Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 10/02/2007 Run time: 8085 minutes

After Star Wars and the successful big-screen Star Trek adventures, it's perhaps not so surprising that Gene Roddenberry managed to convince purse string-wielding studio heads in the 1980s that a Next Generation would be both possible and profitable. But the political climate had changed considerably since the 1960s, the Cold War had wound down, and we were now living in the Age of Greed. To be successful a second time, Star Trek had to change too.

A writer's guide was composed with which to sell and define where the Trek universe was in the 24th Century. The United Federation of Planets was a more appealing ideology to an America keen to see where the Reagan/Gorbachev faceoff was taking them. Starfleet's meritocratic philosophy had always embraced all races and species. Now Earth's utopian history, featuring the abolishment of poverty, was brandished prominently and proudly. The new Enterprise, NCC 1701-D, was no longer a ship of war but an exploration vessel carrying families. The ethical and ethnical flagship also carried a former enemy (the Klingon Worf, played by Michael Dorn), and its Chief Engineer (Geordi LaForge) was blind and black. From every politically correct viewpoint, Paramount executives thought the future looked just swell!

Roddenberry's feminism now contrasted a pilot episode featuring ship's Counsellor Troi (Marina Sirtis) in a mini-skirt with her ongoing inner strengths and also those of Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) and the short-lived Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby). The arrival of Whoopi Goldberg in season 2 as mystic barkeep Guinan is a great example of the good the original Trek did for racial groups--Goldberg has stated that she was inspired to become an actress in large part through seeing Nichelle Nichols' Uhura. Her credibility as an actress helped enormously alongside the strong central performances of Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard), Jonathan Frakes (First Officer Will Riker), and Brent Spiner (Data) in defining another wholly believable environment once again populated with well-defined characters. Star Trek, it turned out, did not depend for its success on any single group of actors.

Like its predecessor in the 1960s, TNG pioneered visual effects on TV, making it an increasingly jaw-dropping show to look at. And thanks also to the enduring success of the original show, phasers, tricorders, communicators and even phase inverters were already familiar to most viewers. But while technology was a useful tool in most crises, it now frequently seemed to be the cause of them too, as the show's writers continually warned about the dangers of over-reliance on technology (the Borg were the ultimate expression of this maxim). The word "technobabble" came to describe a weakness in many TNG scripts, which sacrificed the social and political allegories of the original and relied instead upon invented technological faults and their equally fictitious resolutions to provide drama within the Enterprise's self-contained society. (The holodeck's safety protocol override seemed to be next to the light switch given the number of times crew members were trapped within.) This emphasis on scientific jargon appealed strongly to an audience who were growing up for the first time in the late 1980s with the home computer--and gave rise to the clichéd image of the nerdy Trek fan.

Like in the original Trek, it was in the stories themselves that much of the show's success is to be found. That pesky Prime Directive kept moral dilemmas afloat ("Justice"/"Who Watches the Watchers?"/"First Contact"). More "what if" scenarios came out of time-travel episodes ("Cause and Effect"/"Time's Arrow"/"Yesterday's Enterprise"). And there were some episodes that touched on the political world, such as "The Arsenal of Freedom" questioning the supply of arms, "Chain of Command" decrying the torture of political prisoners and "The Defector", which was called "The Cuban Missile Crisis of The Neutral Zone" by its writer. The show ran for more than twice as many episodes as its progenitor and therefore had more time to explore wider ranging issues. But the choice of issues illustrates the change in the social climate that had occurred with the passing of a couple of decades. "Angel One" covered sexism; "The Outcast" was about homosexuality; "Symbiosis"--drug addiction; "The High Ground"--terrorism; "Ethics"--euthanasia; "Darmok"--language barriers; and "Journey's End"--displacement of Indians from their homeland. It would have been unthinkable for the original series to have tackled most of these.

TNG could so easily have been a failure, but it wasn't. It survived a writer's strike in its second year, the tragic death of Roddenberry just after Trek's 25th anniversary in 1991, and plenty of competition from would-be rival franchises. Yes, its maintenance of an optimistic future was appealing, but the strong stories and readily identifiable characters ensured the viewers' continuing loyalty. --Paul Tonks

I grew up on Star Trek, and having the entire TNG series is awesome. Some of the best TV ever made. This is a great collection. The packaging is just OK, functional, but no extras to really get excited about. The extra features on the DVDs are great though. A must have for any Trek fan.

I am happy to see that Amazon includes customer reviews, but I do believe that the company bears a certain responsibility for the products it offers for sale. Rather than waste my time reading reviews for a product that is not worth buying, I would prefer that Amazon exercise some judgment and not offer such a product for sale. This is akin to a grocery store offering spoiled food for sale; it just is not right.
Perhaps an entry next to the product's name saying, "This product has been removed because of numerous unfavorable reviews and our own observations."

I love this star trek series, but the package it came in was badly made and the bright green plastic case had a broken piece. I wish they could have made this package as well as they did for the DS9 series.

THE FIRST THING I WAS FORCED TO DO WAS REMOVE THE DVDs TO 8 CASES (1 EA SEASON THAT HOLD UP TO 8 DVDS ea)...REAL CASES, THE TYPE WHERE IF U SPILL PEPSI ON ONE, ONLY NEED IS REPLACE CASE not LOSS of DVDS..the only worse collction series case was 11 season MASH...not even hubs! jusst slits in a cardboard causing damage right from factory. just becase these co's have a monopoly on whocan sell the copyrighted content..doesnt mean THIS disgustion mess..BTW aside from almost no extras Quality of viseo on the DVDs IS excellent..should be considering there isnt a more expensive 7 season series anywhere.

This is freakin' awesome. I am in love with old t.v. shows and have found that t.v. today just isn't cutting it at all. I haven't watched t.v. in over 3 years but I have always loveed the Star Trek Series and love to watch iot with my girlfriend and mother, and now I have it and I have literally sat down for hours and hours just watching it. I was surprised how fragile the collectors case was, when i got it in the mail it arrived chipped, but the case itself is decent. The DVD's look great and the menus are fantastic! The DVD main menus look like the command center for the Worf's security control panel, very cute.

This is a must buy for all star trek fans!