Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Time Travel Borg Paramount Collectives •••• Picture/Sound •••• Extras •••

Paramount has already released all of the original Star Trek shows and the spinoffs in complete multidisc sets, which take up nearly 6 feet on my shelf. If that's too much Trek for you, storage- or interest-wise, these Fan Collectives might be the answer. Each set offers 10 episodes (some in two parts) - picked by fans and ranging from the original 1960s series to the recently canceled Enterprise - that revolve around a recurring theme, presented in Star Date order. Time Travel has both serious and amusing scripts, but Borg is grim all the way, as each show deals with Starfleet's most powerful nemesis.

The idea behind these Collectives is imaginative, the execution less inspired. The transfers seem merely to have been poured over from the full-season sets, so whereas the later shows still look excellent, the earlier ones still look anywhere from very good to just adequate. The sound remains quite good, with more specific surround-channel action in more recent shows. The exception to all this is the original series: though a little dirty, it has sharp, richly colored images and fun Dolby Digital 5.1 remixes that stress those instantly recognizable sound effects. As for extras, there's only a handful of text and audio commentaries and nothing at all on the overall themes. A roundtable discussion on the Borg would have been welcome, as would a featurette or two on time travel. Both: assorted soundtracks and aspect ratios; four dual-layer discs each.

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