HTF REVIEW: "Star Trek: The Next Generation" Season Six(with screenshots) (1 Viewer)

Star Trek: The Next Generation
Season Six




Studio: Paramount
Year: 1992-1993
Rated: NR
Feature Length: 1177 minutes
Aspect Ratio: Full Frame
Subtitles: English



Welcome to the 24th Century
October 10, 1986, seventeen years after the
cancellation of the original Star Trek series,
Paramount launched a new generation of Star
Trek with an all-new cast of characters. The
show went on to have an Emmy award-winning
seven-year run. It has become the best Star
Trek series of all time.
Paramount forges ahead with its release of this
sixth season set of Star Trek The Next Generation,
with the seventh season set only mere weeks
behind it.

Star Trek TNG Season Six arrives as
all previous seasons arrived, in a deluxe
boxed 7-pane gatefold package that opens up to
an impressive span, holding the entire sixth
season laid out across 7 DVDs placed in plastic
hub housing. A total of 26 episodes span this
series, with each of the 6 discs containing four
episodes each and the 7th disc containing two
episodes + supplements. Paramount has also
given the set its own unique appearance by giving
the packaging a predominantly purple color scheme so
that it can easily be differentiated from other
seasons.

On the flip side gatefold's end pocket sits a
small pamphlet that opens to a 17 1/2" 2-sided
fold-out. On the one side is a 4 page foldout that
contains an artist's rendering of the entire cast.
Flip the booklet over and you'll find a picture of
a Romulan vessel alongside a description of the
"sophisticated" race that Roddenberry modeled after
the Romans. On the opposite pages, Episodes are
listed in alphabetical order, complete with airdate,
stardate, and what disc that episode appears on.
Season Six is perhaps the most favorite of
all the TNG seasons for the fact that it contains
many concept driven episodes that really show the
cast having a lot of fun with their work. In
addition, this season was setting up Deep Space
Nine with its recurring character, Ensign
Ro Lauren, a member of the Bajoran race. This
season also featured yet another appearance by an
original Star Trek cast member as James Doohan
(Scotty) makes an appearance in Relics.
Once again, I enjoyed a pleasant morning in my
comfy Home Theater chair sampling three of the
best episodes from this boxed set in order to get an
idea of how good the audio and video quality
presentation is.

Relics
The U.S.S. Enterprise crew is surprised to
encounter the U.S.S. Jenolen, which crashed 75
years ago, on the surface of a tremendous
gravitational force known as a Dyson Sphere.
However, they are even more surprised to discover
a survivor hidden in the ship's transporter. The
legendary Captain Montgomery Scott has survived
for three quarters of a century by keeping himself
suspended in molecular limbo in the ship's
transporter system.

A Fistful of Datas
A rare period of downtime gives the U.S.S.
Enterprise staff a chance to pursue recreational
interests. Geordi conducts an experiment with Data,
attaching the android to the Enterprise computer to
see if he can be used as a backup. Meanwhile, Worf,
Alexander and Troi transport to 19-century South
Dakota, where they engage in a fantasy involving a
murderous outlaw named Eli Hollander. Little do
they know that Data's memory has been crossed with
the computer's recreational database creating a very
dangerous game inside the holodeck.

Tapestry
Gravely injured in a Lenarian attack, Picard slips
into a white, seamless limbo while Beverly struggles
to save his life. There, he encounters Q, who informs
Picard that he is dead and this is the afterlife — and
that Q himself is God! Picard refuses to believe that
he is dead, let alone that Q is the supreme being.
Picard gets another chance at changing the events of
his younger life in order to save his older one.
How is the transfer?
It's very hard to tell if this transfer has improved
upon the last season. On the one hand, the image is
very clean with nice overall color saturation. On
the other hand, I am still bothered by the fact that
the images are a bit on the soft side, resulting in
an overall lack of sharpness and picture detail.
Weeks to months go by between each review I do of
these sets and it's hard to determine if the 5.1
Dolby Digital tracks have improved or not. The
soundtrack still lacks movie quality audio, though
there seems to be a lot more effect noise in the
rears these days, such as background wind in the
western setting of A Fistful of Datas or
the ever present hums of the ship's engines. I did
notice something more in this season's sound mix --
the fact that the show's music soundtrack was more
evenly distributed to the rears. The LFE channel
also seems to be more robust here than normal,
providing some nice deep rumbles with every shot
of the Enterprise sailing through space.
Special Features

The DVD begins exactly as all previous seasons
with an animated sequence that features the
planet Saturn, as character faces dissolve in
and out of the planet surface. With each new set,
Paramount has made some slight modifications to
the facial sequences used. This time around it's
difficult to see the changes that have been made.
Once again, Paramount has done some tinkering with
the main. We went from the ship's main control
panel in the first four seasons to the holodeck in
the fifth season. This time around, the main menu
resides on another of the ship's smaller control
panels.

Welcome to the Main Menu that has been replicated
to look like the ship's computer mainframe

Once you select the episode, you have several
options laid out before you. ENGAGE will
immediately start the episode. COMMUNICATIONS
lets you select either ENGLISH STEREO or ENGLISH
5.1 SURROUND. It is here that you can also turn
subtitles on, if you wish. CHAPTER LOG
breaks the episode down by scenes, with individual
picture stills allowing you to quickly access your
favorite points in the episode.

Disc 7 holds the DVD's extra content. Let's take
a look at it....
Welcome to Stardate 46001.3

In Mission Overview, Brent Spiner and writer
Ronald Moore don't hesitate to proclaim the Sixth
season as the best of the entire series. We take
a look at some very special moments from the season --
particularly Time's Arrow where Brent and
Whoopie Goldberg recall wearing period costumes and
just having a lot of fun. As we take a look at
some scenes from Relic, we are treated to
an on-set interview of both James Doohan and Levar
Burton. Levar is just beside himself as he talks
about what it means to be a Star Trek Chief Engineer,
and to play besides the legendary Doohan after
growing up and watching "Scotty" on TV. 1993 was the
year that Deep Space Nine debuted and
Executive Producer Michael Piller explains how TNG
sort of crossed over to that series through its
episodes concerning the Cardassians and the Bajoran.
The featurette ends with a very nice story about
Stephen Hawking, one of the great minds of the 20th
century. Stephen was a Trek fan and had asked to
be written into an episode. It was such an exciting
experience for Brent Spiner, and he tells you why.
(length: approx. 17 minutes)
Bold New Directions talks about (among other
things) the Fistful of Datas episode and the
fact that writer Brannon Braga was not a fan of
westerns, but yet had to write an episode that was
a western. Nonetheless, Brannon had a blast writing
that episode and it's kind of cool to see that the
movie Shane was used as a template for it.
Patrick Steward talks about the challenges of
directing and shooting that episode on the Warner
Brothers backlot. Daylight became both a friend
and worst enemy to the entire crew. Taking a look
at Second Chance, Levar Burton talks about
learning the ropes while directing his very first
episode.
(length: approx. 17 minutes)

Departmental Briefing is broken down into
two major segments. In Production we watch
Scenic Artist Supervisor Mike Okuda and his team
talk about the challenges of recreating the original
Enterprise set as seen in Relics. The real
problem was the costs involved, so most of the
recreating had to be done digitally. I was just
amazed to learn how that scene was filmed against
blue screens. Make-up Designer Michael Westmore
reflects on Birthright, an episode with his
creation named Shrek. Actor James Cromwell talks
briefly about what it was like playing that character
and being beneath a heavy mask. He also talks about
the creation of the character's dialect. Westmore
goes on to talk a little about the contact lenses
and various electronic apparatuses that have been
added to many of the characters. In Profile Dan
Curry, we are brought to the home of the Visual
Effects Supervisor. It's always cool to go to
someone's house and see it filled with various Trek
paintings and collectables. Dan has an awesome set
of Klingon Weapons on display and he certainly knows
how to use them. He's very knowledgeable of Chinese
tai chi swords and shows us some impressively fluid
movements using one of the weapons.
(length: approx. 15 minutes/19 minutes)

Special Crew Profile: Data begins with Brent
Spiner's initial hesitation to join the Star Trek
cast. After all, he was a successful singer and
dancer on Broadway prior to this gig, and this was
scary for him. The part, however, grew on Spiner
and over the next years his robotic character would
dwell more and more into different aspects of humanity.
Spiner talks fondly about many of the characters he
has played throughout the years, most notably, Lore
the evil twin brother. He even got to do a little
tap dancing as well as a comedy routine opposite
Joe Piscopo. I had to take a step back when I saw
the TNG cast backing up for Brent Spiner as an album
of standards is recorded in a studio.
(length: approx. 18 minutes)
Finally we have two trailers here for your
enjoyment. The first is for the upcoming Star
Trek Nemesis film. The second will make you
hold on to your wallet very tightly as you watch
a preview for Deep Space Nine: The DVD Collector's
Edition. That's right folks, 7 boxed sets are
to be released throughout 2003.
As always, Paramount has included subtitles within
their supplementals.
Final Thoughts
If you are picking and choosing which sets to buy,
I think you'll find Season Six to be the best
of the lot -- the real "meat and potatoes" of this
series. Of course, I recommend that every one of
these sets become a permanent part of your collection.
Another terrific boxed set! Six down, one to go.
Release Date: December 3, 2002

Thanks, Ron.

As much as I love my TNG boxsets, I must say the transfers are, for the most part, soft. The TOS transfers are so cleaner.

I think much has to do with the fact that TOS was shot on 35mm film and the effects were not video-composited as they were on the 16mm-shot TNG.

Still, having all these great episodes at one's disposal. ...

Good review, Ron.

Ron, Jack: The TNG episodes have always looked soft to me, even during the initial airings of the show (viewed both over-the-air and cable), so these sets look to be pretty accurate transfers of the source.

. I had to take a step back when I saw the TNG cast backing up for Brent Spiner as an album of standards is recorded in a studio.

Even scarier is the resulting album - "Ole' Yellow Eyes Is Back". (Of course, I have a copy) Actually, it's not a bad effort at all (compared especially to Trek vets Shatner's and Nimoy's albums), but it's odd to think that it's Spiner singing. Think of a combo of Al Jolson, Frank Sinatra and Jerry Lewis...

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I was always under the impression that season 6 was one of the weaker ones. FISTFUL OF DATAS seemed silly to me. However, I didn't see the whole season because I moved to Seattle and was without a TV for some time . . . still looking forward to this set, though.

Thanks for another great review, Ron!!!

Personal taste is certainly the case. Many fans think season 2 is terrible, I think it is one of the better ones. And I think season six is my favorite, with season four close behind. My overall ranking goes: 6,4,3,2,5,1. But I like them all.

I have a reputation here as a "harsh" Star Trek obsessive. And I have been watching this entire phenomenon very closely since September of 1966.

This, from an "old hand":

Season Six is the very best, with consistently excellent stories. It was the most successful season of TNG ever. Love Chain of Command.

Peter:

Same here! I always thought, when watching TNG during its first run and later in reruns and, worse, on TNN, that the colors of the uniforms looked washed out, and the general look being kind of dark and soft.

And I always attributed it either to KCOP-Channel 13 Los Angeles or to my television(s) (three or four Sonys, a Panasonic, and a Toshiba).

I always thought the DVDs would show us the true thing. It's disturbing to think they apparently have. (For another thread, of course!) (But some of the Season One and Season Two episodes look pretty good. Still in the middle of going through Season Five!)

Jack,

I'm glad you mentioned "Chain of Command" I would put that episode right up there with "The Inner Light" as a showcase for Stewart's acting ability. I thought the episode was awesome!

It was also a thrill to see Picard on the original bridge of the Enterprise in "Relics" I felt that episode with Scotty, made up for the slight disappointment of Spock's appearance the year before.

Of course DS9 did TNG one better with Trials and Tribblations! What's that, about 8 months away?

There are four lights!!!
That line alone is reason enough to get Season 6.

Britton,
I was JUST going to post that line!
And I agree, Chain, along with Inner Light, is some of the best sc-fi TV.
cheers!
Josh

Nice review Ron. It will be on my "to buy" list.

Both season 6 and 7 had their share of great episodes and are, IMO, worth picking up. Season 7 also had a few episodes that were, also IMO, as bad as anything we've seen since season 2. Every season has "clinker" or two, but in Season 7, they seemed to clink just a little harder.

While DS9 was conceived with Ro in mind, Michelle Forbes didn't want to committ to a series and they replaced her with Nana Visitor and Major Kira.

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"Chain of Command" is one of my favorite episodes in any of the Trek series. David Warner, one of my favorite actors, and Stewart together...great stuff.
"You are...six years old.....weak and helpless....You cannot...hurt me!"

This is the first time ive seen a trek fan say season six is the best whether its online or conventions. The best seasons by far are #3 and #4 for most trekkies. Season six does have some good episodes but it is when the series started going south. Don't get me wrong it's still worth having but the best? not by a longshot.

The fourth season is so riddled with "B-story" excess it is sometimes hard to determine the main plot from the subplot. But there were great episodes. Season Six is uniformly excellent.