on each disc:

Disc 1: Encounter at Farpoint, The Naked Now and Code of Honor

Disc 2: The Last Outpost, Where No One Has Gone Before, Lonely Among Us and Justice

Disc 3: The Battle, Hide and Q, Haven and The Big Goodbye

Disc 4: Datalore, Angel One, 11001001 and Too Short a Season

Disc 5: When the Bough Breaks, Home Soil, Coming of Age and Heart of Glory

Disc 6: Arsenal of Freedom, Symbosis, Skin of Evil and We'll Always Have Paris

Disc 7: Conspiracy andThe Neutral Zone as well as the special features

My overall rating is three stars, mostly because the set relies mainly on the episodes and I don’t think that the episodes are that strong. I don’t think that the features are worth buying the DVD set for, however that’s not to say that you shouldn’t get it.

I would say that if you’ve already decided to get the first season, go and get it on DVD. If you’re only interested in the features, just rent the seventh disc. If you’re not at all interested in buying the first season, then I’m not going to try to talk you into it.


NetFlix:
http://www.epinions.com/content_142673350276

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - The Complete First Season:
http://www.epinions.com/content_158697557636

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - The Complete Second Season:
http://www.epinions.com/content_177977724548

Highlander: The Series, Ep. 1-22 - Season One:
http://www.epinions.com/content_149089128068

Highlander: Season Two:
http://www.epinions.com/content_153596300932

Highlander: The Series - Season Three:
http://www.epinions.com/content_172652793476

Highlander: The Series - Season Four
http://www.epinions.com/content_188108541572