By
the time the sixth season rolled around STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION
already had three very solid seasons of mature and entertaining science
fiction under its belt. In the sixth season, the show continued to push
the characters into new directions with even more intriguing stories that
mixed engaging science fiction with occasional social commentary. The
episodes that comprised season six were by and large of a superior nature,
with even fewer instances than ever before, in which the writers were
unable to hit a home run. Personally, I liked just about everything I
saw in the sixth season, and even count a few of this year's episodes
amongst my personal favorites. Paramount Home Entertainment continues
blasting the discs out the door like photon torpedoes, and has made all
twenty-six episodes of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION SEASON SIX
available on DVD in a seven disc boxed set for an approximate retail price
of $149.98.
Disc
one contains the episodes Time's Arrow, Part II, Realm
of Fear, Man of the People and Relics.
Time's Arrow, Part II finds the Enterprise’s command staff
trapped in 19th Century San Francisco, as they search for Lieutenant Commander
Data (Brent Spiner) and a group of aliens that have been feeing on the
life energy of humans from Earth’s past. Realm of Fear marks
another appearance of reoccurring character Lt. Reginald Barclay (Dwight
Schultz), whose fear of the ship’s transporters lead the crew to a startling
discovery. In Man of the People, the crew sees an unexpected
side of Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), after an alien mediator
takes an unhealthy interest in her. Relics has the crew
of the Enterprise responding to an ancient distress call, where they discover
Starfleet’s most inventive engineer, Captain Montgomery Scott (James Doohan),
who managed to keep himself alive for eighty years by jury-rigging a transporter
system.
Disc
two contains the episodes Schisms, True-Q,
Rascals and A Fistful Of Datas. In Schisms,
crewmembers begin having similar nightmares after encountering a subspace
anomaly created by a modification to the ship's sensors. True-Q
marks the return of the omnipotent Q (John de Lancie), who pays a call
on the Enterprise in search of a member of his own race. In Rascals,
Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart), Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) and Ensign
Ro (Michelle Forbes) find themselves literally reliving their childhoods
after a transporter mishap. A Fistful Of Datas is certainly
one of the more interesting season six episodes, one that finds Counselor
Troi, Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn) and Worf’s son Alexander (Brian Bonsall)
trapped in the midst of a malfunctioning western style holodeck adventure,
in which all the characters begin turning into iterations of Lieutenant
Commander Data.
Disc
three contains the episodes The Quality of Life, Chain
of Command, Part I, Chain of Command, Part II and
Ship in a Bottle. The Quality of Life finds
Data becoming the advocate for a group of machines that he believes have
become sentient. In Chain of Command, Part I, Captain Picard
is relieved of his command of the Enterprise, so he can participate in
an undercover mission deep in Cardassian space. Chain of Command,
Part II finds Picard captured and undergoing torture by a Cardassian
interrogator, who is determine to break the proud Starfleet officer. Ship
in a Bottle marks the return of sentient holodeck character Professor
Moriarity (Daniel Davis), who threatens the Enterprise yet again, unless
a way can be found for him to leave the confines of the holodeck.
Disc
four contains the episodes Aquiel, Face of the Enemy,
Tapestry and Birthright, Part I. Aquiel
finds Chief Engineer Geordi LaForge (LeVar Burton) becoming enamored with
a beautiful young officer, who is the prime suspect in a murder investigation
that takes place on a relay station near Klingon space. In Face
of the Enemy, Counselor Troi awakens on a Romulan vessel to find
that she has be surgically altered to look like a Romulan and forced to
masquerade as a Tal Shiar intelligence officer. Tapestry
marks a rather notable appearance of the omnipotent Q, who offers Picard
a chance to relive a mistake from his Starfleet Academy days which necessitated
that his heart be replaced with a mechanical substitute. In Birthright,
Part I, Worf investigates a report that his Klingon father is
still alive and is being held in a Romulan prison camp.
Disc
five contains the episodes Birthright, Part II, Starship
Mine, Lessons and The Chase. Birthright,
Part II continues with Worf making a discovery about the Romulan
prison camp and his inspiring a group of young Klingons to reclaim their
own birthright. Starship Mine finds Picard the sole member
of the crew left on board the Enterprise during a maintenance operation,
thus forcing him to deal with a group of terrorists, who are taking advantage
of the starship’s vacancy. In Lessons, Picard becomes romantically
involved with a new Enterprise crewmember, but is then forced to reevaluate
that relationship when it begins to interfere with his command decisions.
The Chase involves an archeological discovery of galactic
proportions that has Picard vying with Cardassians Romulans and Klingons
for the secret that has been coded into the DNA of select life forms across
the quadrant.
Disc
six contains the episodes Frame of Mind, Suspicions,
Rightful Heir and Second Chances. Frame
of Mind finds Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) awakening in a mental
hospital where he is being treated for delusions that he is a Starfleet
officer serving on board the Enterprise. In Suspicions,
Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) may be facing the end of her Starfleet career,
when she invites a group of scientists on board the Enterprise, and an
experiment they conduct goes horribly wrong. In Rightful Heir,
Worf embraces the spiritual aspects of his Klingon heritage, which brings
him face to face with Kahless, the first Klingon emperor, who died centuries
ago. Second Chances returns Commander Riker to a planet
on which he began a mission seven years earlier. However, upon arrival
his arrival at this abandoned Federation outpost, he is shocked to discover
that a transporter mishap seven years earlier created a duplicate Will
Riker, who has been living there all that time.
Disc
seven contains the episodes Timescape and Descent,
Part I. In Timescape, Picard, Data, Troi and LaForge
are returning to the Enterprise in a shuttlecraft, when they discover
the Starship frozen in time and in the midst of a battle with a Romulan
Warbird. Descent, Part I marks another encounter with The
Borg, which has a completely unexpected effect on Data- generating a surprising
emotional response in the emotionless android.
Paramount
Home Entertainment has made all of the episodes from STAR TREK: THE
NEXT GENERATION SEASON SIX available on DVD in the proper full screen
aspect ratios of their original television broadcasts. In terms of image
quality, the show pretty much reached its pinnacle around season four,
with season five and six boasting only the mildest of improvements. The
picture looks quite good on DVD, exceeding broadcast by a considerable
margin, but still looking very much like an episodic television production.
Film segments without any form of visual effects or other processing are
the cleanest, crispest portions of every episode. Effects footage has
some limitations, but still manages to look rather good. Colors are strongly
rendered, without noise or smearing. Blacks are deep and solid, while
contrast is flattened to accommodate the necessities of television production.
Digital compression artifacts never are a true concern, even when four
episodes are encoded onto the dual layered discs.
As
with the previous seasons, all of the episodes contained in STAR TREK:
THE NEXT GENERATION SEASON SIX have been upgraded from the original
surround stems to Dolby Digital 5.1 channel soundtracks. I think that
as the seasons progressed, the sound design of the show improved, although
it did remain within the limitations of what could be reproduced on via
the broadcast medium. The surround channels are a bit more active than
they were in the initial seasons, but sounds are primarily ambient in
nature, with the sound of the Enterprise’s engines being the key surround
sound element in a majority of the episodes. There is also a bit more
musical fill finding its way to the rear channel, but the surrounds still
don’t have the enveloping quality of a theatrical mix. The forward soundstage
is lively than the rear, with good stereo imaging and sound effect placement.
Dialogue is very clean and always completely understandable. The bass
channel adds a great deal of depth to the rumblings of the ship’s engines,
which helps put the viewer in the midst of the action. 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. 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 the supplemental
materials for season six, which remain quite similar to those found in
the previous box sets. In Mission Logs: Season Six we find
Mission Overview, Bold New Directions and
Departmental Briefings: Production & Profile Dan
Curry. Mission Overview is a seventeen-minute look
at the highlights of season six, during which several members of the production
team point to this year as the most creative of all seven seasons. The
program also features recent interviews with members of the cast and crew,
plus vintage interviews with certain guest cast members.
Bold
New Directions is a seventeen-minute program that looks at the
production team taking the show in new directions, as well as cast &
crewmembers breaking out into new directions of their own. Departmental
Briefing: Production is a fifteen-minute look at various aspects
of producing the season six episodes and some of the difficulties involved.
Departmental Briefing: Profile Dan Curry is a nineteen-minute
program that focuses on the work of visual effects supervisor. Also included
amongst the supplements is Special Crew Profile: Data. This
eighteen-minute program looks at the development of the character over
the seven seasons, as well as the contributions of actor Brent Spiner
to the show. Closing out the supplements is a theatrical trailer for STAR
TREK: NEMESIS and a video trailer for the upcoming DVD release of
STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE in 2003 (woo-hoo!!!).
STAR
TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION SEASON SIX offers fans another excellent
collection of episodes from the television series. The DVD box set looks
and sounds great, so picking up this release is a no brainer for fans
or anyone looking for the perfect gift for a STAR TREK fan.
By
the time the sixth season rolled around STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION
already had three very solid seasons of mature and entertaining science
fiction under its belt. In the sixth season, the show continued to push
the characters into new directions with even more intriguing stories that
mixed engaging science fiction with occasional social commentary. The
episodes that comprised season six were by and large of a superior nature,
with even fewer instances than ever before, in which the writers were
unable to hit a home run. Personally, I liked just about everything I
saw in the sixth season, and even count a few of this year's episodes
amongst my personal favorites. Paramount Home Entertainment continues
blasting the discs out the door like photon torpedoes, and has made all
twenty-six episodes of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION SEASON SIX
available on DVD in a seven disc boxed set for an approximate retail price
of $149.98.
Disc
one contains the episodes Time's Arrow, Part II, Realm
of Fear, Man of the People and Relics.
Time's Arrow, Part II finds the Enterprise’s command staff
trapped in 19th Century San Francisco, as they search for Lieutenant Commander
Data (Brent Spiner) and a group of aliens that have been feeing on the
life energy of humans from Earth’s past. Realm of Fear marks
another appearance of reoccurring character Lt. Reginald Barclay (Dwight
Schultz), whose fear of the ship’s transporters lead the crew to a startling
discovery. In Man of the People, the crew sees an unexpected
side of Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), after an alien mediator
takes an unhealthy interest in her. Relics has the crew
of the Enterprise responding to an ancient distress call, where they discover
Starfleet’s most inventive engineer, Captain Montgomery Scott (James Doohan),
who managed to keep himself alive for eighty years by jury-rigging a transporter
system.
Disc
two contains the episodes Schisms, True-Q,
Rascals and A Fistful Of Datas. In Schisms,
crewmembers begin having similar nightmares after encountering a subspace
anomaly created by a modification to the ship's sensors. True-Q
marks the return of the omnipotent Q (John de Lancie), who pays a call
on the Enterprise in search of a member of his own race. In Rascals,
Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart), Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) and Ensign
Ro (Michelle Forbes) find themselves literally reliving their childhoods
after a transporter mishap. A Fistful Of Datas is certainly
one of the more interesting season six episodes, one that finds Counselor
Troi, Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn) and Worf’s son Alexander (Brian Bonsall)
trapped in the midst of a malfunctioning western style holodeck adventure,
in which all the characters begin turning into iterations of Lieutenant
Commander Data.
Disc
three contains the episodes The Quality of Life, Chain
of Command, Part I, Chain of Command, Part II and
Ship in a Bottle. The Quality of Life finds
Data becoming the advocate for a group of machines that he believes have
become sentient. In Chain of Command, Part I, Captain Picard
is relieved of his command of the Enterprise, so he can participate in
an undercover mission deep in Cardassian space. Chain of Command,
Part II finds Picard captured and undergoing torture by a Cardassian
interrogator, who is determine to break the proud Starfleet officer. Ship
in a Bottle marks the return of sentient holodeck character Professor
Moriarity (Daniel Davis), who threatens the Enterprise yet again, unless
a way can be found for him to leave the confines of the holodeck.
Disc
four contains the episodes Aquiel, Face of the Enemy,
Tapestry and Birthright, Part I. Aquiel
finds Chief Engineer Geordi LaForge (LeVar Burton) becoming enamored with
a beautiful young officer, who is the prime suspect in a murder investigation
that takes place on a relay station near Klingon space. In Face
of the Enemy, Counselor Troi awakens on a Romulan vessel to find
that she has be surgically altered to look like a Romulan and forced to
masquerade as a Tal Shiar intelligence officer. Tapestry
marks a rather notable appearance of the omnipotent Q, who offers Picard
a chance to relive a mistake from his Starfleet Academy days which necessitated
that his heart be replaced with a mechanical substitute. In Birthright,
Part I, Worf investigates a report that his Klingon father is
still alive and is being held in a Romulan prison camp.
Disc
five contains the episodes Birthright, Part II, Starship
Mine, Lessons and The Chase. Birthright,
Part II continues with Worf making a discovery about the Romulan
prison camp and his inspiring a group of young Klingons to reclaim their
own birthright. Starship Mine finds Picard the sole member
of the crew left on board the Enterprise during a maintenance operation,
thus forcing him to deal with a group of terrorists, who are taking advantage
of the starship’s vacancy. In Lessons, Picard becomes romantically
involved with a new Enterprise crewmember, but is then forced to reevaluate
that relationship when it begins to interfere with his command decisions.
The Chase involves an archeological discovery of galactic
proportions that has Picard vying with Cardassians Romulans and Klingons
for the secret that has been coded into the DNA of select life forms across
the quadrant.
Disc
six contains the episodes Frame of Mind, Suspicions,
Rightful Heir and Second Chances. Frame
of Mind finds Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) awakening in a mental
hospital where he is being treated for delusions that he is a Starfleet
officer serving on board the Enterprise. In Suspicions,
Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) may be facing the end of her Starfleet career,
when she invites a group of scientists on board the Enterprise, and an
experiment they conduct goes horribly wrong. In Rightful Heir,
Worf embraces the spiritual aspects of his Klingon heritage, which brings
him face to face with Kahless, the first Klingon emperor, who died centuries
ago. Second Chances returns Commander Riker to a planet
on which he began a mission seven years earlier. However, upon arrival
his arrival at this abandoned Federation outpost, he is shocked to discover
that a transporter mishap seven years earlier created a duplicate Will
Riker, who has been living there all that time.
Disc
seven contains the episodes Timescape and Descent,
Part I. In Timescape, Picard, Data, Troi and LaForge
are returning to the Enterprise in a shuttlecraft, when they discover
the Starship frozen in time and in the midst of a battle with a Romulan
Warbird. Descent, Part I marks another encounter with The
Borg, which has a completely unexpected effect on Data- generating a surprising
emotional response in the emotionless android.
Paramount
Home Entertainment has made all of the episodes from STAR TREK: THE
NEXT GENERATION SEASON SIX available on DVD in the proper full screen
aspect ratios of their original television broadcasts. In terms of image
quality, the show pretty much reached its pinnacle around season four,
with season five and six boasting only the mildest of improvements. The
picture looks quite good on DVD, exceeding broadcast by a considerable
margin, but still looking very much like an episodic television production.
Film segments without any form of visual effects or other processing are
the cleanest, crispest portions of every episode. Effects footage has
some limitations, but still manages to look rather good. Colors are strongly
rendered, without noise or smearing. Blacks are deep and solid, while
contrast is flattened to accommodate the necessities of television production.
Digital compression artifacts never are a true concern, even when four
episodes are encoded onto the dual layered discs.
As
with the previous seasons, all of the episodes contained in STAR TREK:
THE NEXT GENERATION SEASON SIX have been upgraded from the original
surround stems to Dolby Digital 5.1 channel soundtracks. I think that
as the seasons progressed, the sound design of the show improved, although
it did remain within the limitations of what could be reproduced on via
the broadcast medium. The surround channels are a bit more active than
they were in the initial seasons, but sounds are primarily ambient in
nature, with the sound of the Enterprise’s engines being the key surround
sound element in a majority of the episodes. There is also a bit more
musical fill finding its way to the rear channel, but the surrounds still
don’t have the enveloping quality of a theatrical mix. The forward soundstage
is lively than the rear, with good stereo imaging and sound effect placement.
Dialogue is very clean and always completely understandable. The bass
channel adds a great deal of depth to the rumblings of the ship’s engines,
which helps put the viewer in the midst of the action. 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. 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 the supplemental
materials for season six, which remain quite similar to those found in
the previous box sets. In Mission Logs: Season Six we find
Mission Overview, Bold New Directions and
Departmental Briefings: Production & Profile Dan
Curry. Mission Overview is a seventeen-minute look
at the highlights of season six, during which several members of the production
team point to this year as the most creative of all seven seasons. The
program also features recent interviews with members of the cast and crew,
plus vintage interviews with certain guest cast members.
Bold
New Directions is a seventeen-minute program that looks at the
production team taking the show in new directions, as well as cast &
crewmembers breaking out into new directions of their own. Departmental
Briefing: Production is a fifteen-minute look at various aspects
of producing the season six episodes and some of the difficulties involved.
Departmental Briefing: Profile Dan Curry is a nineteen-minute
program that focuses on the work of visual effects supervisor. Also included
amongst the supplements is Special Crew Profile: Data. This
eighteen-minute program looks at the development of the character over
the seven seasons, as well as the contributions of actor Brent Spiner
to the show. Closing out the supplements is a theatrical trailer for STAR
TREK: NEMESIS and a video trailer for the upcoming DVD release of
STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE in 2003 (woo-hoo!!!).
STAR
TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION SEASON SIX offers fans another excellent
collection of episodes from the television series. The DVD box set looks
and sounds great, so picking up this release is a no brainer for fans
or anyone looking for the perfect gift for a STAR TREK fan.
