Star Trek The Original Series Season Three Remastered Edition

Saved from the brink of cancellation by its loyal fanbase, Star Trek’s third and final season rewarded them with a number of memorable episodes. Tight budgets and slipping creative control, however, made it the series’ most uneven season, though it did have some of the coolest episode titles (”For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky,” “Is There in Truth No Beauty,” “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield”). Some of the best moments involved a gunfight at the OK Corral (”Spectre of the Gun”), a knock-down drag-out sword battle with the Klingons aboard the Enterprise (”Day of the Dove”), the ship getting caught in an ever-tightening spacial net (”The Tholian Web”), TV’s first interracial kiss (”Plato’s Stepchildren,” and it should be easy to guess who participated), Sulu taking command (”The Savage Curtain”), and Kirk’s switching bodies with an ex-love interest (”Turnabout Intruder”).

The 2008 DVD set benefits from the same remastering given to the other two seasons, though only the first was released in high definition (the now-defunct HD DVD format). Still, the episodes are substantially cleaned up to the point where they look quite good, rather than jarringly fuzzy to the modern viewer. And there are some new visual effects that are well-done, and obtrusive only to the strictest fans. Compare, for example, the dramatic close-up of the green-glowing U.S.S. Defiant in “The Tholian Web” with the original effect, which had the ship floating in a green haze. New bonus features are 11 more minutes of rare footage from extra Billy Blackburn; “Collectible Trek,” a 14-minute discussion of rare Trek items, filmed in 2004 with the rest of the bonus content but not included on the previous DVD set; and the newly filmed “Captain’s Log: Bob Justman,” an affectionate nine-minute tribute to the series producer. Otherwise, the set retains almost all the special features from the 2004 set, including the features on Walter Koenig, George Takei, and James Doohan (who died the following year), plus the two versions of the series pilot, “The Cage,” a restored color version and the original, never-aired version that alternates between color and black and white. Starring Jeffery Hunter as Captain Pike, Leonard Nimoy as a relatively emotional Spock, and Majel Barrett (the future Nurse Chapel and Mrs. Gene Roddenberry) as a frosty Number One, this pilot was rejected, but a second was commissioned, “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” now considered the “official” beginning of the series. But “The Cage” is very recognizably Star Trek with its far-out concepts (telepathic aliens collecting species samples), sexy humanoid women, character development, and of course cheesy costumes and special effects. Footage was later reused in the season 1 two-parter, “The Menagerie.” –David Horiuchi

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars The underrated 3rd season!
I will say this time and time again, Star Trek’s 3rd season is so underrated!, one of the reasons being, back when they originally aired, they were moved to a different timeslot, and the weekly episodes days were changed.

And that is a shame, because there are some true gems here, the only episode that I never liked was “Elaan of Troyius” (I still don’t like it today, the worst episode of The Original Series), but thats 1 episode out of 80 that I didn’t like, damn good.

Standout episodes? All except that one for me, but some are better than others of course, here are my top fives from season 3:

Wink of an Eye

The Tholian Web

The Savage Curtain

For The World Is Hollow and I Have Touched The Sky

The Enterprise Incident.

If you are an old Trek fan, you cannot go wrong with this season…but any old Trek fan should already know.

The re-mastered effects are great by the way!

5 Stars Quality as Expected
The Star Trek Video season is in perfect condition and was shipped rapidly and securely to my house. Thank you very much!

5 Stars STAR TREK SEASON 3
Star Trek: The Original Series – Season Three (Remastered Edition)

IT DOESN’T GET ANY BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL SERIES.

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Star Trek The Original Series The Complete Second Season

The most famous episode in franchise history, “The Trouble with Tribbles,” is one of the highlights of the second season of Star Trek: The Original Series. A deserved classic, the humorous story centers on an ever-expanding mass of furry creatures that memorably rain themselves down on top of Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and into the middle of a Federation-Klingon showdown. It inspired one of the most memorable episodes in the spin-off series Deep Space Nine, “Trial and Tribble-ations.” Also in the second season, the Vulcan culture of Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) is fleshed out in “Amok Time” (in which Spock is faced with the possibility of killing his captain and friend) and “Journey to Babel” (introducing Spock’s father, played by Mark Sarek, in what would turn out to be a long-recurring role). A new character, navigator Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig), was introduced; his Monkees haircut was intended to appeal to the younger audience, but he was also a Russian, which at the height of the cold war reflected Gene Roddenberry’s optimistic vision of a more enlightened future. Other social-commentary opportunities presented themselves in “The Omega Glory,” “The Doomsday Machine,” and “Assignment: Earth,” the last also one of those periodic opportunities to scrimp on the budget by time-traveling to an earlier version of Earth. Another example was “A Piece of the Action,” a comic episode set in the Roaring Twenties and memorable for, among other things, Kirk’s teaching a made-up card game called Fizzbin. In other significant episodes, “I, Mudd” saw the return of the bounder from season 1, “The Changeling” was the original inspiration for the first Trek feature film a decade later, “Wolf in the Fold” (penned by the author of Psycho) provides an example of the series’ great writing, and “Mirror, Mirror” introduced the concept of the parallel universe inhabited by vicious, amoral counterparts of the regular crew, another theme later borrowed (more than once, and to good emotional effect) by DS9.

Special features are a bit lighter than on the season 1 set, but they do feature such contributors as Shatner, Nimoy, George Takei (Sulu), Koenig, Nichelle Nichols (Uhura), and editor-writer D.C. Fontana. Of chief interest are “To Boldly Go,” a 20-minute season recap; ” Kirk, Spock & Bones: The Great Trio,” discussing the interplay among Kirk, Spock, and Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley); “Star Trek’s Divine Diva,” shining the spotlight on the development of Nichols’s character (she was originally considered to play Spock); and “Writer’s Notebook: D.C. Fontana,” discussing her various roles in the series (she used her initials to avoid the anti-female bias in science fiction at the time). –David Horiuchi

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Good but not great
video quality is good but not great. These are the originals without remastering which I liked. Not alot of extras. I enjoyed then

5 Stars Star Trek Original Series Season 2
Received item quickly as usual for items bought from Amazon. This item completes the set of three(1st season-yellow,3rd season-red). At just under $60 shipped to my door, this is easily half the price of buying the same thing in one of the big retailers. I love this item as I do the other two seasons. Excellent quality that will last forever.

5 Stars One word: tribbles
I bought this exclusively for the tribble episode. Star Trek is awesome – and there are so many interesting episodes on these discs. There are only three seasons – and all of the are worth having.

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