Star Trek DVD News

The first online reviews of Star Trek: Voyager: The Complete Sixth Season, which was released yesterday, have appeared online.

• DVD Town's Yunda Eddie Feng gave Voyager's penultimate season a rating of seven out of ten, though he admitted that this is largely because he loves the cast and the episode "Ashes to Ashes", which focuses on his favourite character, Harry Kim.

  The season got off to a strong start "with the exciting conclusion to 'Equinox'", he wrote, but felt that the next several episodes weren't strong overall. Noting the uneven writing, he lamented, "Season Six doesn’t have outright clunkers, but clunkers can be more fun to watch than so-so efforts."

• At Home Theater Forum, Scott Kimball also felt that The Complete Sixth Season was "a mixed bag" in terms of the quality of the storytelling. "There are a few excellent episodes, and more than a handful of episodes that don’t warrant viewing a second time," he said, mentioning the return of Jennifer Lien as Kes and the beginnings of the Borg storyline that would propel the series to its concluding arc.

  The overall package, however, failed to impress him entirely. "Oddly, the most interesting special feature in the set is the Guest Star Profile [of Vaughn Armstrong]," he wrote. "One genuinely interesting featurette makes for a disappointing collection of features, overall."

• BWilliams at TrekWeb awarded the series a three out of five rating, asking, "Is it fair to say that VOYAGER had begun to run out of gasoline about this time? Unfortunately, I have to say yes." He too found the features rather disappointing, stating that while "Braving the Unknown: Season Six" is the longest of the featurettes, it feels skimpy in its presentation as it focuses on just four episodes rather than recapping the entire season.

  While appreciative of some episodes, such as "Pathfinder", which he said marked a turning point for Voyager by including Next Generation guest stars and bringing the Alpha Quadrant into the series, Williams found episodes such as psycho-date story "Alice" cheesy and wasn't all that impressed with "Tsunkatse", a wrestling-themed crossover with UPN's successful WWF Smackdown with a guest appearance by The Rock.

The third season of Star Trek: The Original Series will be released on DVD next Tuesday, December 14th, and some reviews have already been published.

• At DVD Town, Feng admitted that even fans consider Season 3 to be the original Star Trek's weakest and it led perhaps justifiably to the show's cancellation. He cited the "laughable episodes, uninspired acting, recycled sets and props" and other problems, balanced by "moments of fun with the Klingons and the Romulans" as well as the historic interracial kiss between William Shatner (Kirk) and Nichelle Nichols (Uhura).

  While many fans will surely disagree, Feng wrote that The Original Series "needed an early death - it had to get off the air before additional damage could be done." These new DVD trasfers impressed him with vivid visuals and though the music "can sound a tad wobbly sometimes, dialogue is always clear and sharp." The set received six stars overall out of ten.

• TrekWeb's Williams gave the set a higher average, 4 out of 5 stars, praising the extras and finding even the weaker episodes significant for Trek fans. The extras "total a massive three and a half hours in length", and contain new interviews with surviving cast and crew.

  Most of Williams' gripes were with the presentation, particularly with the restored pilot "The Cage." "There are a number of differences in the audio sound track...specifically in the area of musical cues and digitized voices," he wrote. "Some of the music cues are different. Listen to the introduction to the fight sequence on Rigel VII, then compare it to the black and white footage on the 1986 version. You'll notice that for the restored version the music is slightly different, as it is taken from a re-scored version of the original Courage score." He also discovered that the restored color footage sometimes jumps.

Star Trek: Voyager: The Complete Sixth Season may be ordered from Amazon.com here for immediate shipment, while Star Trek: The Complete Third Season may be ordered now to be shipped when it is released here.

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