Star Trek: The Next Generation - Season 5 (remastered)

For its fifth season, Star Trek: The Next Generation had a bit of a shake-around. The character of Ro Laren was introduced as a periodically recurring character to replace Wesley (who had departed in the previous season) and there was a dialling back of the more intricate continuity that had bound parts of the fourth season together, with more emphasis on stand-alone stories. This had mixed results: several of the very finest episodes the show has ever produced sit alongside some of the worst episodes to air since the first season.

Things get off to a promising start with the continuation of the Klingon Civil War and Romulan arcs that dominated the fourth season. Redemption II does a good job of wrapping up those storylines and the Unification two-parter deals with lingering issues, but it's surprising that we don't hear any more about those storylines again. Unification also works as a solid character vehicle for Leonard Nimoy as Spock, who appears in a cross-over event to promote the-then contemporary movie Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Nimoy is splendid as usual, but the story continues The Next Generation's tendency to have great setting-up episodes in the first part of a two-part story only for the second to throw it away with a rather dull conclusion.

Elsewhere, the season features several all-time classic episodes. Darmok, which forces Picard to work alongside an alien who can only speak in metaphor, is a terrific slice of television (if highly implausible) with some great chemistry between Patrick Stewart and Paul Winfield as his alien counterpart. The fact that the mere mention of "Shaka, when the walls fell," can trigger meme-like quotes of the episode almost twenty-two years on is a testament to how good it is. Ensign Ro introduces the titular character and promptly breaks several of the show's key rules (not having conflict between Starfleet officers and not basing episodes around the guest star of the week) to excellent effect. Michelle Forbes is terrific as Ro and her recurring appearances are highlights of the season. Disaster and Power Play are effective siege stories (in the former case due to a catastrophic accident and in the latter due to alien possessors taking hostages) and The Next Phase is a fun adventure for Geordi and Ro. Cause and Effect is a great remake (but in a bit more depth) of a Red Dwarf gag. But the outstanding season highlight is The Inner Light, in which Picard gets zapped with the memories of aliens who have been dead for a thousand years and get to see how his life might have played out in other circumstances, complete with children and a loving wife. Patrick Stewart is magnificent and the episode deservedly won a Hugo Award. It's The Next Generation's City on the Edge of Forever, only better.

Elsewhere, we get a lot of mediocre-to-okay episodes. Silicon Avatar is a bit of a weak resolution to the Crystalline Entity storyline that began back in Season 1, whilst A Matter of Time is a very cheesy episode elevated by a terrific guest turn from Matt Frewer. This use of quality guest stars also redeems The Game and The Perfect Mate, which could have both been weak without some great appearances by Ashley Judd and Famke Janssen (both before their later movie careers took off) to elevate things. The Masterpiece Society is a potentially very good episode wrecked by the main threat in it being rather over the top (the stellar fragment would completely destroy the planet Picard is trying to save, rendering their ethical objections to the disruption of their society moot). Conundrum is an effectively tense episode. Ethics is reasonably good, invoking a moral dilemma and putting Crusher on the 'wrong' side of the debate with Worf's life at stake. The Outcast tries to say some interesting things about sexuality and gender issues but back-pedals away from anything too controversial and ends up being notable more for being one of the very few episodes of the series where our heroes 'lose'. The First Duty adds some urgently-needed shades of grey to Wesley and humanises more than his first four years on the ship combined did. I, Borg humanises the Borg for some great drama (and a great guest turn from Whoopi Goldeberg as Guinan) but this comes at the cost of destroy the Borg's otherworldly implacability, reducing them to the status of just another alien race.

Against that we have Cost of Living, literally the worst episode of the series to air since Season 1. Hero Worship and Violations aren't far behind it, and Time's Arrow, despite a few good moments, is easily the worst season cliffhanger Star Trek has done in its history.

For this HD re-release of the season, CBS have, as usual, done an outstanding job. The episodes look like they were filmed yesterday, the special effects are astonishing (even moreso given they - in the main - have not been redone from scratch but are the original effects footage remastered) and overall the visual and sound quality of the series far surpasses that of the standard definition versions. The only slight disappointment is that there seems to be more missing film stock for this season than the previous ones, resulting in a few more noticeable moments (though only a few seconds each) where the SD footage has been upscaled instead. This is easily bearable, however. Slightly more disappointing is the quality of the special features. There's some nice stuff on the music, but the on-going documentary about the making of the series gets sidetracked by Gene Roddenberry's death during the making of this season and overlooks the opportunity to talk about many interesting episodes. It may be that the producers were starting to run out of ideas about what to do for special features for the fifth set in a row, which is disappointing.

The fifth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation (****) is a mixed bag, with some dire episodes and a fair few middling ones. However, the quality of the best episodes elevates the whole thing and certainly makes it worth watching. The season is available now on Blu-Ray in the UK and USA.

Star Trek: The Next Generation - Season 4 (remastered)

Star Trek: The Next Generation entered its fourth season riding the crest of a wave. Despite the extremely difficult circumstances it had been written and filmed under, the third season had been given a near-unanimously positive critical reception and the Best of Both Worlds cliffhanger had become a major TV event of the year. The production team thus started the fourth season with confidence and even a bit of swagger to their step and this translated into assured and confident episodes hitting the air.

One of the most noticeable changes in the fourth season is the great embracing of continuity. The fourth season episodes bring back Data's evil brother Lore and address the ongoing Klingon story arc begun in Sins of the Father in the third season. Worf becomes a father, Wesley Crusher departs for the Academy and LaForge comes face-to-face with the real woman about who he's constructed a holodeck fantasy. Lt. Barclay, Vash and Q return, and the events of an episode that no-one can remember, Yesterday's Enterprise, have unexpected major consequences as the season draws to a conclusion. Major new forces also appear, most notably the race known as the Cardassians who will go on to have a massive impact on the Trek universe in future seasons and in the Deep Space Nine spin-off show. The fourth season feels like more part of an interconnected whole rather than 26 random stories thrown together and this works very well.

This isn't to say that every episode is a home run. The Best of Both Worlds, Part II actually resolves the Borg threat in a manner that makes sense but the story is a little too big for the episode and doesn't quite pay off the promises of the Season 3 finale. Suddenly Human has Picard disobeying orders from Starfleet with no consequence, which is odd. Remember Me is terrible (disappointing for a rare Dr. Crusher-centric episode). Devil's Due is played for laughs and doesn't work. Clues is an inferior remake of a much better Red Dwarf episode. Galaxy's Child sets up a great scene where LaForge is called out for some inappropriate behaviour towards a woman but he - rather childishly - blames her for it and gets away with it. Data's behaviour in In Theory is rather implausible.

But balanced against that we have the Klingon/Worf arc in Reunion and Redemption (and to a lesser extent in Family, Data's Day and The Mind's Eye) which is excellent throughout. There's Family's treatment of family life and Picard's backstory, which is well-acted by all involved. First Contact's brave experiment of showing the whole episode from the aliens' POV works extremely well. Brothers opens with a great hijacking storyline and ends with a striking confrontation between Brent Spiner, Brent Spiner and Brent Spiner which the actor pulls off with skill. Qpid has some great laughs (though not much else). Final Mission has some of the most spectacular location shooting the series ever did, and manages to (briefly) make the audience regret that Wesley is leaving. The Wounded expands on O'Brien's character a lot and paves the way for the entirety of Deep Space Nine. The Drumhead is an awesome episode about people using the fear of terrorism and sabotage to justify the draconian crushing of human rights and free speech (something even more relevant today than when the episode aired). The Mind's Eye is a great riff on The Manchurian Candidate. 

From the original SD DVD, the Enterprise approaching Peliar Zel II in The Host.

The same shot from the blu-ray, complete with remastered model visuals and newly-created planets and moons.

So whilst the fourth season doesn't quite hit the heights of the third (nothing here challenges Yesterday's Enterprise or The Best of Both Worlds in quality) it's still a highly entertaining collection of 26 episodes, with even the weakest episodes usually having scenes to recommend them. The regular cast are on top form and bolstered by some excellent guest stars (special mention must be made of Jean Simmons in The Drumhead and a returning Andreas Katsulas in Future Imperfect). There's a definite improvement in the quality of the effects for this season as well.

For this HD re-release of the season, every episode has been re-assembled from scratch from the original film stock, with every visual effect in the season recreated from the source materials (or, when they were unavailable, new CGI). As with the previous seasons, this has the happy side-effect of eliminating all greenscreen artifacts and 'halos' around models and superimposed characters, and allows for much greater detail in effects shots to become visible. Some effects that were originally quite ropey - such as Deanne Troi's dream-trip in Night Terrors - now look utterly fantastic and challenge modern effects work. The replacement of the generic original planets with more detailed CGI versions also continues and hugely improves the look of the show (Pelia Zel II in The Host looks particularly impressive). In a few cases effects that people have been moaning about for years - like the distinctly underwhelming explosion of the Borg cube in Best of Both Worlds Part II - have been redone entirely to look a lot better. The only major problem in the season is the terrible CGI for the space creature in Galaxy's Child, which looks amateurish and out of keeping with the rest of the series. With the rest of the effects looking absolutely stunning, there is no excuse for this.

The fourth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation (****½) is not the show at its best, but it is certainly highly entertaining and, with episodes like The Drumhead, thought-provoking. It is available now in the UK and USA.

Paramount considered a new STAR TREK TV series last year

It's been surprisingly confirmed that Paramount held some meetings last year with Michael Dorn - who played Worf on seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation and four of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - to discuss creating a new Star Trek television series. According to Dorn, the meetings went well but further development was shelved out of respect to J.J. Abrams's then-filming second Star Trek film.

Dorn has been saying for several years that he would be willing to return in a new Star Trek series focused on his character. Worf is one of the most popular Star Trek characters and has appeared on screen more times than any other character (outstripping his nearest rival - Colm Meaney's Chief O'Brien - by a clear fifty episodes). Whilst there has been strong fan support for such a plan, there has also been scepticism about Paramount's willingness to consider a new Star Trek series set in the original timeline whilst the 'Abramsverse' has proven popular with movie audiences. However, with Abrams moving on to the Star Wars franchise and the Blu-Ray re-release of Star Trek: The Next Generation selling very well, Paramount may be reconsidering their previous position.

A new Star Trek TV series is inevitable at some point, but whether this will be it remains to be seen.

Patrick Stewart's awesomeness: confirmed

Patrick Stewart is an awesome dude, it is known. If there was any doubt, here is him talking openly about his family experiences and how they led to him working with women suffering from domestic abuse and soldiers suffering from PTSD.

The young woman who asked him the question, Heather Skye, speaks about the experience here.

Wertzone Classics: Star Trek: The Next Generation - Season 3 (remastered)

When Star Trek: The Next Generation entered its third season, it was in trouble. The critical reception to the show's second year had been mixed, producer and effective showrunner (under Rick Berman) Maurice Hurley had left and the cast were unhappy with the removal of Gates McFadden as Dr. Beverly Crusher. As the third season opened, Rick Berman had to hire a largely new writing team, a new showrunner and had to bring back McFadden to appease the rest of the cast (particularly Patrick Stewart). Fortunately for his show and for the fans, Berman was lucky. The new showrunner was the talented Michael Piller and amongst the new writers were the young and energetic Ira Steven Behr, Rene Echeverria and Ronald D. Moore, all of whom would go on to define Star Trek for many years to come.

Because of these changes, Season 3 was produced in a state of chaos. Scripts were being completed mere days before filming, leaving little time for pre-production. This can be seen in the reduced amount of location filming this season, with almost no time to book location shoots ahead of filming. However, there's a noticeable improvement in special effects thanks to the introduction of new, smaller and easier-to-shoot filming models of both the Enterprise and the Romulan warbird (which makes several appearances). New, considerably more comfortable uniforms are also introduced, to the evident comfort and relief of the actors.

But what really makes the season work is the superior writing. Piller was keen to introduce more scenes of character interaction and development to the show. The guest cast are moved away from being the centre of the show, with their impact on the regular characters being more important. There's more continuity, with a recurring Romulan threat throughout the season (The Enemy, The Defector, Tin Man) and Worf's Klingon background being developed more thoroughly (Sins of the Father). Having been proven to be a sentient being in Season 2's excellent The Measure of a Man, Data's evolution continues through several episodes before peaking in The Offspring, where he tries to build a new android 'daughter'. Comedy is allowed freer reign, particularly in Deja Q, Captain's Holiday and Menage a Troi, which all feature a few good laughs (Deja Q may be the funniest episode the show ever did).

But the third season's strong reputation relies on its two absolute stand-out, inarguably, stone-cold classics. Yesterday's Enterprise is a time travel story involving parallel universes which remains fully comprehensible, features one of the best space battles the show ever did and finds an intelligent and non-cheesy way of bringing back Tasha Yar. The writing is strong, with lots of moments of subtlety (the alternate Riker and Picard don't get on) and some impressive production values and details, such as the revamping of the Enterprise bridge.

At the end of the season we also get The Best of Both Worlds, the show's first season cliffhanger and still the best one Star Trek's ever done. The return of the Borg, the outstanding music, the character interplay between Riker and newcomer Shelby, the effects and the doom-laden, hopeless atmosphere combine to make for one of the franchise's finest hours.

Conversely, there are only a few weak moments in the mix. The Price, The Vengeance Factor and The Most Toys are quite dull, whilst The High Ground is a commentary on the Northern Ireland Troubles which misfires completely due to the writers' poor understanding of that conflict. Who Watches the Watchers? sabotages a good premise and some excellent Enterprise scenes with some dull guest cast performances. But it's more surprising how good the show has become compared to the first two seasons, with even minor episodes like The Survivors and The Hunted coming to life and being enjoyable in a way the smaller stand-alones of the first two years struggled with.

On a technical basis, the HD upscaling of the show is again amazing, with the same team that handled Season 1 doing the job. That means some more beautiful 3D planet renders, some outstanding effects recreations and superior reproductions of the show's colours (Season 3 is more colourful than the first two seasons). After the slightly disappointing Season 2 upgrade (the company responsible for that is not being re-used, interestingly), the S3 update is even more astonishing. For a season that was driven so much by writing changes, the extra features do a great job of focusing on the writing team and how they went about creating the best show possible and avoiding the mistakes of the first two years.

Ultimately, the third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation (*****) is outstanding. The writers, actors and crew are all on the top of their game, dragging the so-so show of the first two seasons up in quality to become something truly impressive. The season is available now in the UK and USA.

Star Trek: The Next Generation - Season 2 (remastered)

Originally airing from 1988 to 1989, the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation was beset by challenges. A writer's strike crippled Hollywood between seasons and the show was almost cancelled as a result. The producers were able to get around the problem by re-tasking scripts from the aborted Star Trek: Phase II TV show from the 1970s, reducing the season order by four episodes and - in a fit of true desperation - dropping a clip show (the terrifyingly awful Shades of Grey, widely-acknowledged as the worst episode of the entire franchise) into the mix. They scraped through to produce a season that is a notable improvement over the first year, and definitely better than it has any right to be given the situation it was produced under.

As with the first season, things get off to a bumpy start but improve later on. Fortunately, they improve a lot faster. The first two episodes, The Child (Troi gets pregnant with a rapidly-evolving alien thingamajig) and Where Silence Has Lease (the Enterprise gets stuck in a void in space where an alien superintelligence messes around with them just because that's how it rolls), are pretty bad but there is a quantum leap in improvement when Elementary, Dear Data comes on. Excellent performances and a strong script alleviate the somewhat ropey rules the show is establishing regarding the holodeck. Weaker episodes continue to roll in - The Outrageous Okona (slightly tepid conman comes on board), The Dauphin (Wesley Crusher romance episode...NO!), The Royale (crew encounter weird hotel IN SPACE) and Up the Long Ladder (outrageous Irish stereotyping) should all be burned - but there's also a better sense of the characters getting their own voices and characterisation becoming more consistent.

More to the point, the season gives us a larger number of very good episodes compared to the first. A Matter of Honour is terrific fun, establishing Riker as the first officer of a Kling Bird of Prey during an officer exchange programme. Jonathan Frakes - whose acting powers have now been radically enhanced by The Beard - steps up his game a lot. Contagion is a very dumb episode about computer viruses, but as an action romp it's very entertaining (similar to The Arsenal of Freedom in Season 1, but better). Peak Performance from later in the season is in a similar vein. Time Squared is a creepy episode about time loops and features some disturbing ideas and a doom-laden atmosphere, though some questionable writing for Picard prevents it from fulfilling its full promise. The Emissary is an important episode for Worf and the progression of his character arc and is very solid.

More impressively, this season gives us the first two hands-down, no-questions, absolute 'classic' episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. First up is The Measure of a Man, written by Melinda Snodgrass (best-known as the co-editor of the Wild Cards superhero books series). The episode is an examination of whether Data is a sentient being or not, and features some terrific acting from Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner and Jonathan Frakes. It's a morality play, the sort of thing that Trek can make tedious if it mishandles it, but here the team do an exemplary job of exploring the issues and turning them into a riveting hour of television (and it is an hour, as the Blu-Ray set features the hitherto-unseen 60-minute cut of the episode before it was trimmed down to the normal 44 minutes).

Even more impressive is Q Who? This episode is notable for introducing the Borg, but it's also a masterclass in pacing, music (the score is incredibly ominous), exposition without getting leaden (the hints to the past antagonism between Guinan and Q are played just right), tension, action and a genuinely surprising ending: arguably the only time on ST:TNG that the crew 'lose' the struggle of the episode and only barely survive. It's also the one and only time that Q is effectively used as a dramatically intense character. His other appearances either misfire or are played for comedy. Here we see John De Lancie at his absolute best, particularly in the scene where he pitifully tells Picard what is happening is no illusion after eighteen Enterprise crewmembers are killed by the Borg. The climactic scene where Picard begs Q to save them before they are all slaughtered is handled pitch-perfectly by Patrick Stewart (who was genuinely troubled by the episode's message that the Enterprise crew can't win all the time) as well.

Whilst Season 2 will never be remembered as the best season of the show, it does feature two of its finest hours and a whole host of other, very solid episodes. The cast turn in excellent performances, particularly Diana Muldaur as Dr. Pulaski in her only season on the show (replacing Gates McFadden as Dr. Crusher, who was sacked for criticising the show's sexist scripts in the first season; internal and fan pressure resulted in her reinstatement for Season 3). It's a shame we didn't get to see Pulaski again, as the evolution of her character arc and the development of her relationships with Worf and Data were very well-handled over the course of the season.

As with the first season, the restoration job has done a pretty good job. However, a different team was used for the second season and there is the sense that a few corners were cut. The redone effects aren't quite as well-handled as in the first season (particularly noticeable in Q Who?, though the original version of the episode had a few iffy effects issues as well, so perhaps it was unsalvageable) and the new team have only cleaned up the planets that the Enterprise orbits, rather than replacing them with fully-convincing 3D spheres. Whilst the improvements are still light-years beyond what people might be expecting, they're not quite as jaw-dropping as the job that was done on Season 1. This is made up for a bit by the other extras, which are impressive. The highlight is a lengthy roundtable discussion between the entire cast about the show and what it meant for their careers and legacies, although the ongoing 'history of the series' documentary is also excellent. The original DVD extras are also included, though again only in standard definition.

The second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation (****) sees the show improving by leaps and bounds over the weaker first year. It is available now on Blu-Ray in the UK and USA. The third season - often regarded as the show's finest season - will be released in April.