:: theLogBook.com DVD Reviews ::

How many times can Paramount go to the classic Trek well on DVD? Appropriately enough for a SF series, the answer would seem to be an impossibly infinite number. This pricey box set gathers the full first season in its newly “remastered” form - in other words, all of the exterior space, planet and spaceship scenes have been replaced with CGI, and a select handful of effects on the show’s live action footage have gotten a makeover as well. Most of the live action is left completely untouched, with even 1960s hand phasers left intact for the most part. The transporter effect is unchanged, as are the sound effects. Compared to, say, the special editions of the three original Star Wars films, these changes are relatively small potatoes. But do they help? (more…)

featuring the episodes The Savage Curtain and All Our Yesterdays

“Kirk! Help me! Kirk!”

Yes, help me! I’m almost done revisiting the original Star Trek, and it takes the strength and resiliency of a dozen redshirts to make it through this volume. Well, okay, so maybe The Savage Curtain isn’t that bad, but in places it’s nearly Mystery Science Theater fodder (in fact, the MST crew was known to throw the “Help me! Kirk!” phrase out to point out examples of woefully wooden acting - or just guys who looked like Abraham Lincoln). (more…)

featuring the episodes The Enterprise Incident and …And The Children Shall Lead

With two of the better-plotted and best-remembered third season episodes, this 30th volume of digital Classic Trek is one of that season’s few must-have discs. The Enterprise Incident, an unexpectedly sneaky little tale of espionage, features some notoriously over-the-top scenes, but at the same time, that bizarrely heightened material is - as we later discover - there for a reason. Once the “oh, so that’s what’s going on” factor kicks in, it’s a decent little episode. (more…)

featuring the episodes Elaan Of Troyius and The Paradise Syndrome

If you want to see the real face of Star Trek’s third season, this volume’s two episodes distill it all rather nicely - it’s all about Kirk and the ladies. Elaan Of Troyius is a truly strange reworking of Shakespeare’s “Taming Of The Shrew”, with Kirk lulled into a state of ineffectiveness by the beauty of an alien female being given passage aboard the Enterprise. And, of course, what’s the worst that could happen? The Klingons show up while Kirk is smitten by his passenger. (more…)

featuring the episodes Assignment: Earth and Spectre Of The Gun

Perhaps fearing the end was near for Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry used the last episode of the series’ second season as a bizarre “backdoor pilot” for a brand new series idea he had, involving a secret agent from…the Future! The resulting adventure is more than just a little bit campy, more in line with the Adam West Batman series than Star Trek, and it’s a nice light-hearted romp, even though in the back of my head there’s a nagging feeling that Roddenberry wasted an hour of Star Trek trying to sell a series that didn’t fly. (more…)

featuring the episodes Return To Tomorrow and Patterns Of Force

Not two of my favorite episodes here. Return To Tomorrow attempts to put a romantic face on the mind-possession chestnut that was already well on its way to being overused (and this is even before it started showing up every three weeks in Berman-era Trek). It’s notable for featuring Diana Muldaur (later Dr. Pulaski in the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation) in her first (and worst) of two classic Trek appearances. But that’s about all. (more…)

featuring the episodes Whom Gods Destroy and The Mark Of Gideon

Not two of my favorite episodes, these two hours have their boosters, and I’ve never really figured out why. Garth of Izar, the chief baddie of Whom Gods Destroy, never really fascinated me that much…and yet these days he’s got his own novels. Trek had already done the “inmates running the asylum” gag with Dagger Of The Mind, and this outing even used some of that previous episode’s props and setpieces (the conditioning chair’s emitter lights are, in fact, Dagger’s Van Gelder machine!). (more…)

featuring the episodes That Which Survives and Let That Be Your Last Battlefield

So, you’re exploring this planet and a gorgeous woman appears out of nowhere and says she is for you. And the last thing you think before you die from her merest touch is “Damn, but I love this planet!” But in That Which Survives, Kirk and his crew aren’t falling for it. It’s a pretty simple story, not overly cerebral, and not even unpredictable. But the solution to the universal problem of being stalked by a deadly apparition of Lee Merriwether is elegant, and the story’s exciting enough to keep you gripped for 50 minutes. (more…)

featuring the episodes Plato’s Stepchildren and Wink Of An Eye

Coincidentally enough, here we have two tales of the Enterprise crew leveling the playing field by gaining the monstrous powers of a highly advanced race. In some ways, there is some comedic value to pairing these two episodes together.

Plato’s Stepchildren is, of course, the Trek episode that made history by featuring the first-ever interracial kiss on American television (between William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols). (more…)

featuring the episodes The Empath and The Tholian Web

One of the only must-own volumes from Star Trek’s third season, this disc is a one-two punch of some of the most influential Trek storytelling there is. The Empath, in which Kirk, Spock and McCoy find a woman in alien captivity who can sense others’ emotions, pains and pleasures, was later cited by Gene Roddenberry as his inspiration for putting an empath on the bridge of his next starship Enterprise. The production values are nothing elaborate, and the whole story hinges on the performance of Kathryn Hays, who spends the whole hour telling her tale without a single word. (more…)