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Star Trek - The Next Generation - Series 1-7 - Complete [DVD] [1987]
![Star Trek - The Next Generation - Series 1-7 - Complete [DVD] [1987]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41UdZurLxEL._SL160_.jpg)
RRP: £149.99
Our Price: £249.26 (subject to change)
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
Amazing!!
Review date: 2010-05-28 Rating: 10 out of 10
In a way i am one of the lucky ones ever to watch star trek i have watched it in order ... i first discovered it with the ''enterprise'' i liked it so i went on to buy ''the original series'' i loved it so i have bought all of the ''next gereration'' i am pleased to say i am now a huge star trek fan and i urge anyone to buy this series!!
ReviewsStar Trek PriceingReview date: 2010-04-24 Rating: 6 out of 10When I heard that Star Trek The Next Generation was going to release all 7 series in one complete box set I was jumping for joy until I saw the price. I was hopeing it was going to be priced at between £ 50 & £ 100. But not the price that I saw quoted, which I think is a rip off for something that has been shown on TV. I shall think of purchasing this item if and only if you bring the price down to a reasonable price like the one that I quoted earlier.pity about the packagingReview date: 2009-11-26 Rating: 6 out of 10has everything that you might want from the series but the packaging leaves something to be desired as it's not very user friendly...DO NOT BUYReview date: 2008-10-13 Rating: 2 out of 10i believe what i have to say has already been said which is:
*the cases are weak and a horried colour
*you have to look at each dvd to find the right one as the cases are not labled
*also when my partner got this for his birthday (i ordered it and put it away so it was not opened till his birthday) and when his birthday came i wish i had opend it when it came as the first case of the set the dvd falls out due to the center holder been damage and a few others fall out due to the same reason there where cracks and chips on th case where it had been banged some howthe gray part of the case (the stand) was also cracked and some of the disks where really badly scratched (mostly the onces that the center holder where broken on) and it honlistly looks like it is a second hand box set and i wanted to send it back but my partner said that its fine and only a box set but i dont think he knows how much i payed for it so i cant really say anything to him about it
*it is honistly NOT WORTH £160.00 to 299.99 depending on which seller you get it from
thanks for your time and i hope this review helps in someway or another
The 2nd Best Series of the Star Trek FranchiseReview date: 2008-06-03 Rating: 6 out of 10Although 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.
Product Details/SpecificationsActor(s):
Patrick Stewart
Creators:
Patrick Stewart (Primary Contributor)
Recording label: Paramount Home Entertainment Manufacturer: Paramount Home EntertainmentEAN: 5014437939234Binding: DVDNumber of items: 49Format: Box set, Full Screen, PAL, Release date: 2007-09-24Aspect ratio: 4:3 - 1.33:1Audience rating: Suitable for 12 years and overRegion code: 2Running time: 7413 minutesTheatrical release date: 1987Language: English (Original Language)
Language: German (Original Language)
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