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Episode
Disc One: “Amok Time”, “Who Mourns For Adonais?”, “The Changeling”,
“Mirror, Mirror”
Episode
Disc Two: “The Apple”, “The Doomsday Machine”, “Catspaw”, “I, Mudd”
Episode
Disc Three: “Metamorphosis”, “Journey To Babel”, “Friday’s Child”,
“The Deadly Years”
Episode
Disc Four: “Obsession”, “Wolf In The Fold”, “The Trouble With Tribbles”,
“The Gamesters Of Triskelion”
Episode
Disc Five: “A Piece Of The Action”, “The Immunity Syndrome”, “A
Private Little War”, “Return To Tomorrow”
Episode
Disc Six: “Patterns Of Force”, “By Any Other Name”, “The Omega
Glory”, “The Ultimate Computer”
Episode Disc Seven: “Bread And Circuses”, “Assignment Earth”
Stars: William Shatner, Leonard
Nimoy, Deforest Kelley, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, George
Takei, and Majel Barrett Roddenberry
Guest Stars: Celia Lovsky, Michael
Forest, William Windom, Jane Wyatt, Keith Andes, Mark Leonard, Roger C. Carmel,
William Smithers, Stanley Adams, William Campbell, Chris Brill, Victor Tayback,
William Marshall, Robert Lansing, and Teri Garr
Writers: Robert Bloch, Gene L.
Coon, D.C. Fontana, Gilbert Ralston, Theodore Sturgeon, Norman Spinrad, John
Meredyth Lucas, Max Ehrlich, Jerome Bixby, David P. Harmon, Stephen Kandel,
David Gerrold, Gene Roddenberry, Jud Crucis, Margaret Armen, Art Wallace,.
Robert Sabaroff, and John Kingsbridge
Created By: Gene Roddenberry
Executive Producers: Gene
Roddenberry and Gene L. Coon
Feature length: 21 hours and 47
minutes
Extras: To Boldly Go… Season Two, Life Beyond Trek: Leonard
Nimoy, Kirk, Spock, And Bones: Star Trek’s Great Trio, Designing The Final
Frontier, Star Trek’s Divine Diva: Nichelle Nichols, Writer’s Notebook: D.C.
Fontana, Production Art Gallery, Photo Gallery, Red Shirt Logs, Preview Trailers
Languages: English Dolby Digital
5.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Surround Sound
Subtitles: English Captions and
Closed Captions
Packaging: Seven-Disc Mini
Digipack Within A Plastic Case
Chapter Stops: 7 Per Episode
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
Sound and Dolby Surround Sound
Year of Television Broadcast:
1967-1968/DVD Release: 2004
Home Video Distributor: Paramount
Home Entertainment
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera
The second of season of “Star
Trek” is where the series truly came into it’s own with so many memorable
episodes that it is impossible to discuss each and every single one within the
context of a DVD set review. However long before Paramount Home Entertainment
began to release “The Original Series” in season gift sets, I did do
individual DVD reviews of the two-episode individual DVD releases, which do go
into greater detail about the individual episodes. I began covering these
releases with Volume 13 and went through to the conclusion on Volume 40 so by
visiting both the original site location archive pages as well as the domain
name archived DVD reviews online, one can gain further insight into the episodes
from both the second and third seasons of “Star Trek: The Original Series.”
Just go to the main archive page by clicking here and have fun exploring after
you’ve read this DVD set review.
“Amok Time” is a terrific
episode for so many reasons, but above all else it is the first time “Star
Trek” fans get a glimpse of the planet Vulcan. The character of Vulcan
Matriarch T’Pau was recently featured in a three-part episode of “Star Trek:
Enterprise,” which gave viewers a clearer understanding of the internal
politics that have shaped the lives of the Vulcan people. Since Vulcans tend to
live more than twice as long as the average human being, it was a nice touch to
introduce this character on “Star Trek: Enterprise” when she was about 100
years younger. Do the characterizations of the actresses playing “T’Pau”
match up? Now one hundred percent, but just as people change over the course of
decades, one can reasonably extrapolate that one hundred years worth of life
experience is enough time for anyone to change and both characterizations did
not seem terribly comfortable with humans being present in internal Vulcan
affairs.
Michael and Denise Okuda, provide
a trivia filled text commentary for “Amok Time” as well as the classic
episode “The Trouble With Tribbles,” pointing out among other things facts
about Author David Gerrold, whose career as a science fiction writer got a big
boost from his teleplay for “Star Trek” as well as the two sequel episodes
entitled “More Tribbles, More Troubles” from “The Animated Adventures Of
Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek” and “Trials And Tribble-ations,” which
used technology to place Actors from “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” into the
episode similar to the manner that Tom Hanks was placed into historical film
clips for the Oscar® winning film, “Forrest Gump.”
Each episode in this seven-disc
set is presented in their original (1.33:1) broadcast aspect ratios and has been
digitally remastered especially for DVD with a full English Dolby Digital 5.1
Surround Soundtrack. These appear to be the same transfers used for the original
40 volumes released between 1999 and 2001 on DVD, but the advancements in DVD
authoring technology has definitely yielded a more crisp image quality. Some
episodes look better than others. Compare “Amok Time” to “The Trouble With
Tribbles” and it is clear to see that “The Trouble With Tribbles” looks
clearer and has fewer print blemishes than “Amok Time,” but overall the
episodes still have never looked or sounded better on home video before this
release. An English Dolby Surround Soundtrack and English Captions and Closed
Captions for the hearing impaired are encoded onto all seven discs as options.
The interactive menus are beautifully rendered with a three-dimensional view of
the bridge that eventually focuses on Spock’s science station where viewers
can make their menu selections. The seven discs come housed with a mini-book
styled Digipack about the size of a four-disc audio-CD jewel case, and are
housed within a cardboard slip with a booklet containing episode notes as well
as information on the Andorians. This is all housed with a large blue plastic
case shaped to look like a mid 23rd century tricorder.
The majority of the bonus
materials included in the set are on disc seven and they feature “To Boldly
Go… Season Two” (19:40), which features interviews with William Shatner,
Leonard Nimoy, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, and Walter Koenig with clips from
the episodes “Amok Time”, “Catspaw”, “Journey To Babel”, “Mirror,
Mirror”, “A Private Little War”, and “Who Mourns For Adonais?” The
“Life Beyond Trek – Leonard Nimoy” featurette (12:11) focuses on his
interest in photography and his experimentation with trying to create a series
of images that deal with the passage of time or something like that. The fact
that Mr. Nimoy shows viewers a stopwatch where he has calculated an approximate
amount of time he expects to live seemed somewhat morbid in my opinion. Anyone
think his alter ego “Spock” would possibly do the same thing though?
“Kirk Spock, And Bones – Star
Trek’s Great Trio” (7:19) is pretty much a self explanatory vignette
detailing how the actors brought insight into their roles enough to create back
stories for the writers to explore in future episodes. “Designing The Final
Frontier” (22:27) is somewhat interesting with sketches from some of the
classic episodes and various technical comments about the series with a special
focus on Matt Jeffries. There is a companion sketch gallery as well as a still
photo gallery included among the extra value features on disc seven too. A focus
on Actress Nichelle Nichols (13:12) as well as a featurette on Writer D.C.
Fontana (7:44) are also included along with approximately five easy to find
“Red Shirt Logs” that run between one and three minutes each and TV spots
for all of the season two episodes and these wrap up the extra value materials
within this DVD set.
A must for any “Star Trek” DVD
collector, “Star Trek: The Original Series: The Complete Second Season On DVD
Seven-Disc Set” is available at retailers on and offline now courtesy of
Paramount Home Entertainment.
© Copyright 2004 By Mark A.
Rivera
All Rights Reserved.
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