I love temporal mechanics.
This is quite possibly the strongest set of related episodes Paramount could release. It’s lined with classics: “City on the Edge of Forever”, “All Good Things…”, “Trials and Tribble-ations” and “The Year of Hell” to name but a few. This set features the best and the brightest Trek episodes out there, so in that regard, we’re safe.
Hell, if you like the time-travel episodes, you’re going to buy this anyway. The point of these sets isn’t special features; that much is evident. Apart from a text commentary or two, there simply aren’t any. I guess Paramount threw enough out on the full season stuff, but still, some related features would have been nice.
Visual quality is of course mixed, as this set draws from a range of episodes from as far back as forty years ago, to episodes as late as 2001, so naturally no matter how much digital restoration takes place, you’re still going to have problems. The visuals aren’t perfect.
Audio comes in the format of Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, so yeah, that works.
Its worth noting that this set is just over an hour shorter than the Borg DVD – curious, as you’re paying the same price. Another niggle I have is that “Endgame”, the Voyager finale, is present on BOTH sets. I wouldn’t feel too keen about buying it again, if I already had the Borg set. However unlike the Borg set, there is plenty of TOS and no ENT-era episodes at all.
But boiling down to the core issue, the episodes. These are some of the franchise’s finest hours. There’s little point in me regurgitating plots to you – they’re all available online, and many of you don’t want to be spoiled. However, it’s fascinating to see the different crews react to time-travel in different ways, and thats something these sets are good at highlighting – the differences in the characters. If you haven’t purchased series sets before, or don’t have any with these episodes on them, this is absolutely worth trying out.