To the delight of Star Trek fans everywhere, the stellar second season of The Next Generation (1988-89) belonged to Lieutenant Commander Data. As the Enterprise-D's resident android, Data (in the Emmy-worthy hands of Brent Spiner) would gain legal sentience in the season highlight "The Measure of a Man," and his increasingly "human" personality would refine itself in such diverse episodes as "Elementary, Dear Data" (Data as Sherlock Holmes), "The Outrageous Okona" (a misfire, but worthy from the Data perspective), and "Pen Pals." While Gates McFadden (Dr. Crusher) took a sabbatical of then-unknown duration (gracefully replaced by original Trek guest star Diana Muldaur as Dr. Pulaski), the remaining bridge crew would match Data's vitality: Riker grew a handsome beard and proved his command potential; Worf became richly nuanced in "The Icarus Factor," and met his match (and mate) in guest Suzie Plakson's fiercely Klingon sexpot K'Ehleyr; Wesley matured admirably, despite continuing fan disapproval; Betazed culture emerged as Troi locked horns with her eccentric mother, Lwaxana (Majel Barrett, in a recurring role); and La Forge made good on his promotion to chief engineer while Chief O'Brien (Colm Meaney) flawlessly rode on Geordi's coattails.

The Next Step in the Star Trek Anthology and the first Borg encounter!

The Star Trek Collection is a worthy hobby and certainly the largest of the television series DVD Collections (The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise). At around 1100 minutes per box (a few hours less than the TOS seasons) we are still looking at approx 30 boxes with 700 hours of viewing. That is 1 month of non-stop Star Trek. No DVD series comes remotely close to that. Get going collecting right now and build up on each succession over the years. By the end you will have a very serious anthology that defines the word awe. This is the kind of item that requires 1 hour a day of your time for the next few years. It is a cherished memory that served your fathers and will serve your children also. Our very planet, Earth, has advanced because of Gene Roddenberry's admirable concept. Roddenberry nailed the premise of the series when he said that he wanted to create a show with characters that we could look up too. `The Bridge' members are like our family. Watch what they do. Then go and spend your life striving for the same on Earth. What engineer, medic, scientist, teacher, worker can not say that Star Trek has not influenced them? The show is this significant in the development of our species. Even Christians respect and quote its authority and it is not hard to see why. The DVD case is not quite as fancy as the TOS (The Original Series) cases. The TNG case is supposed to resemble a TNG crew briefcase. The case opens to reveal the disc booklet inside a sleeve. Sliding the disc booklet out of the sleeve and flipping it open reveals a spread of 7 discs. There are 4 episodes per disc. However the last disc, disc 7, only has two episodes, for a grand total of 26 episodes (TOS has 8 Discs, 30 episodes). The rest of disc 7 is devoted to Star Trek interviews and trailers with the usual expected extras...and then some more. The episodes are ordered not in the sequence they where filmed, but in the sequence that they aired, however each episode has been numbered according to the order they where filmed in. This means on one disc you have shows 4, 2, 12 and 1, in that order although Season Two was aired fairly much according to the chronological produced order. The sound has also been remastered to 5:1 Dolby Digital! Since the show was shot in full frame, these dimensions are retained.

Star Trek, The Next Generation (TNG), Season One, had an amazing impact when it was first broadcast. An instant hit and a milestone in television serials (it ran for 7 seasons unlike its predecessor that ran for 3), its characters and new look Enterprise had us glued to the TV with the first computer generated images of our solar system as Captain Picard utters the immortal words... `To baldly'... I mean... `To boldly go where no man'... I mean... `To boldly go where no one has gone before.' Season Two, still carries on with repeating much of the stories in TOS, revamping them and then adding some new stuff of its own, boosting Data's screen time, bumping up the computer generated graphics to allow for things like shuttlecraft launching and manoeuvres, improved alien CGI and an enhancement in particle effects. They even attempt a type of morphing. Most of the main characters from Season One are here, Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Commander William T. Riker (now with a beard), Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge, Lieutenant Commander Worf (letting his hair grow), Commander Deanna Troi (complete with low-cut red starfleet costume), Lt. Commander Data and Ensign Wesley Crusher. However obviously Commander Lieutenant Tasha Yar is gone but so is Dr. Beverly Crusher (who was not bad-looking), replaced by Doctor Katherine Pulaski (who looks like your granny!) for Season Two because Dr. Crusher has been reassigned to Starfleet Medical as explained in episode one of Season Three (in reality the TNG writers where having difficulties in developing Crusher's character, would later reinstate her for Season Three, dropping Pulaski because they felt her character was not working). Colm Meaney as Miles Edward O'Brien, Navigation from Season One gets more screentime, while the new Whoopi Goldberg chatacter, Guinan, is the wise El Aurian bartender in 10 Forward, the new bar room where the Enterprise crew get to relax. Except for this extra area the Enterprise itself has not gone undergone much of a revamp and this season is far more Enterprise based than Season One, or all of TOS, meaning Season Two has less planetary exploration stories which is a bit of a drawback, but sets a new standards in the `hotel in space' feel that would produce the `Deep Space Nine' series. Season Two of TNG is mostly about alien impregnation, mystery space, AI, the holodeck, interplanetary relations, rapid aging, justice, shape-shifting, time travel, family, the prime directive, kidnapping, cloning, war games and infections. The big plus side to not having that much planetary exploration is that there are lots of stories with Klingons and the first encounter with the BORG! The unforgettable episodes are, `Elementary, Dear Data' where Data takes on his Sherlock Holmes persona and we are introduced to the Moriarty character. `Loud as a Whisper' is about a deaf and dumb peace negotiator. `A Matter of Honor' is where Riker serves on a Klingon battleship. `Q Who?' may well be the best episode here because it is the first time we meet the Borg. The last episode of Season Two `Shades of Gray' may be one of the worst Star Trek episodes ever, which uses Riker's memories from Seasons One and Two to make up an entire episode and even includes the uncut scenes for the Season One episode `Conspiracy' featuring the violent head explosion edited from some daytime television showings [so parents be cautious again]). The bottom line for TNG: Season Two is that for all it shortcomings because of lack of beaming down, we get the Borg and lots and lots of Klingons. At this stage in the saga we might still miss Kirk rolling about the desert scrub with a seven foot man in a rubber reptile costume, but how will Picard defeat those assimilating half-man, half-machine entities that are heading his way? He better "make it so" with Season Three.

The production is better, the stories are better made, but a few glitches...

The DVDs themselves are of good quality; I've rented many seasons' worth and reminded myself which stories throughout the run were good and which were not...

$50 per season is on par and is a good price. (So what's coming soon that's compelling people to buy these current sets?)

Wish I could afford it; thanks to the prices of necessities gone up so much (food, shelter, and distilled petroleum products being slightly more important than Captain Picard standing around as if he hasn't spent a penny in decades...), $50 is still an effective $100 out of my pocket in the end.

Don't get me wrong, the entire series IS fun and seasons 1 and 2 have their appreciable values as well; season 1 boasting a wealth of good ideas that just had an awkward production feel to them:

The Child: Resurrected from an aborted Kirk series of the late-70s, this one is competent in all ways. Nice talk re: abortion too. Pulaski makes a great intro and despite being lambasted as a McCoy ripoff (for which the TNG spinoffs never get too many of), Pulaski was a great replacement for Crusher.

Where Silence Has Lease: Half trite, but the creepiness/horror factor kept it interesting. All in all underrated.

Elementary, Dear Data: Ah! The stuff that REAL sci-fi is made out of. A+++ Daniel Davis as Holmes is inspired casting to boot.

The Outrageous Okona: Rejected Season 1 script? best left ignored...

Loud as a Whisper: An interesting take on mediation; things naturally go awry. of course...

The Schizoid Man: Not the best, but very underrated and the creepy factor is also well done.

Unnatural Selection: Ripoff of every "let's age 'em quickly" plot ever made. Pulaski is fun to watch, but that's about it...

A Matteer of Honor: Great Klingon story. A bit pedestrian in its presentation (a frequent season 1 complaint), but I love it to pieces anyway.

The Measure of a Man: The first and by far BEST story regarding Data's status as a sentient being.

The Dauphin: Bland entry.

Contagion: Another AWESOME story. Great use of ideas and is the first "computer virus" story. Nice solution too.

The Royale: Don't bother. It's filler.

Time Squared: Yowza. Another story that goes where nobody has gone before; the first and best story regarding being caught in a time loop...

The Icarus Factor: I never cared for this type of story. Too soapy. Nice set pieces, but not ideal as a whole story.

Pen Pals: Lovely in thought, but breaks Federation rules all over the place. Not to mention Data being grossly out of character.

Q Who?: Q is reminiscent of the 7th Doctor as he meddles with Picard and introduced them to the Cyber... whoops, the Borg. Don't get my sarky comments wrong, this story is well defined, well acted, and is a total CLASSIC. I could care less about the "Borg Nursery", but it's logical they'd have one...

Samaritan Snare: A bizarre story, and watchable in its own mind, it is a bit disconcerting to watch...

Up the Long Ladder: Nice comedy piece that turns to horror as two branches of the same race ultimately have to learn to live together; one similar to 1800s Earth, the other that bleached its gene pool thanks to excessive cloning. It is a noble story, but Riker - as usual - gets it on with the alien chick of the week...

Manhunt: Another comedy piece; it depends if you like Lwaxana or not.

The Emissary: Worf's background is explored. So is K'Elhyr. Pity she gets killed off. :(

Peak Performance: A clever entry; simulating war games and in come the Ferengi in a performance on par to "The Battle".

Shades of Gray: A clip show?! Little faith in the series (half-understandable) or behind-the-scenes strike and other issues preventing a proper story from being made?

Season 2 is a big improvement; using directorial styles invented in other series. But it's as much original as it is derivative thanks to exploring usually decent sci-fi ideas and making them work within the sphere of Trekdom. Sadly, later series would ditch the cool sci-fi element and make the show drivel-preachy-drama of the week, with the Enteprise-D used (yet again) as a mere cargo ship...

Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Complete Second Season

This is a must have for any TNG fan.

All 22 episodes from season two are here together for the first time in 5.1 sound and clear video. Some of the best episodes of the series are in this DVD box set.

Some classic episodes are..

"The Child"
-- An alien impreginates Troi to learn how humans exist. This episode is actually adapted from an episode from the lost PHASE II series. This is also the first appearance of Pulaski.

"Elementary, Dear Data"
-- Data, La Forge and Pulaski are attempting to have some fun but the holodeck malfunctions taking Sherlock Holmes' evil character Moriarity and making him sentient. The episode will be followed up in the season six episode "Ship in a Bottle"

"Q Who"
-- This episode introduces us to the Borg. A species we will see more through out TNG and VGR.

There are many other great episodes for your viewing pleasure. This is a must have!!!!!