DVD Review HTF REVIEW: Star Trek Enterprise - The Complete First Season (1 Viewer)

[Bill Williams]

Has anyone noticed any glitches on their discs? Last night I plunked in Disc 2 and watched "The Andorian Incident", and for some reason in Chapter 3 at the 12:20+ mark, at the point where Shran says to Archer, "Answer me, pinkskin!" the disc locks up all of a sudden and freezes. It then jumped back abruptly to the 5-minute mark where T'Pol is addressing Archer and Trip about how to behave on the planet. I couldn't fast-forward, chapter-skip, reverse, or anything. I had to stop the disc manually, open up the player, and reinsert the disc in order to get it going again. Once I did that, the hiccup occurred at the same spot. I had to jump to Chapter 4, about a minute after the hiccup occurred, then reverse the disc back a minute to a few seconds after Shran's comment in order for the disc to play normally.

Anyone else have any disc glitches to report on this set?

 

[RyanAn]

Could any of the die-hard Trek fans tell me when the prices for the Star Trek sets usually go down in price? I started to like Star Trek thanks to Enterprise, but like a lot of people, can not shell out the better part of a hundred bucks on one set, (barely even on 2 season sets). If and when do you think the previous series' will go on sale as well?

Ryan

 

[Mark Maltais]

HA!

Good luck,

I waited a long time and am still waiting. The only season of DS9 I have is season 4 (got it as a gift). I recently went to Future Shop and the other seasons are still about 130 bucks (Canadian). So no they don't go down unless you get the garbage from china versions!

They are hard to find new on e-bay too. I would buy used but I'm too wary I'll get a bunch of discs somebody's dog used as a chew toy!

 

[Scott Kimball]

No problems here, Bill. Every disc played flawlessly for me.

As far as price, there aren't any low cost options. The wholesale clubs (BJ's, Sam's, Costco) usually have the Star Trek seasons for $80 - $85. The entire series boxed sets can be had from Amazon for a price that averages about the same, but you have to buy all seasons at once. The only other option is to take your chances on eBay. I doubt they'll be coming down in price any time soon.

-Scott

 

[Nelson Au]

Bill-I checked my disc 2 at the time you mentioned. Mine play fine from 12 minutes in to about 3 minutes later. And I've seen Broken Bow and Fight or Flight, and checked the extras, no problems.

I did have a look at all the disc surfaces and they have no scratches. One disc has a mark near the spindle hole and 2 discs had a cloudly area on the outer half of the play side of the disc, like a donut.

These discs are exceeding my expectations after reading Scott's great review.

Interesting to hear the audio commentary of B&B on Broken Bow. I know a lot has been said for continuity errors or ignoring continuity and how the Vulcan's are rendered in this era of Star Trek history. I can buy B&B's reasons for their decisions. It shows contrast to Kirk's era and what the Vulcan's will become in 100 years. Even if you are not familiar with the events of this 4th season and the Vulcan arc, the idea still works, they evolve and grow as Humans do, through their mutual efforts. And the dozens of very subtle nods to TOS discussed on the Okuda Text commentaries showed that the production people did care and recognize TOS.

 

[Scott Kimball]

I'd have to reiterate my warning on these text commentaries, though. There are serious and unwarranted spoilers for the series, right through season four. It's too bad, because I generally like these commentaries. I stopped viewing them after "Broken Bow," however, because I didn't want anything else ruined for me.

-Scott

 

[John H Ross]

I appreciate that, and thanks. The problem is that Paramount has a proven track record for scratched discs even when every disc is firmly locked into the case. I didn't have a single loose disc in any of my TOS series sets, but I have 5 scratched discs.

Sounds like Enterprise is okay. Season 1 at least. Tempting...

 

[Scott Kimball]

Or, you've been unlucky.
I have every season set of every Star Trek program, and I had one disc with a slight scratch on it. After some careful buffing, it played okay. I've reviewed about 150 Paramount titles, and I've had a total of three scratched discs. The first was the aforementioned Star Trek (TOS) disc. Another was "The Ten Commandments," which was in the extrodinarily poorly designed Scanavo 2-up packaging. I can't remember the third.

On the other hand, I've returned at least four Buffy /Angel sets (Fox) due to scratched floaters.

I think it all evens out... in my experience, no single studio is worse than another in this regard.

I know... that doesn't make you any happier with your scratched discs - but if I had to pick the worst offender based on personal experience, it would be Fox Digipacks. Others have reported no problems with these... so like I said - it seems to even out.

For the record, my "Enterprise" set was in perfect condition.

-Scott

 

[Dave Farley]

Nelson mentioned two of the discs having a cloudy area on the playing surface. Lately, I've bought a large number of discs that have a cloudy or milky appearance all over, new and fresh from the box. Most recently, the majority of discs from this Enterprise set along with Season 1 of The Andy Griffith Show and Hogan's Heroes.

Does anyone know if this issue is a problem or a sign of a disc defect that will eventually be a problem?

The discs seem to play properly at the moment but I'm worried that the strange appearance could be a sign of a problem to come.

 

[Britton]

I've always found an occasional disc here and there throughout my dvd buying days, and as far as I know, none of them have gone bad.

 

[Sebastien S]

I undertsand but not all "Trek" cases protect as well as others...

The worse are the "Voyager" cases, I had to return both season 5 & 6 as they arived (via the mail system) with smashed boxes or scratched disc. Even though they were well packaged in a box with multiple air bags inside for protection... Those cases are just made too fragile, to others who own these, I recomend using extreme caution when handling the "Voyager" cases as they would most certainly chip or break if accidentely droped!

The "TNG" sets offer good protection but are a pain in the ass to get the discs out of... Not to mention they look somewhat bland.

The "DS9" are actually good. Though they don't offer as good protection as the "TNG" & "Enterprise" cases, they are still decent in that department and are "artisticly" the best looking of all the Trek series cases with art from each season of the show on the actual discs themselves!

The "Enterprise" cases also look very cool and artistic and have the single best insert (booklet) of all Trek series!

Overall, my favorite cases are the "Enterprise" cases followed closely by the "DS9" cases.

 

[Sam Davatchi]

Saw the episode “Dear Doctor” today. A great episode, however I didn’t understand the end, did Archer give the cure or not? It seemed he did, but everyone acted and talked like they were left to their doom and destiny. And surprisingly this episode gave me a shiver when Archer talked about a directive foreshadowing the prime directive.

 

[Scott Kimball]

Sam,

He didn't give the cure, which the doctor COULD have come up with. Instead, he gave them medicine to help the symptoms and delay the onset of the illness

That episode is perhaps the best out of the three seasons that I watched.

-Scott

 

[Don Scott]

I don't understand why there are so many complaints. My fiance and myself are big trek fans and have all the series on dvd. These sets are not cheap so by having them all must be a good indication that we are serious fans. In saying that we have never had a single problem with Enterprise from day one. We just enjoy these series and have fun, we don't analyze them to death. I've seen every trek episode more than once but I must say I would suck at trek trivia. Some of you guys need to lighten up a little they are only tv shows, it's not real world history being altered here.

 

[Dave Farley]

Thanks, Britton. Hopefully, these discs will last. This may not have been the best thread for this question so I'll start a thread on it.

 

[Nelson Au]

Scott- Definitely stay away from the Okuda Text commentary, especially on The Andorian Incident. It assumes you've seen all Star Trek's and all Enterprise shows up to date. It is a very nice extra though.

A lot of care and effort was lavished into this set, the commentaries, both audio and text, the deleted scenes and all on top of the traditional extra materials on the last disc.

 

[Bill Williams]

Well, Scott and Nelson, I've gone through all of Disc 1 and "Unexpected" on Disc 2 thus far, and no problems with anything at this point. But that hiccup on "The Andorian Incident" concerns me. I know that when I was watching it, I had the Okuda text commentary on, so that could have caused the problem perhaps, I don't know. When I go back to re-watch it, maybe the problem will have cleared up the second time around.

 

[Bill Williams]

Here's something I just thought about as possible extras for the fourth season set: Over on StarTrek.com they've had exclusive audio commentary podcasts, two with Mike Sussman for the 2-part "In a Mirror, Darkly" and an upcoming third one with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens for "Terra Prime". For those of us who are unable to tune in for the podcasts, they would be great to include as audio commentaries for the fourth season set. Any thoughts about this?

 

[Nelson Au]

Bill-I'm sure those podcast commentaries will be included, it would be crazy if they weren't! They were pretty insightful.

Re: Andorian Incident, I watched it twice, once without and once with the text commentary and there were no glitches. Actually twice with text commentary, cause I saw it halfway through, then came back later to finish it, and no problems for me.

I also saw Terra Nova and Unexpected.