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Review: Star Trek Season 1 Blu-ray
Blain
Tuesday
11:32 pm
First off, I have to address that I have always been much more of a Star Wars guy than Star Trek guy. Growing up I never really got into Star Trek. My first real expierence in fact was the Star Trek Animated series from the ’70s that Nickelodeon used to show on Saturday afternoons when I was a kid. It was pretty good, with the original cast providing voices for their characters.
Photo: LA Times
I knew of the original series but never watched it. I was always a casual viewer, having only seen a handfull of episodes from the other incarnations. In fact, I never watched a full episode of the original series until a few years ago when TV Land started showing them in the mornings. It was then that I really started to appreciate it, more so than any of the other incarnations.
First, the kitsch factor drew me in: the colorfull gel lighting, the simple sets, distinct sound effects and even the cheesy acting. But what got me hooked was the allegorical storytelling. I didn’t realize that the way they told stories was so similar to that of the original Twilight zone, which I grew up watching. They have always been the kinds of stories that have captured my imagination more that any other form of narrative.
Now that season 1 has come out on Blu-ray, it’s like seeing them again for the first time. The colors pop with a brilliance that puts the previous DVD versions to shame. Don’t believe me? Check out these screen grabs from DVDBeaver.com (if I had a Blu-ray player on my computer, I’d get my on screengrabs):
DVD capture from DVDBeaver.com
Blu-ray capture from DVDBeaver.com
You can see the pores on Bone’s face! The manly sweat of Kirk’s forehead! Hell, you can even see the line on Spock’s ears where the latex ear appliance is glued on!
Capture: DVDBeaver.com
Capture: DVDBeaver.com
These are the HD remastered versions that started airing a few years ago for it’s 40th anniversary. They went back and cleaned up the original film negatives, giving the episodes better contrast and brighter colors. The detail is absolutely amazing and this time around so are the effects. Yes, the effects! They updated some of the cheesier Enterprise ship shots and landscape effects. While not all the effects are great, they, unlike the Star Wars special editions, they did not Lucasize everything. They took great attention to keeping the new shots in the same tone as the originals without going too far. If you’re a purists, not to fret, the blu ray set also has the original untouched episodes. Using your angle button on your remote or the popup menu, you can even switch back and forth to see the new and old effects. You also have the option of watching the episodes in 7.1 surround sound or in it’s original 2.0 mono broadcast.
Original special effects shot.
Enhanced effects shot.
You get a great collection of classic episodes in the first season like “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” “The Enemy Within” with evil Kirk, “The Menagerie,” “City on the Edge of Forever,” and “Space Seed” — the episode that introduced us to Khan! Yeah, there’s a few stinkers in the set too, like “The Alternative Factor,” but it’s Star Trek, so there’s gonna be an occasional bad episode.
Also included in the set are a bevy of extras including the Starfleet Access on six of the episodes ( “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” “The Menagerie Parts 1 & 2,” “The Galileo Seven,” “Space Seed” and “Errand of Mercy”). These episodes can be watched with a picture-in-picture commentary featuring various cast and crew members and other notable Trek enthusiasts.
Other extras include the following documentaries:
- The Birth of a Timeless Legacy
- Life Beyond Trek: William Shatner
- To Boldly Go… Season One
- Reflections on Spock
- Sci-Fi Visionaries
- Kiss & Tell: Romance in the 24th Century
- Spacelift: Transporting Trek into the 21st Century
- Billy Blackburn’s Treasure Chest: Rare Home Movies and Special Memories
Also, you can explore the Enterprise and all its various nooks and crannies through an interactive Enterprise Tour.
If you’ve been wanting to dive into the original Star Trek and have a Blu-ray player, this is a great set to start out with. Amazon has it for $64.99 and for a seven disc Blu-ray set with over 24 hours of video, that’s one heck of a bargain. Yes the acting wasn’t always great, but it’s easy to shrug it off and laugh. It’s their enthusiasm for the material that shines through, making it a very enjoyable and classic series that pushed boundaries further than most shows of it’s time.
Thanks Amy! 
Amber
Jason
Nick Burns
Christy
Charlotte
Autumn
Bill
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Reader Comments
I may have fallen down the rabbit hole with “Farscape” like I have no other show to this day, but the other day, as I was scratching my head trying to figure out why I am so over-the-moon excited about the new “Star Trek” movie, it came to me: for me, “Star Trek” is my first and deepest sci-fi love. I grew up watching every incarnation of this show. And in my family, I was the only one who did. So I talked about it with no one there; there was no Internet through which to share ideas with strangers of like mind; and until I got to college, no one I knew watched even one episode. It was just Star Trek and me for years on end.
And it was the original series that started it all for me. So it’s that, plus Shatner, and the fact that, while DS9 did an admirable job in its own right, TOS was the best when it came to the friendship factor. You just knew these characters (certainly, not the actors) loved each other. And I loved that.
“It was just Star Trek and I.” *Cringes and searches for a cat-o-nine-tails*
Great comment Amber! I feel the same way. I love the little moments like Spock, Kirk and Bones’ discussions, especially when they start having friendly debates. They truly do feel like old friends in those scenes and it makes us feel more welcomed to be in on their adventures.
It was all about Kirk, Spock and Bones for me. I’ve always had a soft spot for shows that let the platonic affections people have for each other shine through. In fact, it wasn’t so much Shatner but the “bromance” exhibited by Denny Crane (Shatner) and Alan Shore that drew me into “Boston Legal.”
And one of the highlights of DS9 for me was the relationship between Doctor Bashir and Chief O’Brien.
THIS right here is one of the main reasons I’m psyched about this new movie:
“Above all, [Abrams] understands the potency and pleasure of the Kirk/Spock relationship. There are certain pop duos that have become cultural institutions and about whom it’s endlessly enjoyable to speculate. Who wouldn’t want to have been there when Holmes met Watson or Butch met Sundance? … Trading on affections sustained over 40 years of popular culture, ‘Star Trek’ does what a franchise reboot rarely does. It reminds us why we loved these characters in the first place.”
http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2009/05/05/a_fresh_frontier/?page=1
That’s awesome! God I can’t wait to see it tonight!
You know, Amber, you’re on to something with the whole “bromance” thing. That man’s-man-banter between Crichton and Dargo made Farscape a lot of fun. It’s also why I’m a slight sucker for overly crap movies like Armageddon.
Good to know that the Kirk-Spock thing is going to work out, and that he “gets” that concept.