Bonjour and buenos dias, "Monty Cristo" here.
I've spent a good deal of time with tomorrow's STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION Blu-ray sampler disc, and my short review is that I wish I could immediately re-buy the entire series remastered like these three episodes.
Before I get into greater depth on this disc, a brief primer on my relationship with this show and STAR TREK as a whole.
I was a child of the 1980's. I grew up watching TNG. I love TOS dearly, but I love TNG just as much, even the horrible, indefensibly bad episodes. I remember making my parents spend around $20 a tape for individual episodes on glorious VHS. Whatever I didn't see as it aired or re-ran, I was limited by how many tape boxes grabbed my attention and were within my parents' limited budget. Remember when you would get a single episode of this show per VHS tape, and a few seasons could fill a shelving unit on its own?
As a result, I've seen ENCOUNTER AT FARPOINT and SKIN OF EVIL upwards of 30 times each. BEST OF BOTH WORLDS 1 & 2? Probably upwards of 50. It's entirely possible that I'm massively underestimating all of those figures. ALL GOOD THINGS? I've lost track.
I bought the full season DVD sets as they came out, first week. I spent a stupid amount of college scholarship money on them. My roommate and I marathoned the hell out of every one of them.
I owned multiple editions of the Star Trek Encyclopedia. I worship at the altar of Mike and Denise Okuda (if there is such an altar). As a high-schooler, I wrote TNG film scripts that never, ever should have been made. I played the TNG Collectible Card Game.
As much of a TREK fan as I am, I didn't go to a convention until I was in my late 20's.
This Blu-ray opened my eyes to something that looked like a brand new show.
The most striking thing about ENCOUNTER AT FARPOINT is the color depth and picture fidelity. Previously, it has always looked like it was shot through cheesecloth on videotape. It looked like it was recorded on a completely different film stock than the rest of the series. Aside from the original skintight uniforms contrasting with the later suits (that were still pajamalicious), it always felt like it didn't match with the rest of the show, to the point that the callbacks to it in (series finale) ALL GOOD THINGS looked "wrong" in that episode back when it aired in 1994.
CBS/Paramount went back to the original 35mm camera negatives and re-scanned them. They re-composited the original effects shots, and everything looks absolutely astounding. Screen captures and video side-by-side comparisons can't do the difference justice. The creatures that appear toward the end of the episode are composed of the original shots re-composited at HD resolution. There is no CG enhancement, just re-scanning and re-compositing. What results is a magnificent testament to the original effects work done.
SINS OF THE FATHER begins a recurring subplot involving Worf clearing the honor of his father's name. It came near the end of Season 3, which places it just after DEJA Q, YESTERDAY'S ENTERPRISE and THE OFFSPRING, and a few shows in advance of THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS. Worf's relationship and trust in Picard goes evolves to a new level right in advance of that trust being tested more than it ever would again. Tony Todd's guest spot was memorable for me as a kid. The new HD version of the episode makes the dark, rich contrast of the Klingon homeworld scenes really pop.
Thirteen seconds of this episode were lost on 35mm, so they had no choice but to use SD source, and the difference is very jarring, and precisely reproduces the best quality found in the Netflix streaming or DVD versions of these episodes that have existed up until now. That is the single best testament to how great a step up this is.
We then jump two more seasons forward to THE INNER LIGHT, the penultiate episode of the amazing Seaons 5, which included episodes like DARMOK, the two-parter UNIFICATION (which brought Nimoy to TNG), and a trio of heartbreakers (ETHICS, I BORG, and THE NEXT PHASE). It also featured the Welsey Crusher courtroom thriller THE FIRST DUTY, which was one of the best-acted episodes they ever did, if you ask me.
INNER LIGHT is where Picard is "tethered" to an alien probe and lives a man's entire adult life over the course of mere hours and minutes. It's counted among the best episodes TNG did by many, myself included. It also guest stars none other than Richard Riehle (OFFICE SPACE) and Patrick Stewart's son Daniel, playing his alternate-life son. As a much later episode, the benefit here is less visible than the other two episodes, but still quite apparent. Focusing less on the visuals, I paid more attention to what I was hearing, and I realized how much clearer and crisper the sound was.
I re-spun the first two episodes the next evening, and it's a testament to the sound mixer that I barely noticed his work. It just felt like I was absorbing the show more directly, as if it were aurally injected into my veins.
The advent of radically better sound than the single-speaker 15-inch TV I watched most of these episodes really became apparent. The original stereo mixes are on the Blu-ray (and the future sets) for those who want to stay "pure" from remastered 5.1 tracks. I'm the guy who sticks by original mono tracks on classic films that have bizarre surround extrapolations, and I'm telling you that these 5.1 tracks are significantly more immersive without being distracting in the least.
Throughout, barely-noticeable white specks from the 35mm scans are visible, and I'm fine if these remain in the final season sets, to be honest. If not doing that cleanup means the sets go out much sooner, then consider me all for it.
This set will not change anyone into a TNG fan instantaneously, but it will be warmly welcomed by all of us already on-board. I would ordinarily say you should skip "demo" discs like this as a rule, but TNG fans will not feel burned in the least. I'm planning to buy a couple of them as gifts for fellow TNG obsessives. Three hours of TNG is a healthy amount of entertainment for me at the asking price, but that may not be true of everyone.
If CBS is listening, I just hope they can get not just Seaosn 1 out this year, but also Seasons 2 and 3 before Christmas. You don't need to space these out, just push them out as soon as they're done. We want them now.
This set is the tease of a tremendous justice being done to one of the greatest sci-fi shows of the modern era. Gene Roddenberry may not be alive to see it, but it makes me so very happy that Mike Okuda (one of my heroes) is, alongside countless others who were integral to the fabric of the rich tapestry that is TNG.
Buy it on Amazon here for all of $15
Monty Cristo
