Star Trek: The Original Series: The Complete 3rd Season (Blu-ray) Review

Stardate, the Sixties. Americans had only three networks to watch on television, and two space shows were beamed up: "Lost in Space" (which debuted in 1965 and aired three seasons), and "Star Trek" (which ran three seasons, beginning 1966). "Battlestar Galactica" wouldn't navigate into view until more than a decade later, so Earthlings relied on two intentionally campy shows for their space fix during a decade when the U.S. space program was in full gear and camp was all the rage. "Laugh-In" replaced shows like "Ed Sullivan" for variety, Adam West was socking it to the bad guys as "Batman" in a comic-book version that had the "POW!"s and "BAM!"'s right there on the screen, and secret agent James West started out by doing the Bond thing in the Old West but soon it all got mighty campy and, well, just plain weird. Maybe it was the Kool-Aid, but there hasn't been a decade that liked campy fare as much as this one--and by "campy" I mean, of course, entertainment that's played intentionally over-the-top or tongue-in-cheek, or shows that strut their "bad" stuff knowing that baaad is good. And boy, does that describe "Star Trek.

Centuries from now, if people want to see an illustration of camp, they'll beam up the first episode from Season 3. "Spock's Brain" is the campiest of them all, from the dramatically raised eyebrows and cheesy dialogue to the outrageous situations. When I popped it in, the entire family was laughing out loud . . . though, as with all things campy, it's not really intended to be laugh-out-loud funny. When Bones says it's worse than what Jim feared, "His brain is gone!" and those eyebrows go up like fireworks over summer community theater where everyone says their lines like soap opera kings and queens, you can't keep from laughing. Same with when they go off in search of Spock's brain and find the equivalent of Geico-commercial cave men and Austin Powers' fembots, or when they finally attempt to reassemble Spock's brain inside his head and the surgery takes place with Spock in full uniform and a full head of hair, just lying there, nothing sterile, no medical equipment in sight, dictating every move. It's like watching a parody of "Galaxy Quest," which of course was a clever and entertaining parody of "Star Trek" and the Trekies and their conventions that the show spawned.

In truth, "Star Trek pulled in a decent audience, but like "Lost in Space" it was a better show in retrospect. Both fared well in syndicated reruns, and it was then that "Star Trek" turned into a genuine phenomenon, with Gene Roddenberry's creation inspiring more TV and film spin-offs than any other movie or television series. In 2007, TV Guide named "Star Trek" the Number 1 top cult TV show ever, and it's become such a part of American pop culture that even people who've never seen the show know about Klingons and "Beam me up, Scotty" (a folkloric variation that never really was spoken on the air).

Even people who haven't watched the show have heard of Capt. Kirk (William Shatner) and his Vulcan second-in-command, Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and they have a general idea that the show was about the crew's five-year mission to explore deep space beyond our own galaxy.

But NBC didn't do the show any favors its third season, sticking it in the virtual black hole of a Friday night 10 o'clock EST time slot, when old people and small children were in bed and teens and twentysomethings as far from home as Capt. Kirk and his crew.

Where no man has gone before?

That would be television's first interracial kiss, and it happened in "Star Trek: The Original Series, Season 3" when Bill Shatner (a.k.a. Capt. James T. Kirk) planted a big one on his co-star and co-crew member of the U.S.S. Enterprise, Nichelle Nichols (who played Uhura). In one of the bonus feature Uhura tells the fascinating story of how it happened pretty much because Shatner, who had a "to heck with what the South has to say" attitude and all but buffaloed the NBC brass into going along with it by sabotaging the takes so that the kiss-less one wasn't usable and there was no time to re-shoot . . . because Shatner kept insisting that the kiss "wasn't right" and they re-shot the kiss version 35 times.

In my book, that episode--"Plato's Stepchildren"--and the hilarious "Spock's Brain," plus wonderfully computer-enhanced special effects of the Enterprise in space make this Blu-ray worth buying. And don't worry, purists, you can also choose to watch the show with the original effects. In addition, there's an alternate version of "Where No Many Has Gone Before" and two versions of "The Cage"--the original pilot that featured only one of the cast that NBC would go with. In addition to Shatner, Nimoy, and Nichols, crew members included the hammy DeForest Kelley as Dr. "Bones" McCoy, James Doohan as Mr. "Scotty" Scott, Eddie Paskey as Lt. Leslie, Bill Blackburn as Lt. Hadley, George Takei as Sulu, Frank da Vinci as Lt. Brent, Walter Koenig as Chekov, and Majel Barrett as Nurse Chapel.

It was a studio show, to be sure, with minimalist sets. Other than the command room of the Enterprise, viewers mostly saw exteriors that looked as artificial as the old Flash Gordon serials and interiors that were obvious sets. But the uniforms, color-coded to indicate a crew member's job, and the set design were all about splashes of color, and so no one seemed to mind that flashing lights on control panels looked about as real as those foam boulders. And the creatures and different space-races that the crew encounters from episode to episode were hokey but just as fun. Same with the plots, that all seemed to be inspired by the adventures of Odysseus.

Here's a rundown on the episodes which are presented on six single-sided 50GB discs:

1) "Spock's Brain." A female visitor to the U.S.S. Enterprise has somehow removed Mr. Spock's brain and returned to her planet, where her people desperately need it. Meanwhile, the crew is desperate to get Spock's brain back and into his zombie body.

2) "The Enterprise Incident." Kirk loses it and makes the questionable decision to fly into Romulan air space, provoking a conflict.

3) "The Paradise Syndrome." Kirk loses his memory this time, then disappears on a planet where the crew had beamed down. While they search for him and the crew tries to figure out how to stop an asteroid from colliding with the planet--their original mission--Kirk is "adopted" by an Amerindian tribe.

4) "And the Children Shall Lead." This time Kirk & Co. visit a planet where only children seem to have survived, and they're not the most stable folks in space.

5) "Is There in Truth No Beauty? Visitors to the U.S. S. Enterprise (yep, either the crew left the ship to find adventure, or visitors came onboard) cause chaos. This time a telepath, one of the designers of the Enterprise, and a Medusan are beamed onboard, and before long it turns into a killer-on-board situation.

6) "Spectre of the Gun." In an episode that smacks of "The Wild Wild West" the crew ends up on a planet where they're sentenced to a participate in a recreation of the shootout at the O.K. Corral in 1881 Arizona.

7) "Day of the Dove." Klingon-lovers will like this episode about Klingon prisoners brought onboard the Enterprise, while an alien agitator sets up a conflict between the Klingons and the crew.

8) "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky." An asteroid is on collision path with another planet nearby, but the wrinkle this time is that it's not an asteroid at all. It's a spaceship.

"The Tholian Web." Kirk gets lost again, this time in a dimensional interphase, and the crew has to deal with hostiles as they try to get him back. Kind of reminds you of the original Vincent Price "The Fly" in tone!

10) "Plato's Stepchildren." First the Old West, and now ancient Rome. The crew end up on a planet that's modeled their utopia after Plato's teachings, and so, of course, they dress like Romans. Spock sings and plays the lyre, and we get that first interracial kiss. For a bonus, this episode, which smacks again of "The Wild Wild West," even features the diminutive Michael Dunn, who played Dr. Miguelito Loveless on that series).

11) "Wink of an Eye." On the planet Scalos crew members disappear one by one, and it has to do with the Scalosians needing to reproduce. That's all I'm going to say.

12) "The Empath." Another planet facing total destruction and another outing by the Enterprise crew, this time involving aliens who capture the crew and treat them like lab rats.

13) "Elaan of Troyius." Yep, this time it's the Helen of Troy story that serves as the inspiration, and Kirk factors into the love triangle.

14) "Whom Gods Destroy." The Enterprise was supposed to deliver medicine to an intergalactic insane asylum, but when they get their they find that the inmates are on the loose.

15) "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield." So much hate, so little space for it to play out in. That's what happens as two aliens come onboard, and their feud makes life difficult for the crew.

16) "The Mark of Gideon." A tough one to wrap your mind around has Kirk beaming down but ending up on Enterprise where the crew is M.I.A. and only one woman remains.

17) "That Which Survives." Another mysterious woman tries to kill Kirk and two crew members after they get stranded on her planet.

18) "The Lights of Zetar." How can you fight off cloud-like aliens who need a human host? That's a heady question, fitting for people who live on a library planet.

19) "Requiem for Methuselah." Shades of both the Bible and Treasure Island, a hermit turns up when Kirk and Spock look to a planet for a cure for the fever that's plaguing the crew of the Enterprise.

20) "The Way to Eden." Yep, it's the Sixties all right. Hippies turn up in this episode, looking for utopia. The original galaxy hitchhikers?

21) "The Cloud Minders." More than a few episodes this season involve below-world and above-world factions. This time it's a dispute between miners and elites living in a cloud city.

22) "The Savage Curtain." Uh, Abraham Lincoln? This anachronistic episode has Kirk and Spock battling villains from history and meeting a few others along the way.

23) "All Our Yesterdays." Speaking of the past, this episode Kirk, Spock, and McCoy time travel to another world, where they become trapped in that world's past.

24) "Turnabout Intruder." The season that began with a woman stealing Spock's brain ends with a woman (an ex-girlfriend) stealing Kirk's body. How's that for good old American one-upmanship?

For me, the episodes that are the best are those that come closest to being the worst, because of the camp factor. And the writing? Here's an example: When a female crew member is knocked for a loop and they rush to her, she lifts her head and says, quite lucidly, tat she received an electrical shock. Seconds later, another crew member rushes over, bends down, and says, "She's alive. She must be in shock." Yeah, and so was I, at some of the ridiculous lines and premises and sets. But hey, it's still fun.

Video:
"Star Trek" is presented in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio, which means that there are black bars on the left and right sides of a widescreen monitor. That's the first thing you notice. The second is how phenomenal the new special effects are, and how they really don't seem incompatible with the grainier shots of the crew inside the Enterprise or on one of their planetary jaunts. The only effects that were CGI-enhanced were the deep-space shots of the Enterprise and various planets or asteroids. I watched both ways, and frankly preferred the enhanced version. As for the series itself, "Star Trek" does show its age, with grain visible and occasional imperfections. But it also looks astoundingly good in 1080p. Colors are vivid, skin tones are natural, and black levels are sufficient. I saw no artifacts from the VC-1 transfer. Fans should be happy with it.

Audio:
Same with the audio, which is a robust English DTS-HD MA 7.1, with great distribution of sound across the channels and nice prioritization of dialogue, music, and effects. The dialogue especially is rich-sounding, but so is Alexander Courage's musical score. In episodes where there's an asteroid or spaceship moving across a field, there's a nice movement across the sound field as well. For a 1969 TV show, "Star Trek: The Original Series, Season 3" delivers a solid audio experience. And purists can still watch the show in the original English Dolby Digital Mono, with French and Spanish Mono options. Subtitles are in English SDH, French, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Extras:
All discs are BD-Live and Mobile-Blu enabled, though bonus features only appear on discs five and six (we won't count episode teasers). The key feature is a "rare and unaired version" of "Where No Man Has Gone Before," which includes an alternative monologue by Shatner and different music and closing credits. Also included is the unaired pilot ("The Cage") and an extended version of that unaired pilot, which, by comparison, is dull dull dull. We learn that "Where No Man Has Ever Gone Before" was essentially a second-chance pilot, and that the series almost never left planet Earth.

As far as features, my favorite was "To Boldly Go . . .," a Season 3 retrospective that features the cast looking back. Here is where we get that great story about "the kiss." Also not bad is "David Gerrold Hosts '2009 Convention Coverage,'" an amusing and sometimes illuminating look at Trekkies, with Gerrold interviewing anyone who's ever appeared on an episode who turns up at one of these conventions hawking a book, a CD, a poster, or a product of some kind. It's big business, and this 52-minute feature is one big illustration. A little drier is "The Anthropology of 'Star Trek' Comic-Con Panel 2009," a four-minute presentation from a Lake Tahoe Community College prof talking about the show's impact on society. Better is "Billy Blackburn's Treasure Chest: Rare Home Movies and Special Memories," an 11-minute clip-montage featuring the cast in unguarded moments or else mugging for the camera. Same with "Collectible Trek," a 15-minute feature on collectibles and their value. Rounding out the bonus features: "Star Trek's Impact" gives us Rod Roddenberry talking about his dad's vision and the show's impact on him; "Life Beyond Trek" features actor Walter Koenig talking about how he came to play Chekhov and also his other roles; "Memoir from Mr. Sulu" is an eight-minute interview with Takei; "Captain's Log: Bob Justman" is a 10-minute cast-crew montage in which they recall Justman's impact on the show; and "Chief Engineer's Log" features James Doohan talking about his favorite "Star Trek" episodes, among other things.

Bottom Line:
For fans of the original "Star Trek" series and for students of television history, the Season 3 Blu-ray is a must. And for people who get off on campy TV shows? Not all of the episodes are equally laugh-out-loud funny, but there's enough so-bad-it's-good content to put a pretty big smile on your face.
http://www.dvdtown.com/review/star-trek-the-original-series-the-complete-3rd-season/blu-ray/7631/2