Season SIX OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

Finished watching the first disc yesterday. There are times that you almost get used to the brilliant quality of the remastering and then there's a shot that takes your breath away. I think you'll all enjoy the remastered effects in Realm of Fear especially. The POV shots of Barclay inside the transporterbeam are magnificent. The colours and depth of field are superb. It almost looks like a 3D effect.

The quality of the episodes however is a different matter. I was surprised to learn that a lot of people consider season 6 their favorite season. For me, the decline in quality started with season 6. The first 5 episodes on this disc are a perfect examples. "Time's Arrow", "Realm of Fear" and "Man Of The People" aren't anywhere near as good as the final stretch of episodes of season 5. They aren't bad, just uninspired and lack the energy and pacing of seasons 3 and 4. Relics is a classic episode, with a superb story by Ronald D. Moore and a wonderful performance by James Doohan. Schisms is even more freaky and unsetlling in HD. It's a personal favorite of mine. Still the lack of energy and pacing is also evident in these episodes. The staging of certain scenes is off as well. There's this silly moment in Schisms where Geordi detects an explosion in a cargobay and orders damage control and medical teams to the scene. This is followed by a scene where a team of people including Dr. Crusher and Worf are leisurely strolling through the corridor to the cargobay, apparently in no hurry to help their fellow crewmembers who as far as they're concerned are in mortal danger. Luckily it turns out to be a false alarm.

 

At least that gives me one reason to watch it.

 

I agree with you. I think there are maybe four or five strong episodes in season six, the rest just feels like filler.

 

I think that the decline really begins around Season 5. Season 6 has a couple more episodes than 5 that I consider good-to-awesome, but not nearly the number I find really enjoyable in the first four (first three especially.). But, in the end, it's a matter of preference.

 

Looks like Amazon has followed suit and dropped the price on both the season 6 set and the COC bluray!

 

Just pre-ordered. Scheduled delivery is Thursday unless I pay $11 for release-day delivery. Bummer.

 

Hmmm, the current Amazon US price of $57.99 works out to about £34.00 sterling - as opposed to the £50.00 they're asking for on the UK site. Even including international shipping, the $58 would still be a nice saving - and I wouldn't have to wait until next month.

However, it's a lottery with customs here, and if they were to get their grubby hands on the package it'd be a different story. I'm almost tempted.

 

I'd wait for the Italian copies to start turning up. The Euro's doing 1.25 to the Pound at the moment. The Italian set will be around £30 with no import charges. The Italian season 1-5 sets are £25 each at amazon.it. I wish I'd waited, although I didn't pay a huge amount more.

UK customs will charge you at least £8 just for stopping and opening your package. Years ago, I bought the Die Hard Quadrilogy set on Blu-ray from Australia long before it was available in the UK. It was £30. Bargain at the time. Customs got hold of it, opened it up, and charged me another £15.

 

Yes, that's what's putting me off. I've never had a problem with single discs - ordered stacks of US single disc movie Blu-ray's (and DVD's back in the day) and have never paid duty.

With box-sets, I've found it to be pretty much 50/50. It's likely the size of the package that draws the eye of our friends in customs!

 

It's a shame that the Europe releases have those large age ratings on the front covers and spines which often dominate the cover's appearance. Fortunately no such requirements in US.

 

The review on blu-ray.com is up. http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Star-Trek-The-Next-Generation-Season-6-Blu-ray/82203/#Review

The reviewer really liked Rascals:

Well ok then... I love The Royale, so whatever.

 

I love Qpid. We all have a bad episode we enjoy, it seems.

 

I find the huge Australian ratings on front covers to be the worst, although I think they're removable stickers in many cases.

What makes me laugh is that for the last 27 years, all TNG episodes were rated either U or PG in the UK for VHS (back in the day) and later DVD, except for I think Heart of Glory which was upgraded to 12, but so far on Blu-ray, the first 5 seasons have all been rated 12. When you look at what the BBFC have downgraded from 18 to 15 over the years, I gotta wonder what's going on.

 

And what's wrong with The Royale? While there isn't too much to write home about in the second season, I've always liked it. It's a good old fashioned mystery with an interesting premise.

 

So my amazon order shipped but I was charged the $75 price instead of the current $57. Same with COC. Hopefully that will be an easy fix. Looking forward to tomorrow either way!

 

Wow. Almost 13 years and I'm finally a Commander. I guess I'm more of a lurker than a contributer!

 

Contact Amazon and they should do the price match. They have a online chat you can use. The same thing happened with Enterprise S4, unfortunately I didn't bother to check the price until it was too late, but others reported there was no problem getting them to give the reduced price.

 

This happened for Season 5 and I think what happens (if I recall correctly) is they do the price adjustment when the order arrives. Just to make sure, I called amazon yesterday and they said they will adjust the price and it should take up to the 24-48 hours. I don't know why they don't adjust the price right when they are ready to ship it. The price on the pre-order should be instantaneously changed with the price on the website.