Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)There are several important inadequacies you should know about this set before you buy:
1) The discs are in cheap, brittle trays -- easily subject to breakage -- rather than in well-built cases.
2) These trays are not labeled, and amazingly, there is no insert describing -- or even listing -- the episodes, or which discs they are on. Episode titles are printed on the disc labels, but that's all the info you get, so after spending $300, a buyer has to flip through the 49 discs like file cards, to find the episode s/he wants.
3) The discs are stuck into three unweildy clumps -- of either eight or nine trays, each -- that are held together by inexpensive adhesive tape. This tape seems likely to decay, and the result will be 26 individual, unlabled trays scattered around your living room. (Most trays have two discs).
4) The tray configuration leaves some discs uncovered, unless the whole awkward mess is stored together...a problem which will get worse when the trays inevitably separate.
The lone advantage is the bonus disc. Most of the features on the disc appear to have been meant for, and for some reason never made it onto, the original releases of seasons 4 - 7. That doesn't mean they're not worth watching; some of them are quite good. Of the three new features, the best offers interviews with several of the series' writers and producers. (However, it only tangentally deals with its supposed subject -- introduced by John DeLancie -- about Star Trek's cultural impact.) Less successful is the roundtable of visual effects wizards; it has interesting moments, but it did not explain enough for a layman, nor did it go into enough detail for an expert. The Will Wheaton-hosted "Legacy" looks at how Star Trek ideas have shown up at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, but it's pretty vapid (not Wheaton's fault).
To be honest, I'm torn. I'm glad to have the bonus disc (the features on Q and Lwaxana were touching) but part of me wishes I'd purchased the previously released conglomeration of individual seasons, "Star Trek The Next Generation - The Complete Seasons 1-7". The price of that set has decreased to compete with this new, and somewhat inconsiderate, release...and the packaging of the old set is far easier to deal with.
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