Star Trek The Original Series The Complete First Season
January 2008 Reviewed by: Rad Bennett Format: HD DVD/DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Considered a failure when it first ran on NBC TV, Star Trek gathered momentum through syndicated reruns. But "momentum" is an understatement. The show became part of our culture. Fans developed that were soon called Trekkies, and these enthusiasts founded conventions and gatherings that still go on to this very day. The original cast made the transition to the big screen for five films, then turning over the helm to Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the Next Generation.

The first season had some good writers, but it looked sort of cheesy. In retrospect, I say that with great affection. The main thing that held the show up to scrutiny was the performance of William Shatner as James T. Kirk. He established a personable and strong image that rang true episode after episode. Kirk was a thoughtful and knowledgeable man, and a man of action who believed in fair play. He was also clever at outwitting his enemies. He was a crafty and intelligent swashbuckler. Leonard Nimoy, as Spock, was his foil. Spock placed logic above everything, often finding Kirk’s emotional responses to various situations "illogical." Nichelle Nichols played Lieutenant Uhura. She broke the mold and set a precedent as a woman of color who was also a woman of power. All of the actors but Shatner have faded into the background, but the amazing Bill Shatner still continues to amaze 40 years after Star Trek as the irrepressible Denny Crane on Boston Legal.

Forty years. Yes, 40 years. Back then television sets were much smaller than they are now, and you could see the scan lines. There was no need to be careful about the way things were filmed. It is amazing, then, to find out on the HD DVD side of these combo discs that the show was shot so that it looks just fine in high definition. That goes for the interiors, especially the close-up shots, where you can count every hair on a character’s head. But the exterior model shots simply looked too amateurish when rendered in HD, so they have been redone with CGI. Purists might scream, but I find it quite OK and merely an updating. There’s no effort to insert new footage. The old footage is merely replaced with a cleaner version of the same scene.

The discs are two-sided. You can watch the DVD side on a regular player, if you haven’t made the jump to HD yet, and be ready for the new technology when you update your system. The SD sides look good, but the HD sides have more depth and richer colors. Amazing colors, in fact. Seeing these shows 30 years ago in rerun, I would not have believed the colors could be so bright and tangible. The sound has been updated too, and the Dolby TrueHD tracks are as clean as can be given the source material. Most of the sound is up front, but on some of the spaceship fly-bys there is a very smooth transition to the rear channels. One thing is a little bothersome, though: The music for the opening titles and end titles has been newly recorded. It sounds wonderful, but it is at a much higher level than the show in between. It’s hard to set a level that will allow you to hear the dialogue without blasting yourself away during the credits.

The packaging is attractive but also inadequate. The ten discs are housed in a plastic wallet-like flipper that doesn’t hold them securely enough. And maybe it’s just me, but it was sort of hard to figure out how to open the plastic case that holds the cardboard case that holds the discs. Also hard to grasp initially were the menus, which cleverly disguise the facts you need to know. You can find these by hitting different direction keys, but it takes a little playing around to get the hang of it. There are endless extras, both HD and SD, and I will leave it to you to explore those.

In spite of the small negatives mentioned, my overall impression of this set is "Bring on Season Two!"

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