Amazon.com: Star Trek: The Next Generation's third year was an important development in syndicated television. After two shaky years, Paramount nonetheless decided the franchise still had plenty to do. Their confidence was bolstered by two significant factors. First, cast uncertainties were finally settled: Gates McFadden (Dr. Crusher) was back for good; Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar) regretted her first-year departure, and so contrived a return in the Emmy Award-winning "Yesterday's Enterprise"; and Whoopi Goldberg happily continued her actor's-scale contributions.
Second, after the show had survived the previous year's writers' strike, new writing blood revitalized both characters and ideas: Data experienced fatherhood ("The Offspring"), Worf's Klingon heritage kick-started a huge story arc ("Sins of the Father"), and Picard got a saucy vacation ("Captain's Holiday"). There were memorable star cameos: John de Lancie played more mischief alongside Corbin Bernsen ("Déjà Q"); Dwight Schultz played truant in a gentle warning about addiction ("Hollow Pursuits"); and pleasing fans even more was Mark Lenard as Spock's dad ("Sarek"). The strongest evidence that TNG would continue for some time was the trend-setting cliffhanger finale. Fans and critics still agree that "The Best of Both Worlds" (properly introducing the Borg) was one of the greatest tricks ever pulled on TV to make audiences come back for more. --Paul Tonks
Description: 26 episodes on 7 discs: Evolution, The Ensigns of Command, The Survivors, Who Watches the Watchers, The Bonding, Booby Trap, The Enemy, The Price, The Vengeance Factor, The Defector, The Hunted, The High Ground, Deja Q, A Matter of Perspective, Yesterday's Enterprise, The Offspring, Sins of the Father, Allegiance, Captain's Holiday, Tin Man, Hollow Pursuits, The Most Toys, Sarek, Menage a Troi, Transfigurations, The Best of Both Worlds Part 1.
Next Gen Really Hits Its Stride See it in HD There are several compelling reasons to purchase this set:
This is by far the best of several great NG seasons; writing is crisp, the dialog is visceral, the tempo is great, and the shows are generally as good or better than you will find in earlier or later years.
The characters' development is proceeding on all fronts, human, Klingon, and crew-wise. The production, writing, and directing is nearing its peak.
But, as important as any of these are, don't forget ILM (div of LucasFilms) did the special effects. This is as high a quality of special effect as you will ever see in television. It is guaranteed with all the computer and CGI junk as there is now, you will not see better sci-fi action than this. MANY OF YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN THE ORIGINAL Next Gen SHOWS IN HI DEF. YOU MUST!! It is leaps and bounds better than other versions.
Many of us trekkers are just now getting the high quality 1080i or 1080p high def televisions. You will not believe how much better the quality of Next Gen is until you see it on one of these hi def sets. Get one with HDMI and upcoding, and it will up-convert your standard def show like Next Gen DVD TO HDMI and 1080i or p. It is unbelievable!! As good as the VHS tapes were, as good as you can record Trek off TV nowdays, the factory stuff with the Dolby Surround encoding cannot be beat. Many movies do not have the quality of these Trek shows. Some of these shows had as much as 3 Million in special effects budgets- for 1987 that was a ton of money. Some blockbuster films did not have much more budget than a single trek show!
So, add this new compelling element, top quality video, to the OTHER strengths of Season Three Next Gen and you have an all time winner. No collectors set of videos would be complete without Year 3, the Third Season, of Star Trek Next Gen. It is excellence personified. The stereo is near perfect, audio mixing is the best I ever heard (check out the subwoofer content in engineering scenes), surround is first class, the directing, writing, acting, and direction, cannot be beat for TV, and the special effects are as good as you will ever see. You can bet there will never be another Trek Next Gen. But if you have a high def television, you are in for a treat, as this is historic. The Pinnacle of television.
This is the complete package for Sci Fi and Trek fans. You get the action, the effects, the cerebral, philosophical nature of Trek, and video that cannot be beat, 19 hours of it, for 62$. Mighty hard to beat. Gene, the Great Bird of the Galaxy, would be proud. Do yourself a favor and treat yourself to some really classic trek and sci fi and at least get season three. If you are a trek fan, this one season is the least you can try out. Science Fiction simply does not get any better than this. Star Trek The Next Generation - The Complete Third Season
Star Trek TNG review; Season 3 I was a big fan of Star Trek TNG from the very first episode of the first season in 9/87. In fact, I video-taped every episode of TNG up until i lost my job in 1991 and shortly after, couldn't pay for cable-tv. Without cable-tv, I missed the final season, but managed to catch it later in the reruns. For the first half of the 90s, I actually had every episode of TNG recorded on video-tape, with most of the commercials removed. It was all in perfect order, except for the final season, which was randomly placed on a couple of other tapes with DS9 and Voyager.
Unfortunately, sometime in the late-90s, one of the boxes with my video-tapes in it had an accident during a move and I lost almost all of season 1, 2, 3, and 4, and portions of 5, 6, and 7. It was something that I had little time to cry about after it occurred, but when I think about it now, I regret it even more, because with a Dvd-recorder, I could have transferred it all to my own discs and it wouldn't have been necessary for me to purchase the Dvds through Amazon.
I purchased season 5 on Dvd through a local shop because I wanted one of the later seasons and 6 and 7 were, at the time, going for something like $100, while 5 was only $60. Later, I purchased season 3 through Amazon and I have to say, after reviewing all of the early seasons, season 3 is my favorite. 5 is okay, 4 is poor (too much soap opera), and 3 is really quite good in comparison. Both 5 and 4 have some very good episodes, but over all, season 3 has many more good episodes than either. Of course, 6 and 7 are also quite good, but season 3 is, imo, the best of the earlier seasons. 1 and 2 were okay, but compared to 3, they were like trial seasons, and everybody was too green and not quite comfortable with their roles.
Having been a big fan of TNG since it originally aired in 87, and having appreciated it in reruns as often as possible, I am quite familiar with it, much more so since I purchased 4 of the seasons on Dvd (3,5,6,7). I have went so far as to review much of it at my web-site (ts-variant.net) and here's my general list of season 3 with a 1 to 5 star-rating.
5 Stars (Excellent):
The Hunted, Tin Man
4 Stars (Very Good):
The Defector, Yesterday's Enterprise
3 Stars (Good):
Evolution, The Ensigns of Command, The Survivors, Who Watches the Watchers, Booby Trap, The Enemy, The Vengeance Factor, The High Ground, Deja Q, A Matter of Perspective, Sins of the Father, Allegiance, Captain's Holiday, Hollow Pursuits, The Most Toys, Sarek, Menage a Troi, and The Best of Both Worlds (part 1).
2 Stars (Okay):
The Bonding, The Price, Transfigurations
1 Star (Poor):
No episodes in this season were poor.
The interesting thing about this season, which made it the best for me, was the high number of episodes that I consider to be 'Good' science-fiction and the absence of any 'Poor' episodes in the entire set. Granted, there are only 4 that I consider exceptionally Good, but the high number that are Good, compared to the other early seasons, (1 - 5), makes up for that lack of exceptionality.
Also, there are certain episodes ranked amongst the Good ones that would have been better if it were not for minor flaws, and for the most part, would be given a 3 point 5 rating if I bothered to cut my stars in half, but I never got into it that deep. In any case, here are some of the episodes I would give a 3.5 rating: Booby Trap, The Enemy, A Matter of Perspective, Hollow Pursuits, and Sarek.
Upon comparing season 3 to both 2 and 4, while these seasons do have some very good episodes, they also have too many poor ones and not enough 'Good' ones to rate as highly as 3. As for 5, it is not much better than 2, but 6 and 7 are both much better than all the others, including 3. Some have said that season 6 is the best in the series, but I'd have a hard time choosing between 6 and 7, both which I consider the best of the series.
The thing that makes 6 and 7 better than 3, aside from the obvious upgrades, are the number of Excellent and Very Good episodes. Season 6 has 4 Excellent and 6 Very Good episodes, and Season 7 has 5 Excellent and 7 Very Good episodes.
Of the 3 seasons that i don't have yet, I'll probably go for 1, even though the crew is still very green, because it still ranks better than 2 and 4. Both 2 and 4, imo, have too many episodes which I rate as poor or okay, because they tend to be lacking good sci-fi element or have too much soap opera. In too many of those episodes, also, there seems to be too much of a preoccupation with individual character's personal situations. I realize the producers did those eps on purpose, to give the program a closer sense of realism, but I just don't think that stuff makes very good science-fiction unless it includes science-fiction, if you get my drift.
Of course, this is not to say that even 2 and 4 didn't include some very good episodes, because they did. Season 2 had "Where Silence has Lease" (a 5-star mystery thriller), "Elementary Data" (4.5 stars), "The Schizoid Man" (4), "The Royale" (4), "The Contagion" (4), and season 4 had "The Best of Both Worlds" (4-star Borg sequel), "Remember Me" (4), "Future Imperfect" (4), "Night Terrors" (another 5-star thriller), and Qpid (4).
If I were a wealthier man, I'd purchase all the other seasons in one order, and probably most of the Voyager series also, but when one has to pay off debts, monthly rents, and a sky-rocketing electrical bill on a minimum wage, there's little if anything left over for much else at the end of the month, so that's quite impossible.
star trek the next generation season 3 I thought the dvd's would be damaged in the mail, but the dvd, were in better shape than the store I usually go to! Amazon obviously have better distributors. I really enjoyed watching next generation season 3 and now have a complete set and the price(discounted on first order) was great! thanks amazon!!!!
TNG hits its stride This is where TNG really started to pick up and become the classic series we remember. Excellent episodes such as Yesterday's Enterprise, The Offspring, Sins of the Father, and more are found here. There's even a visit from Sarek, Spock's father from the original series. Plus the greatest cliffhanger ending of all time!
It's Star Trek! Special effects are better, Work does not look like a Targ, and Data is starting to make sense. we actually bought this one first.
Anything Goes Trivia
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