Roddenberry had extensive experience in writing for series about the Old West that had been popular television fare in the 1950s and 1960s. Armed with this background, he characterized the new show in his first draft as "Wagon Train to the stars".[6][10] Like the familiar Wagon Train, each episode was to be a self-contained adventure story, set within the structure of a continuing voyage through space. Most future television and movie realizations of the franchise adhered to the "Wagon Train" paradigm of the continuing journey, with the notable exceptions of the serialized Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, and the third season of Star Trek: Enterprise.
Star Trek Tos Season 1 720p 16
In Roddenberry's original concept, the protagonist was Captain Robert April of the starship S.S. Yorktown. This character was developed into Captain Christopher Pike, first portrayed by Jeffrey Hunter. April is listed in the Star Trek Chronology, The Star Trek Encyclopedia, and at startrek.com as the Enterprise's first commanding officer, preceding Captain Pike.[11][12][13] The character's only television/movie appearance was in the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "The Counter-Clock Incident".[14] until Strange New Worlds, where he is portrayed by Adrian Holmes.
The second pilot introduced most of the other main characters: Captain Kirk (William Shatner), Chief Engineer Lt. Commander Scott (James Doohan) and Lt. Sulu (George Takei), who served as a physicist on the ship in the second pilot, but subsequently became a helmsman throughout the rest of the series. Paul Fix played Dr. Mark Piper in the second pilot; ship's doctor Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) joined the cast when filming began for the first season, and he remained for the rest of the series, achieving billing as the third star of the series. Also joining the ship's permanent crew during the first season were the communications officer, Lt. Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), the first African-American woman to hold such an important role in an American television series;[23] the captain's yeoman, Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney), who departed midway through the first season; and Christine Chapel (Majel Barrett), the ship's nurse and assistant to McCoy. Walter Koenig joined the cast as Ensign Pavel Chekov in the series' second season.
While NBC paid lip service to expanding Star Trek's audience, it [now] slashed our production budget until it was actually 10% lower than it had been in our first season ... This is why in the third season you saw fewer outdoor location shots, for example. Top writers, top guest stars, top anything you needed was harder to come by. Thus, Star Trek's demise became a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I can assure you, that is exactly as it was meant to be.[61]
Besides the above examples, numerous non-canon novels and comic books have been published over the years in which The Original Series era crew are depicted in The Next Generation era, either through time-travel or other means. In addition, many actors who appeared on The Original Series later made guest appearances as different characters in later series, most notably Majel Barrett, who not only provided the voice for most Starfleet computers in episodes of every spin-off series (including a single appearance on Star Trek: Enterprise, where the computers normally did not speak at all), but also had the recurring role of Lwaxana Troi in The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. Diana Muldaur, a guest star in the episodes "Return to Tomorrow" and "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" of the original Star Trek series, played series regular Dr. Katherine Pulaski in the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
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After checking out all remastered season 1 episodes at least in "fast forward" mode, I am pleased about how little was altered. TNG is my favorite TV series (not just of Star Trek), and I would have had a hard time accepting changes relevant to the course of the story, even in the rather unexciting first season. Nearly all scenes involving starships were reassembled from the originally filmed single passes. All new light effects closely reproduce the look of the original. The arguably most obvious changes are those to the planets. As far as I can tell, only Deneb IV in "Encounter at Farpoint" as well as Haven in "Haven" and its reuse as Bynaus in "11001001" are still represented by the old models. All other planets were digitally rebuilt, obviously because the original material was not good enough for HD. I appreciate that all new planets closely resemble the old ones, in their color as well as in the shapes of the continents, something I may have wished for a couple of the reimagined TOS planets too.
As already in season 1, nothing of importance was visually altered. Light effects such as of phasers or energy fields were recreated to be as close to the original as possible. With a few exceptions, all miniature shots of starships could be recomposited for the HD release, even those of the tiny probes in "Where Silence Has Lease" (whereas the Enterprise is computer generated in the TNG-R shots with the probes). We can see more newly created CG versions of ships in "The Outrageous Okona" (towing of the Erstwhile), "A Matter of Honor" (close-ups of the BoP) and "Peak Performance" (one aft shot of the Hathaway). Season 2 also reuses a number of planets, unlike it was in season 1 where nearly every planet was reconstructed from scratch. While some matte paintings are still the same or were only insignificantly changed, some new ones were recreated from scratch. I especially like Wesley's holographic space sceneries that he uses to impress Salia in "The Dauphin", the surface of Iconia in "Contagion" and the interior of the Borg cube in "Q Who".
Season 4 starts with an awesome cliffhanger and ends with one. But I think the two big two-parters are not typical of the season. I like to label season 4 as the "Season of the Family". Many of the episodes are concerned with the family affairs of various crew members such as Picard, Data, Riker, Worf, O'Brien and even the deceased Tasha. Among all those episodes with personal involvement, a few really stand out, such as most notably "Reunion" (where Worf is faced with the death of K'Ehleyr and takes revenge) and "Future Imperfect" (where Riker gets acquainted with his future son although he turns out to a be fake). Well, and for those who always hated Wesley, his departure was probably a reason to rejoice. Overall, the tendency to involve the crew stronger shows that the show has matured and is not primarily about anomalies of the week or about unpleasant guests who hide a secret. It is a more daring season in terms of social commentary as well. While "The Drumhead" shows the outgrowths of the system of the Federation itself, "First Contact", "Half a Life" and "The Host" call in to question how the Federation deals with other ways of life (although Beverly's involvement in the latter episode just doesn't work). Please go to my episode reviews for a more detailed analysis of the individual episodes.
Season 5 starts and ends with a two-part episode. The four other "big" installments are "Darmok", "Unification", "Cause and Effect" and "The Inner Light", fan favorites that can be found on every list of the best TNG episodes. "Darmok" excels because of its message of mutual understanding and cooperation, the double feature "Unification" for Leonard Nimoy's return to Star Trek as Spock on a mission of peace, "Cause and Effect" because of its breathtaking sci-fi plot, "The Inner Light" for Picard's touching experience on a doomed alien world. In addition, "Disaster" and "Conundrum" made my personal list of favorite episodes, but there are just too many great stories in this season to mention them all in this condensed review. Several of them include an ethical or moral comment that applies in the 20th century just as well, such as "The Outcast" (sexual tolerance) or "The First Duty" (the truth should not be sacrificed to allegiance). There is a common motive in several episodes of season 5, which is why I refer to it as the "Season of the Children", but fortunately it never becomes too cutesy. Well, and among only three or four mediocre episodes there is one real stinker, "Silicon Avatar", which I hate for its twisted ethics and the idea to put the blame for the Crystalline Entity's inevitable destruction on a scapegoat. Please go to my extensive episode reviews to see what I think of the individual episodes.
One more thing of note is that single shots of the Enterprise-D had to be replaced starting in season 4, and that season 5 consistently uses an improved CG model. Although the new CG model is based on the 6-foot model, as opposed to the physical 4-foot model it replaces most of the time, visual continuity is not impaired so much because of the added paneling that resembles the one of the 4-footer. Well, since already the original episodes often used both models in the same episode, it is no big deal anyway.
The final TNG Blu-ray set includes the most comprehensive of the new documentaries by Roger Lay, Jr. and Robert Meyer Burnett, with the fitting title "The Sky's the Limit". In the first part, "Umbra", the producers and writers tell how the show came to life and how it was kept alive for seven successful seasons. The second part, "Penumbra", focuses on the unsung heroes behind the scenes, who were responsible for the look and feel of the series. In the third part, "Antumbra", the principal cast members and some guest stars share their memories of the show. This documentary celebrates TNG as a pinnacle of TV productions, and I think it has every right to do so. Other extras include a gag reel, deleted scenes from several episodes and the features from the 2002 DVD release. 2ff7e9595c
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