World Famous Comics: Star Trek The Original Series - The Complete Second Season
Star Trek The Original Series - The Complete Second Season
Starring: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Deforest Kelly, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Binding: DVD Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC Label: CBS Paramount International Television Number of Items: 7 Region Code: 1 Release Date: November 02, 2004 Running Time: 1307 minutes Theatrical Release Date: September 08, 1966
Product Description: Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise travel through space in order to defend the United Federation of Planets and explore new worlds. No Track Information Available Media Type: DVD Artist: STAR TREK ORIGINAL SERIES Title: SEASON 2 Street Release Date: 11/02/2004 Domestic Genre: TELEVISION
Amazon.com: The most famous episode in franchise history, "The Trouble with Tribbles," is one of the highlights of the second season of Star Trek: The Original Series. A deserved classic, the humorous story centers on an ever-expanding mass of furry creatures that memorably rain themselves down on top of Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and into the middle of a Federation-Klingon showdown. It inspired one of the most memorable episodes in the spin-off series Deep Space Nine, "Trial and Tribble-ations." Also in the second season, the Vulcan culture of Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) is fleshed out in "Amok Time" (in which Spock is faced with the possibility of killing his captain and friend) and "Journey to Babel" (introducing Spock's father, played by Mark Sarek, in what would turn out to be a long-recurring role). A new character, navigator Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig), was introduced; his Monkees haircut was intended to appeal to the younger audience, but he was also a Russian, which at the height of the cold war reflected Gene Roddenberry's optimistic vision of a more enlightened future. Other social-commentary opportunities presented themselves in "The Omega Glory," "The Doomsday Machine," and "Assignment: Earth," the last also one of those periodic opportunities to scrimp on the budget by time-traveling to an earlier version of Earth. Another example was "A Piece of the Action," a comic episode set in the Roaring Twenties and memorable for, among other things, Kirk's teaching a made-up card game called Fizzbin. In other significant episodes, "I, Mudd" saw the return of the bounder from season 1, "The Changeling" was the original inspiration for the first Trek feature film a decade later, "Wolf in the Fold" (penned by the author of Psycho) provides an example of the series' great writing, and "Mirror, Mirror" introduced the concept of the parallel universe inhabited by vicious, amoral counterparts of the regular crew, another theme later borrowed (more than once, and to good emotional effect) by DS9.
Special features are a bit lighter than on the season 1 set, but they do feature such contributors as Shatner, Nimoy, George Takei (Sulu), Koenig, Nichelle Nichols (Uhura), and editor-writer D.C. Fontana. Of chief interest are "To Boldly Go," a 20-minute season recap; " Kirk, Spock & Bones: The Great Trio," discussing the interplay among Kirk, Spock, and Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley); "Star Trek's Divine Diva," shining the spotlight on the development of Nichols's character (she was originally considered to play Spock); and "Writer's Notebook: D.C. Fontana," discussing her various roles in the series (she used her initials to avoid the anti-female bias in science fiction at the time). --David Horiuchi
The Best It Has To Offer The Second Season of Star Trek: The Original Series picks up right where the first season left off in terms of mind-bending plotlines and rousing action/adventure. Without the feeling-out period that all TV shows need in order to find their correct footing, this Second Season provided the most compelling drama of the entire show. Highlights include:
Amok Time: When Spock begins acting strange, Kirk brings him back to the Vulcan home world and discovers a special ritual that may have deadly consequences.
Mirror, Mirror: During an intense electrical storm, certain members of the Enterprise crew are transported to an alternate dimension, where the Enterprise is ruled by an iron fist.
Wolf In The Fold: When Chief Engineer Scotty is accused of muder on an alien planet, the Enterprise crew uncover the real killer (a chilling episode).
The Trouble With Tribbles: A hilarious script that lightens the mood of an otherwise tense show.
The Ultimate Computer: The ultimate maverick, Kirk, matches wits with the ultimate computer that technology can build.
To conclude, for viewers of the first season, the Second Season of Star Trek: TOS will not disappoint you.
The best Star Trek season (of this or any other ST series) Season 2 saw the full maturation of the Star Trek franchise. Gone are the awkward feeling-out episodes and the plain bad/boring episodes of the first season (e.g. "Charlie X", although "The Changeling" is pretty bad). Also gone is the awkward broadcast schedule, where uniforms and cast members appeared to change because the shows were broadcast in an apparently random order relative to their filming dates. In full flower is the Star Trek Triumvirate of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy - Spock representing cold logic (the ego?), McCoy emotional humanity (id?), and Kirk balancing the two with action (superego?). The addition of Chekov as the last "main character" of the Original Series crew is also welcome.
With the rise of stories revolving around the Triumvirate, there is an inevitable diminution of secondary character interactions. That's not to say that Scotty, Uhura, et al. are not given ample screen time in some episodes (e.g. Scotty's murder trial in "Wolf in the Fold"), but we don't have many interactions between them - e.g. Sulu and Rand discussing fencing, or Uhura singing in the officer's mess. That's a minor quibble, of course, as the season is rich in fantastic and varies episodes. There are some outright comedies ("I, Mudd" doesn't work, but "Trouble with Tribbles" and "A Piece of the Action" both routinely appear at the tops of lists of favourite episode votes).
Other reviews have listed the episodes for the season, but I will give a partial list of highlights, divided by classic Trek themes:
1. Comedy episodes: - The Trouble with Tribbles: insatiable purring furballs infest the Enterprise while docked at a space station is disputed space. The Klingons pay a visit and further chaos ensues. - A Piece of the Action: cultural contamination by a survey ship 100 years easrlier creates a culture based on 1930's Chicago mobs. Kirk and Spock attempt to redirect the course of the planetary evolution. Contains the a memorable line uttered by Mr. Spock in a mob accent: "I'd advise yez to keep dialing" (the phone). In a recent straw poll in the local newspaper, this episode was voted "best Trek episode" of all time.
2. Prime Directive episodes - The aforementioned A Piece of the Action - Patterns of Force - an historian recreates Nazi Germany on a planet at war with a neighbour
3. Alien Culture - Amok Time and Journey to Babel - the former dealing with Vulcan mating rituals, the latter with the Father-Son relationship between Sarek and Spock. - Friday's Child - the Klingons and Federation fight over mining rights on a pre-technological world
4. Transporter/holodeck/technology malfunction - Mirror, Mirror - a transporter accident sends Kirk, Uhura, McCoy, and Scotty into an alternate universe where their counterparts are genocidal empire-builders.
5. Threat to all life in the galaxy/universe - Doomsday Machine - The USS Constellation's crew are killed by a giant superweapon, and Kirk and the Constellation's captain must figure out how to destroy it. - Obsession - a gaseous entity that eats red blood cells (thus killing its victim) is encountered. We learn that Kirk's first landing party command was destroyed by this same creature.
The final great episode of Season 2 doesn't easily fit into a standard Trek category, and that is "Wolf in the Fold", where Scotty is charged with the multiple murders of women on a shore-leave planet. It was written by Theodore Sturgeon, who also penned "Psycho".
There are extras on this disc, and they are quite good. I would have liked to have seen more text commentaries by the Okudas, and would really like to have heard some audio commentaries by the actors (both Nimoy and Shatner gave good commentaries on the ST films they directed). There are interviews with Nimoy discussing his photography career, Nichelle Nicholls on the origins of Uhura's name, and writer D.C. Fontana on the writing process, for just a few examples. Now that the price of these series have come down to more affordable levels (they were originally $100 each!), they are worth the money to see the stories uninterrupted by ads and uncut for syndication.
Out of Order Although it is real nice having the set in one package, it is a shame that they did not have the foresight to think we might want to watch them in the order they were numbered, i.e. episode 2 before 3, 3 before 4, 4 before 5, etc. They are on the disks in air date order, which is not the correct order, if you want to watch in actual order, you must juggle between disks. Wait to purchase until the idiots at Paramount get it right. Maybe this is why sales were not so good and went from $129 - $199 per season to less than $40.00 per season.
Its blurry at times I grew up knowing practically every line from every episode. I am disappointed in this DVD collection because so many of the episodes are terribly blurry at times. The opening of "A Piece of the Action" shows the Enterprise bouncing from white to gray...etc. Its weird. At times, the quality is marvelous...other times...its bad!!
Star Trek season 2 DVD is fantastic! Star Trek Season 2 DVD set is fantastic! This is great Star Trek DVD set to own! You have the original cast in their younger days back in the 1960s! William Shatner is Captain James T. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy is First Officer Mr. Spock, Deforest Kelly as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy and the rest of the original cast! Some of the great episodes in Star Trek Season 2 are Amok Time, The Domesday Machine, Mirror, Mirror, Journey to Babel, The Trouble with Tribbles, The Ultimate Computer, and Assignment: Earth! Mirror, Mirror is one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek: TOS! Buy it! Highest Possible Recommendation!
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