I just discovered that the UK had a TNG DVD set containing all of the 10 tv movies with the two-parters edited together without the "To Be Continued..." Check out this link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Star-Trek-Genera...459&sr=1-17 It even has DS9's "Emissary". I would have bought this in a heartbeat had it have been release in region 1. What do you guys think?
The edited TNG "movies" were made for the VHS market (I bought "Unification", "Time's Arrow" and "Descent" that way, and regretted not getting "Gambit"), so these would simply be DVD versions of the same cuts. It's also interesting in that the set includes the US TV documentary "TNG: Journey's End", which was originally included on the first "limited edition" sell-thru release of "All Good Things..." on VHS in international markets, but not subsequent releases.
^It's a shame that this set is the only way to get that documentary - I remember watching it on BBC2 around the time TNG finished it's original airing.
I think i've got the documentary....somewhere. After much soul searching I binned a lot of old VHS tapes of early 90's BBC2 trek recently, but kept some of the later ones (specifically the Voyager ones which i never replaced on DVD). They were taking up far, far too much space (and I did have most of the episodes on VHS and DVD). Good documentary, Frakes presents it from the AGT version of the Enterprise bridge. A lot of the old interviews present in the DVD releases are taken from that doc.
I might have picked up the set were it not for the fact the 2-part stories were edited together. There's something lacking about (say) watching The Best of Both Worlds:1 and not having that cliffhanger to go with it...
I used to love those. You could go pick up a couple episodes on tape pretty cheap. Now you have to choose between a semester of college or an entire season on DVD.
I'm a firm believer in preserving the original intent of the program. If it was meant to be "feature length" (like Encounter at Farpoint, All Good Things or Emissary), keep them in their 90 minute version, not the syndicated and edited version. If it was meant to be two different episodes (the rest), keep them that way. Unless each director went back and created a new "cut" for the end of the episode, none flow from the end of one episode to another. We'd have Sela coming out, saying "Jean-Luc Picard is human. And humans have a way of showing up when you least expect them." dovetailing right into Picard, Riker and a couple admirals on the Enterprise. It doesn't seem like a natural progression. We'd need to see the Enterprise arrive at the starbase, at the very least.
The cliffhanger's still there. You just don't have to plow through a set of closing credits, change tapes/discs, then plow through more opening credits to get to Part II. And all the guest cast names - for both episodes - comes up during Scene 1 of Part I.
Personally, I'm a firm believer in enjoying the episodes, so whatever floats your boat is OK. I don't care what the director wants me to see as long as I like what I'm seeing. I personally like watching all the two-parters as one episode because I don't want to have to wait a week, or even several months, before watching the second half, just in the interests of preserving the 'original intent'. ---------------
^ Then that's where you and I differ. I get enjoyment out of watching the art of the show and don't want to see the vision of any artist muddied.