In my eyes, William Shatner is a god among men...
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Go to any "Star Trek" convention and bring up the question of which captain was better, Kirk or Picard and you will find yourself in the midst of a heated debate. For me, the question was always a simple one. James T. Kirk is the best damn captain any starship named Enterprise ever had. He was a swashbuckler. He was a man of action. He had a way with the ladies and seemed especially fond of blue-skinned ladies. He was a hands-on captain that was not afraid of using brawn or brain to bring about a solution to any problem and he help his closest staff members as dear friends. He was a compassionate person that was good with a phaser, but somehow always seemed to either lose his shirt or gain a large rip in it. If you factor in the fact that Kirk was portrayed by the legendary entertainer William Shatner, I can´t see how anybody possibly can say Picard was the better captain. Maybe I´m biased. However, after sitting through a large portion of the entire series of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" on DVD, I was very excited to sit down and watch each and every episode with Kirk at the helm.
Before Shatner made James T. Kirk a legendary pop culture figure, "Star Trek" originally featured actor Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike in an un-aired 1964 pilot created by Gene Rodenberry to launch his science fiction western. However, the pilot was considered too cerebral for the mass audiences by NBC. The show was shelved, but Rodenberry did not allow his creation to die and reworked his story and his cast and the first episode of "Star Trek" debuted on September 8, 1966 with William Shatner leading a cast that included a valuable member from the original pilot, Leonard Nimoy as the iconic Mr. Spock. During its initial life on NBC, "Star Trek" was not successful. The show struggled to collect advertising revenue or find strong ratings among the Nielsen crowd. "Star Trek" was renewed for a second season, but failed to raise the show´s profile and NBC brought back a Rodenberry-less third season of "Star Trek" that was delivered only cancellation to the show.
"Star Trek" failed as a show, but NBC quickly sold the rights to syndication. The show found popularity during re-runs and found a very vocal and supportive cult following with conventions popping up around the world. The highly dedicated fans earned the nickname "Trekkies" and with so much support for the three season show in syndication and fan conventions, Gene Rodenberry returned to his universe and created a string of successful Hollywood motion pictures featuring the television crew of the Starship Enterprise and a handful of successful television shows that found long-running success on television and made "Star Trek" the marquee franchise of the Nineties. "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," "Star Trek: Voyager" and "Star Trek: Enterprise" continued to carry Rodenberry´s vision to the television market an the Patrick Stewart led crew of "The Next Generation" followed with a handful of motions pictures that continued the "Star Trek" canon in film.
William Shatner is James Kirk. Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley serve as the show´s two other stars in their roles as Spock and Leonard "Bones" McCoy. These three stooges of science fiction found a warm and friendly chemistry that was apparent during the first season and their continued bickering and compassion shown towards each other resulted in life-long friendships and endearing characters. Nichelle Nichols was a colored woman of power as Lieutenant Uhura. Her character allowed Rodenberry to shatter racial a sexist portrayals of women on television during the Sixties. The late James Doohan mastered the Scottish accent and brought life to the beloved Montgomery "Scotty" Scott on the Enterprise. George Takei helmed the starship as Lieutenant Sulu. These actors and characters reprised their roles in the motion pictures, but are perhaps the most beloved crew of the Enterprise.
The first season of "Star Trek" introduced the characters and set the formula for which the show would continue on with during the second season. While "The Menagerie" is held in high regard and "The Devil in the Dark" is held in high regard to many Trek followers, season one is not considered to contain many of the better episodes of the three year run. Gene Rodenberry had intended to be a "Wagon Train" in the stars, but the writer also meant "Star Trek" to contain plenty of social commentary. Racism and cultural differences were consistent and important topics handled by the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Produced during the Cold War, "Star Trek" contained many thinly veiled references to the relationships between the superpowers of the world and Cold War tensions.
Although the episodes of the first season are not quite as well written or produced as the second season, they are truly classic. Many of the ´stereotypes´ of the characters are in full display in this first season and makes for entertaining viewing. After watching "Galaxy Quest" just a few weeks before sitting down and enjoying the twenty nine episodes of season one, I couldn´t help but appreciate the formulaic and often cheesy and humorous stories. Shatner must have had a clause in his contract to take his shirt off or wear torn clothing in each episode. He also had a different love interest from week to week and only the character Yeoman Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) served as a potential long-term love interest until she disappeared during the first half of the season amongst stories of sexual assault, alcohol addiction and other rumors surrounding her disappearance. Almost every episode featured one important scene in Sick Bay and the life signs monitoring device almost felt like an additional character. Kirk routinely got into fist fights and Spock and McCoy threw verbal jabs at one another in mockingly good fun.
Regardless of the somewhat primitive feel and formulaic manner of these first episodes, "Star Trek" is too much fun to ignore. I´ve never been a fan of subsequent "Star Trek" series and perhaps only Seven of Nine held my interest for any length of time when the shows were in their respective weekly timeslots. However, there has always been an appreciation for this first maiden show. Kirk was a swashbuckling captain that was great with the blue-skinned ladies and his interaction with Spock and McCoy made "Star Trek" both exciting and funny. There is no denying that the first show held a tremendous amount of humor in its science fiction plotlines and the light-hearted nature of the show often helped smooth out its convoluted and focused plotlines. There were a lot of big words and the tricorders could be considered quite complicated for audiences to understand, but regardless of what techno-babble was being spoken by the characters, they always entertained.
I don´t care what you may think of William Shatner´s overacting and odd pronunciation of sentences; James T. Kirk is one of the most endearing and enduring characters in television history. He was the man that every lady wanted and every man wanted to be. He was a hero and a teacher. Kirk was a man who cared for everybody and everything; even if he was kicking the snot out of them. He was intelligent and thoughtful, but a man of action. Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, George Takei and James Doohan were all very entertaining and memorable, but it was the irreplaceable Bill Shatner that drove Star Trek home and provided the muscle needed to make "Star Trek" one of the strongest franchises in entertainment history. The twenty four hours of this first season is enough Shatner to keep me happy until the second season is close at hand. For others with other reasons to love "Star Trek," it is a timeless classic that is fun to watch regardless of how many times you´ve seen each episode.
Episodes:
The episodes contained in this Season One collection are arranged as follows:
Disc One:
The Man Trap
Charlie X
Where No Man Has Gone Before
Disc Two:
The Naked Time
The Enemy Within
Mudd´s Women
Disc Three:
What Are Little Girls Made Of
Miri
Dagger of the Mind
Disc Four:
The Corbomite Maneuver
The Menagerie, Part I
The Menagerie, Part II
Disc Five:
The Conscience of King
Balance of Terror
Shore Leave
Disc Six:
The Galileo Seven
The Squire of Gothos
Arena
Disc Seven:
Tomorrow is Yesterday
Court-Martial
The Return of the Archons
Disc Eight:
Space Seed
A Taste of Armageddon
The Side of Paradise
Disc Nine:
The Devil in the Dark
Errand of Mercy
The Alterative Factor
Disc Ten:
The City on the Edge of Forever
Operation: Annihilate!
Video:
"Star Trek" has been given a high definition remastering and touch-up for the twenty first century. While some purists may find argument with the changes made by Paramount, "Star Trek" has not received the George Lucas treatment and the original integrity of the show has been retained. The most obvious changes are the new planets and Enterprise that inhabit nearly every space scene. The starship no longer looks like a small model dangling from a wire against a drab black starscape. The planets no longer look like poorly animated spheres or marbles and have been replaced with beautiful high definition digital worlds. A few matte paintings and other items have been touched up to make the special effects look a little better in the digital world and create a few minor flaws. Thankfully, they all blend seamlessly and look perfectly fine as the first season plays out its twenty nine episodes.
Perhaps not as obvious to the untrained eye is the Criterion-like cleaning of the source materials handled by the good folks at Paramount. Digital artists went through each episode frame-by-frame and removed or touched up scratches, dirt and white specks that riddled the prints. Sometimes the work was handled with complicated software programs. Other times, the digital artist needed to retouch the frame with a Photoshop like program. Color timing and accuracy were also redone to give each episode an amazingly stable and vivid picture. The jump from 480 lines of resolution to 1080 lines has also been made and "Star Trek" looks utterly amazing in high definition. I found myself scratching my head in amazement at the beauty of the campy episode "Shore Leave" or the detail of "Miri." It is very apparent that a lot of love and attention went into this high definition remastering and it looks amazing.
"Star Trek" retains its original 4:3 aspect ratio. The new digital scenes were created in 16x9 widescreen for possible use in the future, but at this point in time, "Star Trek" retains the original presentation and uses pillarboxing on the left and right edges to fill a widescreen television. The touched up colors are incredible. Scotty and the security officers´ red uniforms are bright and solid looking. Kirk´s love interests are knockouts and look the part. Greens, blues and yellows are all as saturated and colorful as anything produced for television in the past year. It is hard to believe that the colors of this show date back to forty years ago. The detail is just as impressive as the coloring. The new digital imagery was created for high definition and looks absolutely stunning in its depth, but the original material is just as detailed aside from scenes that used an obvious soft filter on the camera lens. You can count the hairs on Kirk´s head at any point in the show. "Star Trek" may not have been that impressive to viewers in 1966, but it should easily impress those with HD-DVD players in 2008.
Sound:
The show´s visuals were not the only aspect of "Star Trek" updated for the twenty first century. The first season´s sound has also received an update and is presented in either Dolby TrueHD 5.1 sound or a solid Dolby Digital Plus 2.0 mix. The iconic theme song of the show has been given a full update and re-recorded and re-mixed from the original source tapes and sounds as impressive as ever without giving up its Sixties vibes that makes it all the more classic sounding. Effects and dialogue have also been touched up some to make "Star Trek" sound cleaner and clearer than ever. The new sounds are not nearly as apparent as the visuals and most of the changes have been done for cleanliness. Comparing the 5.1 mix to the 2.0 mix easily places the multi-channel source as the preferred way to watch "Star Trek" on HD-DVD. The new surround tracks are both very nicely done and do not sound gimmicky or forced as many other mono-to-surround updates have.
"Star Trek" is not perfect on HD-DVD in the sound department. The TrueHD yielded one noticeable and significant flaw. The volume levels of the episodes themselves are quite low. The opening and closing credit sequences with the show´s theme music is at the proper level, but the remainder of each episode needs about ten decibels more volume to be enjoyable. The problem with this is that when the show reaches the closing credits and the interactive menus, the volume is entirely too high. This was an annoyance, but only to those in surrounding rooms to be screening pleasure. The sound is good, but the volume drop-off is disappointing. Dialogue is very good and the sound mixers did an incredible job of creating a solid surround experience out of the original mono sources. Sounds can be heard in each speaker and movement is especially strong across the front channels. I was very pleased with the end result, but grew tired of controlling the volume on the bookends of each show.
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