Blu-ray Review: 'Star Trek: The Next Generation - Season One'

“Star Trek: The Next Generation - Season One”

In the fall of 1986, following the success of “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home”,  Paramount Pictures’ television division convinced  Gene Roddenberry to create a new Star Trek series. Roddenberry agreed after the studio agreed to give him creative control of the series, a condition he set because Paramount had placed Harve Bennett in charge of the post-”Star Trek: The Motion Picture” feature films several years before.

The veteran “Star Trek” creator  reunited most of the Original Series’ brain trust, including D.C. Fontana, Robert H. Justman, Edward Milkis, and David Gerrold, and came up with a new concept built on the foundation of the 1966-1969 TV series and its movie spin-offs and yet stood on its own storytelling merits.    

The new show was set almost 100 years after Captain James T. Kirk’s original five-year mission and featured a new Starship Enterprise. Given the Starfleet registry number NCC-1701-D, the  Galaxy-class ship was larger than Kirk’s Enterprise.  Designed for a 30-year mission of exploration, the new Enterprise had the capacity to carry over 800 crew members and their families..

 

Launching a New Enterprise

 

Star Trek: The Next Generation was designed as an ensemble show in contrast to The Original Series triad of leading man William Shatner and supporting actors Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley. Instead, Roddenberry and his team created nine major characters, including:

• Capt. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart)
• First Officer Cmdr. William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes)
• Ops Officer Lt. Cmdr. Data (Brent Spiner)
• Navigator Lt. (j.g.) Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton)
• Security Chief Lt. Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby)
• Counselor Lt. Cmdr. Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis)
• Asst. Chief of Security Lt. (j.g.) Worf (Michael Dorn)
• Chief Medical Officer Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden)
• Wesley Crusher, Dr. Crusher’s son (Wil Wheaton) 

Except for the name of the ship and some background elements (the Federation, Starfleet, deep space exploration, Star Trek: The Next Generation was designed to be free from too many links to Roddenberry’s “classic” Trek. Writers were to avoid stories dependent on Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans or other established characters from The Original Series.  Aside from a few nods to Kirk’s ship and her crew,Star Trek: The Next Generation’s  focus was on its new cast and on all-new stories.

The show was pitched to the major networks, including NBC. Despite the success of Star Trek: The Original Series in syndication and the box office performance of the spin-off movies, the networks declined. This worked in Paramount’s favor; the studio preferred offering Star Trek: The Next Generation to individual TV markets in first run syndication. This would free the producers from interference by the networks’ Standards and Practices departments (the censors) and give writers the creative space they needed.

However, Paramount truly was going where no one had gone before. As co-executive producer Rick Berman later explained, “Star Trek: The Next Generation had three strikes against it before it even made it on the air. It was an original syndicated series. It was a science fiction series. It was a  syndicated science fiction sequel.” If there was a recipe for a potential ratings disaster, The Next Generation had all the ingredients.   

Paramount announced the series’ creation on October 10, 1986. The cast was introduced in May 1987. Four months later, on Sept. 28, 1987, Star Trek: The Next Generation made its debut with a two-hour TV movie,Encounter at Farpoint.

Growing Pains

 

Star Trek: The Next Generation’s first season had its fair share of problems. Some of the  writers and producers who had worked in Star Trek: The Original Series – including  David Gerrold, D.C. Fontana, and Eddie Milkis – helped Roddenberry in the early stages of pre-production. However, creative differences with “the Great Bird of the Galaxy” caused most of them to leave. Milkis was gone before filming began onEncounter at Farpoint, and Gerrold left by the time the seventh episode aired. Only Robert H. Justman, the associate producer for Star Trek: The Original Series and the creator of Next Generation’s Lt. Worf, stayed till the end of the season. Then he retired.

There were various reasons why Star Trek: The Next Generation had so many growing pains during its first season. One, of course, is that no television series ever has a perfect first season. The characters may be well-defined in a show’s “bible,” but it takes time for the writers and actors to get their heads into how these people think and behave.

It took several weeks for Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, Marina Sirtis, Denise Crosby and the other cast members to gel as a team and embody their characters. The first batches of episodes show the actors gamely grappling to “get into” their roles. By Episode 26 (The Neutral Zone), however, the cast is more at ease on the Enterprise set and the characters are more appealing.

 

The biggest weakness of the show was in the teleplays. Though many of them had their good bits, the scripts were usually allegorical in nature rather than being straightforward dramas. Many stories had plots in which the Enterprise crew beamed down to an alien planet and learned X, or the aliens would get a lesson in Y from Capt. Picard or other Starfleet personnel. And because The Next Generation was set in a more enlightened era, conflicts were resolved by Capt. Picard’s diplomatic skills rather than by more action-adventure means.

Gene Roddenberry’s insistence that there was to be no interpersonal conflict within the Enterprise crew also limited the series’ dramatic possibilities. Many writers joined the staff eager to be a part of the Star Trek mythos, only to leave in frustration because their scripts were rewritten or rejected by Roddenberry.

Finally, Star Trek: The Next Generation (ST-TNG) had to attract the faithful core of Star Trek: The Original Series’ fans. The original cast was still active and making theatrical features set in the 23rd Century, and many TOS fans complained that Picard, Riker, Data, and Dr. Crusher weren’t Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.

There were other sources of discontent about the new show. Lots of fans complained that the Ferengi were poor substitutes for the Klingon and Romulan adversaries of Kirk’s era. The show was too allegorical or too dependent on Picard’s skills as a diplomat. Other fans strongly disliked Wil Wheaton’s Wesley Crusher; they were annoyed by his precociousness, his ability to save the Enterprise from danger before trained officers could and his seemingly implausible status as an acting ensign on the Bridge.

Still, the show’s ratings were good enough for Paramount to produce the full first season’s slate of 26 episodes. And despite the unevenness of the writing, there were several superb episodes. Tracy Torme’s The Big Goodbye, Robert Lewin and Gene Roddenberry’s Datalore, Maurice Hurley and Robert Lewin’s 1100110011, Joseph Stefano and Hannah Louise Shearer’s Skin of Evil rank among the best episodes of ST-TNG’s freshman season.

The Blu-ray Set:  

CBS Blu-ray, which produces Star Trek home media for Paramount after CBS acquired the franchise’s copyright several years ago, released Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season One on July 24, 2012. The six-disc collection is ensconced in a slim Blu-ray jewel box package. Its cover art (which is duplicated in the cardboard slipcover) features ST-TNG’s Starfleet insignia against a red backdrop. Within the Starfleet delta are portraits of Capt. Picard, Cmdr. Riker and Lt. Cmdr. Data. The background art depicts the Enterprise-D cruising near a planet, with distant stars lying further away.

My Take: I’ve never owned previous Paramount’s VHS or DVD issues of Star Trek: The Next Generation,so I can’t offer a comparison between the Blu-ray edition and its forebears. According to the package blurb and some of the behind-the-scenes materials in the set:

For the first time ever, (viewers) can experience all 25* season one episodes in glorious 1080p high definition, with true high definition visual effects and English language digitally remastered 7.1 sound – or with the original audio.  You’ll witness new picture detail and depth and enjoy spectacular visual effects that have been painstakingly re-created from the original film elements…not upconverted from videotape! Join Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the entire crew of the Enterprise on a voyage of to the next generation…of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

 

In contrast to the remastered versions of Star Trek: The Original Series, the wizards at CBS Video did not replace the 1987-1988 era special effects with 21st Century updates. They did, however, digitally clean up the images directly from the original film used during the show’s production. The result: a vast improvement in video and audio quality that doesn’t compromise the vision of the original directors and effects supervisors.

Fans of behind-the-scenes documentaries will enjoy STARDATE REVISITED: The Origin of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the first in a series of retrospectives about the series and how it was made. As its title suggests, it delves into how and why Paramount decided to make ST-TNG as a first-run syndication series.

STARDATE REVISITED: The Origin of Star Trek: The Next Generation also discusses such topics as production design, the casting process, and some of the difficulties Roddenberry and the production staff encountered during the first season. Denise Crosby’s voluntary exit from ST-TNG is explained in detail, as is Gates McFadden’s firing as Dr. Crusher at the end of Season One.

Written by Robert Meyer Burnett and Roger Lay, Jr. (who also directed), STARDATE REVISITED: The Origin of Star Trek: The Next Generation features new interviews with executive producer Rick Berman, David Gerrold, Rick Sternbach, Michael Okuda and the entire main cast.

Owners of the DVD editions will note that the Mission Logs extras have been bundled into the Blu-ray edition. These short featurettes examine various aspects of the series and show highlights from several episodes.

Viewers can choose to watch each episode with or without its original TV promotional ad. While this feature adds some nostalgia value to the experience, the promos are not presented in high definition. As a result, they look outdated and don’t match the clean and crisp visuals of the episodes.

Despite its various teething problems – many of which had an effect on Season Two – Star Trek: The Next Generation’s first season still has its charms. Patrick Stewart and his fellow cast members perform well enough to keep viewers interested despite the uneven quality of the scripts. The special effects still hold up even though they’re 25 or more years old now, and viewers can see hints that the show will improve in later seasons.

 

 

Capt. Picard: There's still much to do; still so much to learn. Mr. La Forge - engage!

 

Note on Languages (Subtitles and Audio)

 

Though the product listing on Amazon only lists “English” in the Language category, Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season One features various languages in both audio and subtitle options. English is the default selection on the preliminary menu, but viewers may also choose Danish, French, Japanese, Castillian Spanish, Italian, Dutch, German, Finnish, Italian, Norwegian, and Swedish. (Some of these options apply to audio and subtitles, though some apply only to subtitles.)

 

 

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season One

 

Disc One:

Encounter at Farpoint, Parts 1 & 2

The Naked Now

Code of Honor

 

Special Features:

Episodic Promos

Energized! Taking the Next Generation to the Next Level

Star Trek: The Next Generation Archives: The Launch

Disc Two:

Haven

Where No One Has Gone Before

The Last Outpost

Lonely Among Us

Justice

The Battle

 

Special Features:

Episodic Promos

 

Disc Three:

Hide and Q

Too Short a Season

The Big Goodbye

Datalore

Angel One

 

Special Features:

Episodic Promos

 

Disc Four:

1100110011

Home Soil

When the Bough Breaks

Coming of Age

 

Special Features:

Episodic Promos

 

Disc Five:

Heart of Glory

The Arsenal of Freedom

Skin of Evil

Symbiosis

We’ll Always Have Paris

 

Special Features:

Episodic Promos

 

 

 

Disc Six:

Conspiracy

The Neutral Zone

Special Features:

Episodic Promos

STARDATE REVISITED: The Origin of Star Trek: The Next Generation

Gag Reel

DVD Featurettes (“Mission Logs”)

* Reviewer’s Note: The blurb states that Season One consists of 25 episodes instead of 26. This disparity exists because the TV movie Encounter at Farpoint originally aired in a two-hour broadcast in September of 1987. Paramount later split the pilot into two episodes to make it easy for stations to rerun Encounter at Farpoint  without eating up valuable air time.