TotalTelly.co.uk

Devoted to Popular, Cult and Retro TV

Home

Star Trek - The Next Generation - Series 1-7 - Complete [1987]

RRP: £149.99
Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review

After Star Wars and the successful big-screen Star Trek adventures, it's perhaps not so surprising that Gene Roddenberry managed to convince purse string-wielding studio heads in the 1980s that a Next Generation would be both possible and profitable. But the political climate had changed considerably since the 1960s, the Cold War had wound down, and we were now living in the Age of Greed. To be successful a second time, Star Trek had to change too.

A writer's guide was composed with which to sell and define where the Trek universe was in the 24th Century. The United Federation of Planets was a more appealing ideology to an America keen to see where the Reagan/Gorbachev faceoff was taking them. Starfleet's meritocratic philosophy had always embraced all races and species. Now Earth's utopian history, featuring the abolishment of poverty, was brandished prominently and proudly. The new Enterprise, NCC 1701-D, was no longer a ship of war but an exploration vessel carrying families. The ethical and ethnical flagship also carried a former enemy (the Klingon Worf, played by Michael Dorn), and its Chief Engineer (Geordi LaForge) was blind and black. From every politically correct viewpoint, Paramount executives thought the future looked just swell!

Roddenberry's feminism now contrasted a pilot episode featuring ship's Counsellor Troi (Marina Sirtis) in a mini-skirt with her ongoing inner strengths and also those of Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) and the short-lived Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby). The arrival of Whoopi Goldberg in season 2 as mystic barkeep Guinan is a great example of the good the original Trek did for racial groups--Goldberg has stated that she was inspired to become an actress in large part through seeing Nichelle Nichols' Uhura. Her credibility as an actress helped enormously alongside the strong central performances of Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard), Jonathan Frakes (First Officer Will Riker), and Brent Spiner (Data) in defining another wholly believable environment once again populated with well-defined characters. Star Trek, it turned out, did not depend for its success on any single group of actors.

Like its predecessor in the 1960s, TNG pioneered visual effects on TV, making it an increasingly jaw-dropping show to look at. And thanks also to the enduring success of the original show, phasers, tricorders, communicators and even phase inverters were already familiar to most viewers. But while technology was a useful tool in most crises, it now frequently seemed to be the cause of them too, as the show's writers continually warned about the dangers of over-reliance on technology (the Borg were the ultimate expression of this maxim). The word "technobabble" came to describe a weakness in many TNG scripts, which sacrificed the social and political allegories of the original and relied instead upon invented technological faults and their equally fictitious resolutions to provide drama within the Enterprise's self-contained society. (The holodeck's safety protocol override seemed to be next to the light switch given the number of times crew members were trapped within.) This emphasis on scientific jargon appealed strongly to an audience who were growing up for the first time in the late 1980s with the home computer--and gave rise to the clichéd image of the nerdy Trek fan.

Like in the original Trek, it was in the stories themselves that much of the show's success is to be found. That pesky Prime Directive kept moral dilemmas afloat ("Justice"/"Who Watches the Watchers?"/"First Contact"). More "what if" scenarios came out of time-travel episodes ("Cause and Effect"/"Time's Arrow"/"Yesterday's Enterprise"). And there were some episodes that touched on the political world, such as "The Arsenal of Freedom" questioning the supply of arms, "Chain of Command" decrying the torture of political prisoners and "The Defector", which was called "The Cuban Missile Crisis of The Neutral Zone" by its writer. The show ran for more than twice as many episodes as its progenitor and therefore had more time to explore wider ranging issues. But the choice of issues illustrates the change in the social climate that had occurred with the passing of a couple of decades. "Angel One" covered sexism; "The Outcast" was about homosexuality; "Symbiosis"--drug addiction; "The High Ground"--terrorism; "Ethics"--euthanasia; "Darmok"--language barriers; and "Journey's End"--displacement of Indians from their homeland. It would have been unthinkable for the original series to have tackled most of these.

TNG could so easily have been a failure, but it wasn't. It survived a writer's strike in its second year, the tragic death of Roddenberry just after Trek's 25th anniversary in 1991, and plenty of competition from would-be rival franchises. Yes, its maintenance of an optimistic future was appealing, but the strong stories and readily identifiable characters ensured the viewers' continuing loyalty. --Paul Tonks

The 2nd Best Series of the Star Trek Franchise
Review date: 2008-06-03 Rating: 6 out of 10

Although it was nowhere near as good as its successor, `Deep Space 9,' `The Next Generation' was still far superior to the original series. But then again, Kirk was such a self-obsessed womaniser and the programme was so bogged down in morality and Cold-War propaganda that it could hardly have been any worse.

Whilst `DS9' had the luxury of continuity; a fixed point in space that allowed it to become the hub of more than a dozen long running storylines, the fact that the Enterprise was travelling through space meant that the writers had no choice to fall back on the countless clichés that have haunted us from the beginning.

The `Time Travel' episode, the `Alternate Reality' episode, the `Perfect Society With a Dark Secret' episode... The list goes on and on.

Some of the episodes were truly spectacular, others were only mediocre at best whilst still more were utterly appalling. But because of the lack of external continuity, the success of every episode depended on the cast. And at the end of the day, their personalities, their growth and their relationships were often far more interesting than the plots of the stories themselves.

Captain Picard was without a doubt one of the finest Captains in Starfleet. His purpose in life was to command a Starship, but his greatest flaw was almost certainly his irrational fear of emotion.

In order to be a great Captain and a great explorer, Picard had convinced himself that he needed to avoid expressing his feelings or having intimate relationships with anyone, especially women. And so although he loved Dr Beverly Crusher, he never did anything about it.

Dr Beverly Crusher herself meanwhile was a very solid character, but it seems that her entire role in the series (aside from being Wesley Crusher's mother) was to share this secret love with Picard.

Of course, it didn't help that Picard's best friend had been married to Beverly, or that Picard had made a choice more than a decade earlier to leave him behind on an away mission, knowing that he would die.

Would having a relationship betray Jack Crusher's memory? Did Picard deliberately leave his friend behind? These questions were never answered. But of course, they didn't have to be.

From the opening of the very first series, Commander William Riker had made it clear that his only ambition in life was to command a Starship. He had sacrificed his relationship with Deanna Troi to focus on his career. And yet, whilst he was offered command of the Drake, the Aries and the Melbourne, he never accepted those commissions.

Riker continually asked himself why he was still `Second' in command. Was he scared of the big chair? Was he more comfortable hiding in Picard's shadow?

The answer of course was that Riker didn't want to just be `A Starfleet Captain.' He wanted to be `The Best Captain in Starfleet.' And having developed an incredible admiration for his friend Captain Picard, he knew that doing so would undoubtedly knock Picard into second place.

He held himself back in order to avoid putting his friend in the shade. Indeed, it's my belief that his sense of humour, his womanising and every other facet of his personality was a deliberate attempt to distinguish himself from Picard. But of course, there was one other crewmember who finished the seventh series with exactly the same rank as he began.

Lieutenant Commander Data was arguably the most important character of the whole programme.

Brent Spiner's performance as the `Android who longed to be Human' was almost certainly the defining role of `The Next Generation,' and it was the basis for many of the best episodes in the entire series.

Data's exploration of himself, of humanity and of the universe around him was truly enthralling and emotive to watch. And as a machine who had to fight to prove to a handful of bigots that he was actually sentient, he was also the inspiration for several episodes in which machines and computer generated images also became self-aware.

The fact that he had to live with both disability and enhanced ability meanwhile meant that Lieutenant Commander Geordie LaForge was by far the most emotionally stable of the crew. Because having been blind since birth, his visor gave him extraordinary vision but forced him to live in constant pain.

After years of struggle, sacrifice and being different from everyone else, he didn't feel that he had to prove himself to the world, nor was he worried about what other people might think.

First as a helmsman and then as the Chief Engineer, LaForge did an excellent job, made friends and lived his life. Indeed, it was only when some people commented on his visor that you were reminded that he was blind.

When push came to shove of course, the heart and soul of Lieutenant Worf's character was that he was both too Klingon to be Human and too Human to be Klingon.

Having no doubt been first introduced to underscore the fact that the Klingon Empire was now an ally, the development of Worf's character was very slow at first. But as a Starfleet officer trapped between two worlds, his self-imposed political exile was the basis for several great episodes.

Councillor Deanna Troi on the other hand was an irritating waste of space. And as a man who studied psychology, I can't help but feel that her character was an expression of the writers' bigotry towards `Namby Pamby, Touchy Feely Head Shrinking.'

She was supposed to be empathic, but in the end her talent was worse than useless. Because almost every time that she could have solved a problem by simply speaking up, she kept silent for one reason or another until it was too late.

At the end of the day, Troi's whole personality could be summed up by the phrase `Physician Heal Thyself.' Because as a trained psychologist whose job was to help others, she couldn't figure out her own emotional problems, let alone deal with them.

As a daughter of an overbearing, abusive and insulting woman, she was trapped between her need to 'Be a Good Little Girl and Do What Mummy Told Her' and her desire to stab the woman repeatedly with a fork. And so instead of dealing with her problems, she just turned to chocolate.

She was still in love with Riker. But she had been hurt and she didn't want to be hurt again. And so when the Enterprise discovered a duplicate of Riker who had been trapped on a planet for the last eight years, although he'd spent every second dreaming about the woman he loved, she might as well have carried a flashing neon sign declaring `The Other Riker Hurt Me & I'm Afraid You'll Hurt Me Too!'

As a teenage boy with incredible potential, Wesley Crusher was also an irritating, whiney and pathetic little runt, utterly crippled by self-doubt.

When Wesley was a boy, Picard had been forced to leave his father to die. So although he dreamed of following in his father's footsteps, Wesley was nonetheless paralysed by the fear of having to make that decision for himself. And towards the end of series three when he started making fun of a bit part character for being nervous and riddled with self-doubt, I think it was just the ultimate example of `The Pot Calling the Kettle Black.'

Until her death at the end of the first series, Lieutenant Yar was a good, but ultimately one-dimensional character.

If only Denise Crosby hadn't decided to quit the programme, then her character might have grown and blossomed into something we cannot imagine. But then again, one of the problems with the first series was that there were just too many officers on the bridge. And in the end, Yar's death allowed Worf to grow into something other than `The Token Klingon.'

When Gates McFadden (Dr Crusher) also decided to leave the programme at the end of series one, her replacement Dr Polaski was by far the worst character ever conceived.

She was smug, vain, opinionated, bigoted, arrogant, blinkered and obsessive. And whilst her constant ridicule and abuse of Data was a vain attempt to recreate the debates between Spock and McCoy, the truth was that a sentient android didn't fit into her fenced-off little world.

As a Doctor, she was obsessed with humans and other biological organisms. Or to be more specific, she was obsessed with playing God.

In her mind, `The Improvement of Humanity' was everything. All machines were either controlled by humans or built to serve humans, and so a sentient android was just something that she couldn't accept.

In the end however, she was booted off the programme and Gates McFadden returned. But throughout `The Next Generation,' there have also been several other `Bit Part' characters who achieved various levels of success.

The most memorable of these of course has simply got to be `Q;' the omnipotent being who Picard described as `Next of Kin to Chaos.'

In the pilot episode, he appeared to stop the Enterprise from encroaching any further into the Galaxy and put the bridge crew on trial for the crimes of humanity.

He also gave the best description of the last five hundred years of Human history that I've ever heard.

`At which time you slaughtered millions, in silly arguments about how to divide the resources of your little world. And four hundred years before that you were murdering each other in quarrels over tribal God images. Since then there has been no indication that humans will ever change.'

As well as his spectacular role as Lieutenant Commander Data, Brent Spiner also played the equally pivotal roles of Data's `Twin Brother' Lore and their creator Dr Nunian Sung.

Lieutenant Barclay, the engineer who replaced Wesley Crusher as the ship's `Bag of Nerves' when he went off to the academy was also pretty good.

The Klingon characters Kempek, Duras and Gowron added depth and continuity to the episodes in which Worf had to deal with his own people.
But as I mentioned before, Lwaxanna Troi was overbearing and insulting with all the charm and social grace of a punch in the stomach, and the episodes in which she appeared were some of the worst ever made.

Having first been shown as a helmsman before operating the transporters for three years, Chief O'Brian's character began to grow and develop in series four, just two years before he was given a leading role in DS9.

Ensign Ro, the Bajoraan officer who joined the programme at the beginning of series five was defensive, abusive, undisciplined and ultimately a traitor. And the thing which both of these last two characters had in common was of course, their hatred of the Cardassians.

Indeed, the one thing that I hate most about this series was the Enterprise's willingness to be tolerant of anyone and to embrace any culture...unless they were Romulan or Cardassian. And whenever they mentioned the names of those races, the crew always spat them out as if they were rancid poison.

Even the Borg were given the benefit of the doubt when the Enterprise first met them. And when the Romulans were also searching for the technology of an ancient civilisation that conquered thousands of other worlds, Picard insisted that they must have been peaceful, and that they could not allow this technology to fall into the hands of the vicious, mass murdering Romulans.

In short, the Romulans and the Cardassians simply took over the role that the Klingons had occupied in the original series; the rival species that was to be hated, distrusted and slaughtered at every turn.

The Ferengi meanwhile were designed to be the mirror opposite of the Federation, forcing the capitalists of America and the rest of the world to take a good, hard look at themselves. And the rest of the species that the Enterprise encountered were just there to prop up the story in each individual episode.

Regardless of these quibbles however, if you are wondering whether the DVD's are worth the price, then yes, they are worth buying.

After watching all of them once, you will no doubt decide that you will never watch some episodes again. But on the whole, the value of owning the really great episodes will far outweigh cost of paying for the mediocre or the bad.

Reviews

Best consider this a 'budget' set thanks to it's low quality, poorly considered packaging.
Review date: 2008-05-17 Rating: 4 out of 10

I'm going to assume those who are interested in this set are familiar with the series itself and will already have an opinion about it, my concern in this review is for the packaging - put simply it's a cheap and lazy effort.

I can only conclude those who've defended the packaging in previous comments started out with pretty low expectations, but if I'm forking out over £100 for a box set I expect a little bit of effort to have gone into the design. When you consider the production cost of the entire boxed set is probably negligible (I'd be surprised if it's much more that £10, all in) and that the production costs of the series itself have been recouped many times over, it's hard to see the combination of high price and low effort as anything other than naked profiteering by Paramount. For what is being pitched as a '20th Anniversary Collector's Set' it is, quite frankly, taking the mickey.

So, what do you get for your money...

- The DVDs are 'presented' in three sets of double-sided trays joined by way of an adhesive strip down one edge to form a sort of book. The plastic is coloured a shade of green that is far more lurid than the photo suggests, almost neon, only adding to the slightly tacky feel. There are three 'books' in total holding the seven series in sequence (but undifferentiated by anything other than the DVD graphics). The trays themselves are an 'off-the-shelf' mass-produced design and the only customisation made for the set is the poor choice of colour, they feel cheap and the centre DVD grip/release looks like the type that will likely break easily - short of sticking them on a spindle I don't think you could spend less on packaging a set of DVDs. The individual 'books' don't even have front and back 'covers' - the first has a cover of a sort, a blank tray that holds what passes for a booklet (more on that later) but the remaining two are uncomfortable and clumsy to handle and feel ill-considered.

- The DVDs themselves appear to be identical in content to those in the slimline boxed sets available for each individual series, the title screens and menus are the same and it appears that the episode distribution matches. So all Paramount seems to have done for this 'Anniversary set' is print different graphics on the DVD face and chuck in an extra DVD of 'special features' (I won't comment on this as I've not watched it yet, so far all the actual video content is fine). The DVD print graphics themselves all follow an identical basic design with each season differentiated by featuring a different character's face, the season name and a disk number. Each disk is also printed with the names of the episodes it contains. This is the only means by which you can find a particular episode

- All of this is held in a cheap metallic silver plastic tray (you can get a fair impression of this from the photo) which is covered in a flimsy thin plastic cover. This is simply a printed plastic sheet that has been folded and glued in a manner usually reserved for disposable packaging - there is nothing 'premium' about this at all.

- The 'booklet' is just an insult and consists of a single side printed poster that has been folded (un-printed side out) to fit within the tray of the first 'book' of DVDs. The graphic design is terrible, I'd expect better of an unqualified amateur; awful '20th Anniversary' logo motif, poorly considered layout, dull typography, choice of cheap paper -I could go on... The content is pretty pointless too, consisting of a single paragraph of copy for each series summarising the episodes and a few bits of trivia - the sort of thing a professional copywriter could sling together in an hour or so. Completely useless and utterly forgettable. The one thing that would be useful - a breakdown of episodes by series and an index method of some sort to find the appropriate disk in the set - is not included, although you do get a big graphic showing you other Paramount product you can buy, and a completely incongruous and ugly 'plaque' listing assorted production luminaries.

In use the set is frustrating for doing anything other than watching everything in sequence or picking an episode at random. If you're a fan of the series and want to watch a particular episode all you have to go on is the episode titles printed on the DVDs themselves - which means taking the entire set out and flicking through the trays until you find an episode name that jogs your memory, you'll then need to play the DVD to see if you got it right. Useless. How hard would it be to provide a decent booklet with a single line episode summary (as you get with the slimline boxed sets) and a simple reference to help you quickly find the right DVD? How hard would it be to split the 'books' of DVDs into individual series rather than just shove them into three so you don't know which 'book' to thumb through to find even a particular series, let alone episode? (Season 3 starts in 'book' one, ends in 'book' two, for example) - it's seems evident that no-one at Paramount has considered anything beyond 'how cheaply can we repackage what we already have and shove them together so they look pretty and we can maximise our profit' - either they're that cynical or they're just incompetent.

So, in summary, it's not unusual to find food packaging that has a higher production values, and the menu you'll get from your local takeaway has probably had more spent on it than the 'booklet' that you get. For the sort of profit Paramount will be making from this set it would have been inconsequential to produce something far superior and worthy of the Star Trek label.

Still, it does remain the cheapest legitimate way to get the entire Star Trek TNG series on DVD and if you consider it a 'budget' set you're expectations will probably be more realistic. If you expect anything special from what is billed as a celebration of the '20th Anniversary' of the franchise though you'll likely be sorely disappointed.

Disgraceful.

There's probably a reason I never got this as a young lad
Review date: 2008-05-07 Rating: 2 out of 10

Never got into 'Star Trek Next Gen' as a kid but being that the wife has the DVDs and is a bit of a fan, I decided to give them a look-see. My word, it's bad. Po-faced, lacking the engaging characters of the original series, cliched-hole-ridden plots...Terrible. One story stood out about two binary aliens and the 'DataLore' episode was pretty engaging but oh, dear...I heard 'Next Gen' gets better - three episodes into series 2 there's no sign as yet. This is bad but there's nothing quite as bad as the Okana episode!

Star Trek Next Generation Seasons 1-7
Review date: 2008-04-23 Rating: 8 out of 10

Finally after years of overpriced and poorly packaged box sets, Paramount have finally released Star Trek The Next Generation as a complete and affordable package.

A review of the series generally would seem almost pointless - If you're even reading this review then you are mostly likely a fan and will already have a very strong opinion - and with this in mind my score of 4/5 is not directed at the quality of the series but at the quality of the package as a whole.

All in all I think this represents very good value for money. It is a nicely presented box set, which takes up far less shelf space than those awful grey plastic sets Paramount released a few years ago, and £100 for 7 series is pretty good value for money really - on a par with similar releases from other studios.

If you've been holding back from buying these on DVD due to the price, here's your chance!

good packaging
Review date: 2007-12-29 Rating: 8 out of 10

no need to say much about the series- having bought the box set recently- i`d like to comment on the packaging. one reviewer said it was a poor and cheap package-i stongly object to that- the package looks very nice on the shelf- it doesn`t occupy much space- very compact and stylish....
i wasn`t able to buy the entire series due to its high price in previous editions but at this price- i must say it is really a bargain- you not not only get the entire series but you get such a lovely box with all the discs wrapped up inside nicely...
i recommend this set to all trekkies- get it while you can- it is really hard to resist this price:)
ps: i gave it 4 stars because i dont like green very much- if it was yellow or red- i`d give it 5 star then:)

Product Details/Specifications

Actor(s):
Patrick Stewart

Creators:
Patrick Stewart (Primary Contributor)

Recording label: Paramount Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: Paramount Home Entertainment
EAN: 5014437939234
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 49
Format: Box set, PAL,
Release date: 2007-09-24
Audience rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 7413 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1987
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: German (Original Language)

TotalTelly.co.uk

Devoted to Popular, Cult and Retro TV

Star Trek - The Next Generation - Series 1-7 - Complete [1987]

Similar Products

Reviews

Product Details/Specifications

Categories

Search

Links