Keeping
to their impressive release schedule, Paramount Home Entertainment has
made all twenty-six episodes of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION SEASON
FOUR available on DVD in a seven disc boxed set for an approximate
retail price of $149.98. After having found its definitive voice in season
three, STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION smoothly sailed into its
forth season by producing a number of high caliber episodes, including
the most eagerly awaited cliffhanger resolution in the series history.
Season four episodes also offered a number of the characters a chance
for growth, as well as the opportunity to explore their histories. Sure,
there were a few weaker episodes in season four, but the overwhelming
majority of the stories in that forth year shined like the stars in the
vast expanse of space.
Disc
one contains the episodes The Best Of Both Worlds, Part II,
Family, Brothers and Suddenly Human.
The Best Of Both Worlds, Part II is the follow up to the
series finest episode. With Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) abducted
and assimilated into the Borg collective, it falls to Commander Riker
(Jonathan Frakes) and the crew of the Enterprise to stop the Borg invasion
force before they reach Earth and begin their mission of assimilating
the entire Federation. Family finds the Enterprise in space
dock after their latest encounter with the Borg, which gives Picard and
Lieutenant Worf (Michael Dorn) the opportunity to for somewhat uneasy
reunions with members of their respective families. In Brothers,
Lieutenant Commander Data (Brent Spiner) comes face to face with his creator
Dr. Noonian Soong, as well as his evil android twin Lore. In Suddenly
Human, Captain Picard is faced with the choice of returning a
human teenager to his true family or leaving him with his adoptive father
from an alien race.
Disc
two contains the episodes Remember Me, Legacy,
Reunion and Future Imperfect. In Remember
Me members of the Enterprise crew begin disappearing at an alarming
rate, with Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) being the only person cognizant
that those individuals ever existed. Legacy takes the crew
of the Enterprise on a mission to the home planet of Tasha Yar, where
they encounter the sister of their fallen comrade. Reunion
brings Ambassador K'Ehleyr (Suzie Plakson) on board the Enterprise for
a diplomatic mission to the Klingon Empire, at which time she introduces
Worf to their son. In Future Imperfect, Riker awakens sixteen
years in the future to discover that he is now the captain of the Enterprise
and that he has a child that he cannot remember.
Disc
three contains the episodes Final Mission, The Loss,
Data's Day and The Wounded. Final Mission
gives many Trek fans what they have been clamoring for since the first
season- the departure of Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton), who undertakes
one last mission with Captain Picard before leaving to attend Starfleet
Academy. The Loss paints the character of Deanna Troi (Marina
Sirtis) in an unflattering light, when she loses her empathic abilities
and begins drowning in her own self-pity, that is, until an emergency
on board the Enterprise makes her take stock of her Starfleet training.
Data's Day offers a glimpse into the life of the sentient
android, by following him during a hectic twenty-four hour period on board
the Enterprise, in which he participating in the wedding of two of his
very human and very emotional shipmates. The Wounded introduces
a new federation adversary in this tale of a renegade Starfleet Captain
who brings the federation to the brink of war with his unsanctioned attacks
on the Cardassians.
Disc
four contains the episodes Devil's Due, Clues,
First Contact and Galaxy's Child. In Devil's
Due, Picard arrives on the planet Ventax II, where he goes head
to head with a seemingly omnipotent, but very beautiful woman named Ardra,
who has made the assertion that she is the devil come to collect on a
generations old contract for the entire planet. Clues has
the crew of the Enterprise awakening after an encounter with a strange
phenomenon. Although Data claims that only five minutes have passed, various
crewmembers discover evidence to the contrary and suspect that the android
second officer is lying about what really happened. First Contact
finds Riker injured on a planet that has never had any contact with alien
species and in need of rescue before knowledge of his existence causes
a planet wide panic. In Galaxy's Child, Chief Engineer Geordi
LaForge (LeVar Burton) meet the real version of the woman's whose holographic
image he once fell in love with, and the real thing turns out to be nothing
like the Holodeck version. However, LaForge and his lady are forced to
work together when a space-fairing creature attaches itself to the Enterprise,
thinking that the Starship is its mother.
Disc
five contains the episodes Night Terrors, Identity
Crisis, The Nth Degree and Qpid. Night
Terrors finds the Enterprise trapped in a space phenomenon, with
the crew on the verge of nervous collapse due to dream deprivation, all
except Counselor Troi, who is suffering from a reoccurring nightmare.
In Identity Crisis LaForge meets up with former shipmates
who, along with him, are the only members of an away mission from five
years prior that haven't mysteriously vanished. The Nth Degree
marks the return of reoccurring character Lt. Reginald Barclay (Dwight
Schultz), who in this installment, finds his IQ vastly increased after
an encounter with an alien probe. However, things take a dramatic turn
when Barclay's ever-increasing mind becomes fused with the Enterprise's
main computer. The omnipotent Q (John de Lancie) pays his annual visit
to the crew of the Enterprise in Qpid, a tale in which he
decides to teach Picard a lesson about love by casting him in the role
of Robin Hood.
Disc
six contains the episodes The Drumhead, Half A Life,
The Host and The Mind's Eye. The Drumhead
features guest star Jean Simmons as a Starfleet Admiral who comes out
of retirement to spearhead an investigation into an explosion onboard
the Enterprise, one that disintegrates into a witch hunt when she is unable
to find any evidence of conspirators behind the incident. Half A
Life features a non-comic appearance by Lwaxana Troi (Majel Barrett-Roddenberry)
in this story of an alien scientist on the threshold of a great scientific
breakthrough, who is returning to his home world because he has reached
the age at his people commit ritual suicide. In The Host,
Dr. Crusher falls in love with an alien mediator who is mortally wounded
by an attacking ship. While trying to save his life, Crusher learns that
the man she loves is actually a symbiotic organism living inside a humanoid
host. LaForge is kidnapped by Romulans in The Mind's Eye
and is brainwashed into becoming their instrument in a plot to split the
alliance between the Federation and the Klingon Empire.
Disc
seven contains the episodes In Theory and Redemption,
Part I. In Theory is another one of those intriguing
episodes in which the android Data comes a little closer to understanding
humanity and their emotions. When a female crewmember expresses a romantic
interest in Data, the android creates a new program to express the expected
behaviors. Redemption, Part I proves to be another great
season ending cliffhanger episode. Just as a new leader is about to ascend
to the leadership of the Klingon Empire, another faction within the Empire
threatens civil war. Worf is drawn into the intrigue in an effort to restore
his family honor, and when his overture is met with success the Security
Chief decides to resign his Starfleet commission so he can explore his
heritage.
Paramount
Home Entertainment has made all of the episodes from STAR TREK: THE
NEXT GENERATION SEASON FOUR available on DVD in their proper full
screen aspect ratios of their original broadcasts. Just like the previous
box sets, every season shows signs of improvement in terms of video quality.
I would imagine that this is attributable to the shows increasing budget
and improvements in the technology used to produce the show’s special
effects work. Sequences shot on film that do not utilize any special effects
appear very crisp and nicely defined. Those sequences that include effects,
appear slightly weaker, but not to the degree that they did in the earlier
seasons of the show. Colors appear stronger and cleaner than in previous
seasons as well, plus flesh tones are rendered in a more true to life
manner. Blacks are solid and whites appear stable. Contrast is at that
episodic television level, but generally looks smooth. Shadow detail is
good for this particular type of material. Like the previous sets, four
episodes per dual layered disc don’t bring about any truly noticeable
instances of digital compression artifacts.
The
soundtracks for all the episodes have been upgraded to Dolby Digital 5.1
channel mixes, the results of which are quite nice. For its day, STAR
TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION was a well-recorded show, so moving the
original matrix surround stems into the discrete format produces a cleaner,
tighter sound than it had in the past. Fidelity is very good, with nothing
ever sounding canned or compressed. The forward soundstage tends to dominate
each show’s sound design, with surround usage being limited to occasional
effects, musical fill and reinforcement of the ship’s engine sounds. The
bass channel is pretty solid, and it too, goes a long way to reinforcing
the rumble of the Enterprise’s engines. Dialogue is always crisply rendered
with excellent intelligibility, except when the show’s penchant for techno-babble
goes into overload. English Dolby Surround soundtracks are also encoded
onto the DVDs, as are English subtitles.
Full
motion video, animation and sound serve to enhance the DVD’s interactive
menus, which utilize an interface reminiscent of the Enterprise’s computer
systems, although they appear slightly altered from the earlier releases.
Through the menus, one has access to individual episodes and scene selection
within the episodes, as well as each disc’s set up features. The menu
system on disc seven also provides access to season four’s supplemental
materials, which are similar to those found in the previous sets, but
with some variation. Under the title of Mission Logs, one
will find the following programs: Mission Overview, Selected
Crew Analysis, Departmental Briefings: Production,
New Life And New Civilizations and Chronicles From
The Final Frontier.
Mission
Overview:Year Four
runs about sixteen minutes and offers a series of new and old interviews
cast and crewmembers discussing the season as a whole. Clocking in at
another sixteen minutes is the Selected Crew Analysis, in
which cast members discuss the evolution of their characters, with the
main focus being Wil Wheaton's decision to leave the show that year. Another
sixteen-minute program is Departmental Briefings: Production
in which we are offered a look behind the scenes at various things including
Brent Spiner’s Data makeup and Jonathan Frakes and Patrick Stewart discussing
their directorial opportunities with the show. New Life And New
Civilizations runs thirteen minutes and looks at the challenges
of creating a 24th century production design on a small 20th century budget.
Chronicles From The Final Frontier is an eighteen-minute
program that looks at the writing of the series and the direction that
the creative team wanted to take the show.
Once
again, Paramount delivers the goods with STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION
SEASON FOUR. This is another solid season of the now classic television
series, plus the DVDs looks and sound great. If you are a fan, then picking
up the DVD box set should come as a no brainer.
Keeping
to their impressive release schedule, Paramount Home Entertainment has
made all twenty-six episodes of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION SEASON
FOUR available on DVD in a seven disc boxed set for an approximate
retail price of $149.98. After having found its definitive voice in season
three, STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION smoothly sailed into its
forth season by producing a number of high caliber episodes, including
the most eagerly awaited cliffhanger resolution in the series history.
Season four episodes also offered a number of the characters a chance
for growth, as well as the opportunity to explore their histories. Sure,
there were a few weaker episodes in season four, but the overwhelming
majority of the stories in that forth year shined like the stars in the
vast expanse of space.
Disc
one contains the episodes The Best Of Both Worlds, Part II,
Family, Brothers and Suddenly Human.
The Best Of Both Worlds, Part II is the follow up to the
series finest episode. With Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) abducted
and assimilated into the Borg collective, it falls to Commander Riker
(Jonathan Frakes) and the crew of the Enterprise to stop the Borg invasion
force before they reach Earth and begin their mission of assimilating
the entire Federation. Family finds the Enterprise in space
dock after their latest encounter with the Borg, which gives Picard and
Lieutenant Worf (Michael Dorn) the opportunity to for somewhat uneasy
reunions with members of their respective families. In Brothers,
Lieutenant Commander Data (Brent Spiner) comes face to face with his creator
Dr. Noonian Soong, as well as his evil android twin Lore. In Suddenly
Human, Captain Picard is faced with the choice of returning a
human teenager to his true family or leaving him with his adoptive father
from an alien race.
Disc
two contains the episodes Remember Me, Legacy,
Reunion and Future Imperfect. In Remember
Me members of the Enterprise crew begin disappearing at an alarming
rate, with Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) being the only person cognizant
that those individuals ever existed. Legacy takes the crew
of the Enterprise on a mission to the home planet of Tasha Yar, where
they encounter the sister of their fallen comrade. Reunion
brings Ambassador K'Ehleyr (Suzie Plakson) on board the Enterprise for
a diplomatic mission to the Klingon Empire, at which time she introduces
Worf to their son. In Future Imperfect, Riker awakens sixteen
years in the future to discover that he is now the captain of the Enterprise
and that he has a child that he cannot remember.
Disc
three contains the episodes Final Mission, The Loss,
Data's Day and The Wounded. Final Mission
gives many Trek fans what they have been clamoring for since the first
season- the departure of Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton), who undertakes
one last mission with Captain Picard before leaving to attend Starfleet
Academy. The Loss paints the character of Deanna Troi (Marina
Sirtis) in an unflattering light, when she loses her empathic abilities
and begins drowning in her own self-pity, that is, until an emergency
on board the Enterprise makes her take stock of her Starfleet training.
Data's Day offers a glimpse into the life of the sentient
android, by following him during a hectic twenty-four hour period on board
the Enterprise, in which he participating in the wedding of two of his
very human and very emotional shipmates. The Wounded introduces
a new federation adversary in this tale of a renegade Starfleet Captain
who brings the federation to the brink of war with his unsanctioned attacks
on the Cardassians.
Disc
four contains the episodes Devil's Due, Clues,
First Contact and Galaxy's Child. In Devil's
Due, Picard arrives on the planet Ventax II, where he goes head
to head with a seemingly omnipotent, but very beautiful woman named Ardra,
who has made the assertion that she is the devil come to collect on a
generations old contract for the entire planet. Clues has
the crew of the Enterprise awakening after an encounter with a strange
phenomenon. Although Data claims that only five minutes have passed, various
crewmembers discover evidence to the contrary and suspect that the android
second officer is lying about what really happened. First Contact
finds Riker injured on a planet that has never had any contact with alien
species and in need of rescue before knowledge of his existence causes
a planet wide panic. In Galaxy's Child, Chief Engineer Geordi
LaForge (LeVar Burton) meet the real version of the woman's whose holographic
image he once fell in love with, and the real thing turns out to be nothing
like the Holodeck version. However, LaForge and his lady are forced to
work together when a space-fairing creature attaches itself to the Enterprise,
thinking that the Starship is its mother.
Disc
five contains the episodes Night Terrors, Identity
Crisis, The Nth Degree and Qpid. Night
Terrors finds the Enterprise trapped in a space phenomenon, with
the crew on the verge of nervous collapse due to dream deprivation, all
except Counselor Troi, who is suffering from a reoccurring nightmare.
In Identity Crisis LaForge meets up with former shipmates
who, along with him, are the only members of an away mission from five
years prior that haven't mysteriously vanished. The Nth Degree
marks the return of reoccurring character Lt. Reginald Barclay (Dwight
Schultz), who in this installment, finds his IQ vastly increased after
an encounter with an alien probe. However, things take a dramatic turn
when Barclay's ever-increasing mind becomes fused with the Enterprise's
main computer. The omnipotent Q (John de Lancie) pays his annual visit
to the crew of the Enterprise in Qpid, a tale in which he
decides to teach Picard a lesson about love by casting him in the role
of Robin Hood.
Disc
six contains the episodes The Drumhead, Half A Life,
The Host and The Mind's Eye. The Drumhead
features guest star Jean Simmons as a Starfleet Admiral who comes out
of retirement to spearhead an investigation into an explosion onboard
the Enterprise, one that disintegrates into a witch hunt when she is unable
to find any evidence of conspirators behind the incident. Half A
Life features a non-comic appearance by Lwaxana Troi (Majel Barrett-Roddenberry)
in this story of an alien scientist on the threshold of a great scientific
breakthrough, who is returning to his home world because he has reached
the age at his people commit ritual suicide. In The Host,
Dr. Crusher falls in love with an alien mediator who is mortally wounded
by an attacking ship. While trying to save his life, Crusher learns that
the man she loves is actually a symbiotic organism living inside a humanoid
host. LaForge is kidnapped by Romulans in The Mind's Eye
and is brainwashed into becoming their instrument in a plot to split the
alliance between the Federation and the Klingon Empire.
Disc
seven contains the episodes In Theory and Redemption,
Part I. In Theory is another one of those intriguing
episodes in which the android Data comes a little closer to understanding
humanity and their emotions. When a female crewmember expresses a romantic
interest in Data, the android creates a new program to express the expected
behaviors. Redemption, Part I proves to be another great
season ending cliffhanger episode. Just as a new leader is about to ascend
to the leadership of the Klingon Empire, another faction within the Empire
threatens civil war. Worf is drawn into the intrigue in an effort to restore
his family honor, and when his overture is met with success the Security
Chief decides to resign his Starfleet commission so he can explore his
heritage.
Paramount
Home Entertainment has made all of the episodes from STAR TREK: THE
NEXT GENERATION SEASON FOUR available on DVD in their proper full
screen aspect ratios of their original broadcasts. Just like the previous
box sets, every season shows signs of improvement in terms of video quality.
I would imagine that this is attributable to the shows increasing budget
and improvements in the technology used to produce the show’s special
effects work. Sequences shot on film that do not utilize any special effects
appear very crisp and nicely defined. Those sequences that include effects,
appear slightly weaker, but not to the degree that they did in the earlier
seasons of the show. Colors appear stronger and cleaner than in previous
seasons as well, plus flesh tones are rendered in a more true to life
manner. Blacks are solid and whites appear stable. Contrast is at that
episodic television level, but generally looks smooth. Shadow detail is
good for this particular type of material. Like the previous sets, four
episodes per dual layered disc don’t bring about any truly noticeable
instances of digital compression artifacts.
The
soundtracks for all the episodes have been upgraded to Dolby Digital 5.1
channel mixes, the results of which are quite nice. For its day, STAR
TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION was a well-recorded show, so moving the
original matrix surround stems into the discrete format produces a cleaner,
tighter sound than it had in the past. Fidelity is very good, with nothing
ever sounding canned or compressed. The forward soundstage tends to dominate
each show’s sound design, with surround usage being limited to occasional
effects, musical fill and reinforcement of the ship’s engine sounds. The
bass channel is pretty solid, and it too, goes a long way to reinforcing
the rumble of the Enterprise’s engines. Dialogue is always crisply rendered
with excellent intelligibility, except when the show’s penchant for techno-babble
goes into overload. English Dolby Surround soundtracks are also encoded
onto the DVDs, as are English subtitles.
Full
motion video, animation and sound serve to enhance the DVD’s interactive
menus, which utilize an interface reminiscent of the Enterprise’s computer
systems, although they appear slightly altered from the earlier releases.
Through the menus, one has access to individual episodes and scene selection
within the episodes, as well as each disc’s set up features. The menu
system on disc seven also provides access to season four’s supplemental
materials, which are similar to those found in the previous sets, but
with some variation. Under the title of Mission Logs, one
will find the following programs: Mission Overview, Selected
Crew Analysis, Departmental Briefings: Production,
New Life And New Civilizations and Chronicles From
The Final Frontier.
Mission
Overview: Year Four
runs about sixteen minutes and offers a series of new and old interviews
cast and crewmembers discussing the season as a whole. Clocking in at
another sixteen minutes is the Selected Crew Analysis, in
which cast members discuss the evolution of their characters, with the
main focus being Wil Wheaton's decision to leave the show that year. Another
sixteen-minute program is Departmental Briefings: Production
in which we are offered a look behind the scenes at various things including
Brent Spiner’s Data makeup and Jonathan Frakes and Patrick Stewart discussing
their directorial opportunities with the show. New Life And New
Civilizations runs thirteen minutes and looks at the challenges
of creating a 24th century production design on a small 20th century budget.
Chronicles From The Final Frontier is an eighteen-minute
program that looks at the writing of the series and the direction that
the creative team wanted to take the show.
Once
again, Paramount delivers the goods with STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION
SEASON FOUR. This is another solid season of the now classic television
series, plus the DVDs looks and sound great. If you are a fan, then picking
up the DVD box set should come as a no brainer.
