Product Description: No Description Available. Genre: Television Rating: NR Release Date: 2-OCT-2007 Media Type: DVD
Amazon.com: After Star Wars and the successful big-screen Star Trek adventures, it's perhaps not so surprising that Gene Roddenberry managed to convince purse string-wielding studio heads in the 1980s that a Next Generation would be both possible and profitable. But the political climate had changed considerably since the 1960s, the Cold War had wound down, and we were now living in the Age of Greed. To be successful a second time, Star Trek had to change too.
A writer's guide was composed with which to sell and define where the Trek universe was in the 24th Century. The United Federation of Planets was a more appealing ideology to an America keen to see where the Reagan/Gorbachev faceoff was taking them. Starfleet's meritocratic philosophy had always embraced all races and species. Now Earth's utopian history, featuring the abolishment of poverty, was brandished prominently and proudly. The new Enterprise, NCC 1701-D, was no longer a ship of war but an exploration vessel carrying families. The ethical and ethnical flagship also carried a former enemy (the Klingon Worf, played by Michael Dorn), and its Chief Engineer (Geordi LaForge) was blind and black. From every politically correct viewpoint, Paramount executives thought the future looked just swell!
Roddenberry's feminism now contrasted a pilot episode featuring ship's Counsellor Troi (Marina Sirtis) in a mini-skirt with her ongoing inner strengths and also those of Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) and the short-lived Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby). The arrival of Whoopi Goldberg in season 2 as mystic barkeep Guinan is a great example of the good the original Trek did for racial groups--Goldberg has stated that she was inspired to become an actress in large part through seeing Nichelle Nichols' Uhura. Her credibility as an actress helped enormously alongside the strong central performances of Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard), Jonathan Frakes (First Officer Will Riker), and Brent Spiner (Data) in defining another wholly believable environment once again populated with well-defined characters. Star Trek, it turned out, did not depend for its success on any single group of actors.
Like its predecessor in the 1960s, TNG pioneered visual effects on TV, making it an increasingly jaw-dropping show to look at. And thanks also to the enduring success of the original show, phasers, tricorders, communicators and even phase inverters were already familiar to most viewers. But while technology was a useful tool in most crises, it now frequently seemed to be the cause of them too, as the show's writers continually warned about the dangers of over-reliance on technology (the Borg were the ultimate expression of this maxim). The word "technobabble" came to describe a weakness in many TNG scripts, which sacrificed the social and political allegories of the original and relied instead upon invented technological faults and their equally fictitious resolutions to provide drama within the Enterprise's self-contained society. (The holodeck's safety protocol override seemed to be next to the light switch given the number of times crew members were trapped within.) This emphasis on scientific jargon appealed strongly to an audience who were growing up for the first time in the late 1980s with the home computer--and gave rise to the clichéd image of the nerdy Trek fan.
Like in the original Trek, it was in the stories themselves that much of the show's success is to be found. That pesky Prime Directive kept moral dilemmas afloat ("Justice"/"Who Watches the Watchers?"/"First Contact"). More "what if" scenarios came out of time-travel episodes ("Cause and Effect"/"Time's Arrow"/"Yesterday's Enterprise"). And there were some episodes that touched on the political world, such as "The Arsenal of Freedom" questioning the supply of arms, "Chain of Command" decrying the torture of political prisoners and "The Defector", which was called "The Cuban Missile Crisis of The Neutral Zone" by its writer. The show ran for more than twice as many episodes as its progenitor and therefore had more time to explore wider ranging issues. But the choice of issues illustrates the change in the social climate that had occurred with the passing of a couple of decades. "Angel One" covered sexism; "The Outcast" was about homosexuality; "Symbiosis"--drug addiction; "The High Ground"--terrorism; "Ethics"--euthanasia; "Darmok"--language barriers; and "Journey's End"--displacement of Indians from their homeland. It would have been unthinkable for the original series to have tackled most of these.
TNG could so easily have been a failure, but it wasn't. It survived a writer's strike in its second year, the tragic death of Roddenberry just after Trek's 25th anniversary in 1991, and plenty of competition from would-be rival franchises. Yes, its maintenance of an optimistic future was appealing, but the strong stories and readily identifiable characters ensured the viewers' continuing loyalty. --Paul Tonks
star trek i love the series and love the video quality but i did not like the bad plastics it came in it all fell apart the first time i opened it and it is a pain to take the cds out of the box. the quality of the cd trays is also bad some of the cd restraints are broken so the cds keep falling out. overall not happy with the packaging
love it Some of the other reviews I've read about this product mention the shody packaging and lack of reference cards to point to a specific episode. The product I received was in perfect order and nothing was broken. I don't mind the layout of the disks, but I can see how it could be difficult to locate a specific episode (you must leaf through the folder-like disk holders and read the label on each disk. I guess I don't mind because I have been such a fan of the series for so long that I somewhat know the order of the episodes by heart. If I am looking for a specific episode from Season 5, I know generally where it is. But, I can appreciate the complaint. I do like the efficiency of the packaging. It holds the entire 7 seasons' disks in a very small space. Overall, I am very pleased with this purchase.
Poor packaging and poor production I didnt heed the warnings about this product before buying it. The cases are indeed flimsy and break too easily. I bought this item, the first 2 discs you could hear every background noise, but not the actors/actresses talking...so i returned it and exchanged it for another set...samething...I dont know what paramount is playing at, but with something that has earned them millions you would think they would have invested in something a bit more substantial, and better programming.
star trek: next generation-complete series This my favoerite series in Star Trek. I love the fact that I could get the complete set for a reasonable price. My only complaint is the holder which the discs sit in broke easily. I am enjoying this series as much now as I did when it originally aired.
One of the best series ever made, but horrible packaging. I'm really disappointed in Paramont for releasing this set in such a crappy box. I really wanted to see something great for TNG 20, but I was greatly let down. I've seen this box set in person and can vouch for how crappy the box is made. I will not buy this until it has been put into a better box that isn't really over priced. I agree with other posters, I believe that this will be coming to Blu-Ray within a couple of years. I'll wait for that.
While I love this series, I will refuse to buy this crappy box.
Anything Goes Trivia
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