Star Trek The Next Generation - The Complete Third Season (1990)

Great Price and Wonderful

What can I say... Another A+++++++++++++ for Amazon! Great quality and good price. Always a :-) with Amazon!!! October 7, 2008

TNG hits its stride

The core of Next Generation - the period that makes most fans sigh with nostalgia - surely has to be seasons 3 through 6. The first two seasons were full of growing pains, while the seventh was somewhat underwhelming due to producers and writers shifting their focus elsewhere.

Season 3 is generally remembered for three fan favorite episodes - "Deja Q", "Yesterday's Enterprise" and part 1 of "The Best of Both Worlds." But I think what is remarkable is that there are almost no bad episodes - the only read duds are "The Price" and "Menage a Troi". Instead, you get a mix that's split about 50-50 between episodes that you'd characterize as very good or better, and episodes that are solid, watchable but unremarkable. That's different from season 5, where the quality dispersion is much wider.

Besides the fan favorites, there are two remarkable episodes I would like to single out as personal favorites - the classic military thriller "The Defector" and the wonderful "The Offspring". I would put those up against any other episode in the series.

The series would peak with season 4, but this one is not that far behind. September 14, 2008

One of the best TNG seasons...#3.

This is the 3rd season of the TV hit series Star Trek: the Next Generation. This is probably one of the best seasons, with memorable and epic episodes like "The most toys", which deals with Data's kidnapping by an one-of-a-kind rare item collector, "Who watches the watchers" in which Picard needs to prove to a primitive people that he is not a god, "offspring", with Data becoming a parent, "Yesterdays enterprise", to finally meet the crew of the Enterprise-C, "The Defector" a splendidly sneaky Romulan episode, "The enemy" a Romulan episode in the style of enemy mine, "Hollow pursuits" an entertaining episode about shy Lt. Barclay who recreates the Enterprise officers on the holo-deck in ridiculous scenarios to make them less threatening, and last but not least the 1st part of "The best of both worlds" starting the Picard/Borg story line that is concluded in the "First Contact" movie.
This season is a definite must for a Star Trek fan, but also a good entry into the show for more casual watchers.
Prepare to be entertained-Engage! July 9, 2008

Next Gen Really Hits Its Stride See it in HD

There are several compelling reasons to purchase this set:

This is by far the best of several great NG seasons; writing is crisp, the dialog is visceral, the tempo is great, and the shows are generally as good or better than you will find in earlier or later years.

The characters' development is proceeding on all fronts, human, Klingon, and crew-wise. The production, writing, and directing is nearing its peak.

But, as important as any of these are, don't forget ILM (div of LucasFilms) did the special effects. This is as high a quality of special effect as you will ever see in television. It is guaranteed with all the computer and CGI junk as there is now, you will not see better sci-fi action than this. MANY OF YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN THE ORIGINAL Next Gen SHOWS IN HI DEF. YOU MUST!! It is leaps and bounds better than other versions.

Many of us trekkers are just now getting the high quality 1080i or 1080p high def televisions. You will not believe how much better the quality of Next Gen is until you see it on one of these hi def sets. Get one with HDMI and upcoding, and it will up-convert your standard def show like Next Gen DVD TO HDMI and 1080i or p. It is unbelievable!! As good as the VHS tapes were, as good as you can record Trek off TV nowdays, the factory stuff with the Dolby Surround encoding cannot be beat. Many movies do not have the quality of these Trek shows. Some of these shows had as much as 3 Million in special effects budgets- for 1987 that was a ton of money. Some blockbuster films did not have much more budget than a single trek show!

So, add this new compelling element, top quality video, to the OTHER strengths of Season Three Next Gen and you have an all time winner. No collectors set of videos would be complete without Year 3, the Third Season, of Star Trek Next Gen. It is excellence personified. The stereo is near perfect, audio mixing is the best I ever heard (check out the subwoofer content in engineering scenes), surround is first class, the directing, writing, acting, and direction, cannot be beat for TV, and the special effects are as good as you will ever see. You can bet there will never be another Trek Next Gen. But if you have a high def television, you are in for a treat, as this is historic. The Pinnacle of television.

This is the complete package for Sci Fi and Trek fans. You get the action, the effects, the cerebral, philosophical nature of Trek, and video that cannot be beat, 19 hours of it, for 62$. Mighty hard to beat. Gene, the Great Bird of the Galaxy, would be proud. Do yourself a favor and treat yourself to some really classic trek and sci fi and at least get season three. If you are a trek fan, this one season is the least you can try out. Science Fiction simply does not get any better than this. Star Trek The Next Generation - The Complete Third Season February 10, 2008

Star Trek TNG review; Season 3

I was a big fan of Star Trek TNG from the very first episode of the first season in 9/87. In fact, I video-taped every episode of TNG up until i lost my job in 1991 and shortly after, couldn't pay for cable-tv. Without cable-tv, I missed the final season, but managed to catch it later in the reruns. For the first half of the 90s, I actually had every episode of TNG recorded on video-tape, with most of the commercials removed. It was all in perfect order, except for the final season, which was randomly placed on a couple of other tapes with DS9 and Voyager.

Unfortunately, sometime in the late-90s, one of the boxes with my video-tapes in it had an accident during a move and I lost almost all of season 1, 2, 3, and 4, and portions of 5, 6, and 7. It was something that I had little time to cry about after it occurred, but when I think about it now, I regret it even more, because with a Dvd-recorder, I could have transferred it all to my own discs and it wouldn't have been necessary for me to purchase the Dvds through Amazon.

I purchased season 5 on Dvd through a local shop because I wanted one of the later seasons and 6 and 7 were, at the time, going for something like $100, while 5 was only $60. Later, I purchased season 3 through Amazon and I have to say, after reviewing all of the early seasons, season 3 is my favorite. 5 is okay, 4 is poor (too much soap opera), and 3 is really quite good in comparison. Both 5 and 4 have some very good episodes, but over all, season 3 has many more good episodes than either. Of course, 6 and 7 are also quite good, but season 3 is, imo, the best of the earlier seasons. 1 and 2 were okay, but compared to 3, they were like trial seasons, and everybody was too green and not quite comfortable with their roles.

Having been a big fan of TNG since it originally aired in 87, and having appreciated it in reruns as often as possible, I am quite familiar with it, much more so since I purchased 4 of the seasons on Dvd (3,5,6,7). I have went so far as to review much of it at my web-site (ts-variant.net) and here's my general list of season 3 with a 1 to 5 star-rating.

5 Stars (Excellent):

The Hunted, Tin Man

4 Stars (Very Good):

The Defector, Yesterday's Enterprise

3 Stars (Good):

Evolution, The Ensigns of Command, The Survivors, Who Watches the Watchers, Booby Trap, The Enemy, The Vengeance Factor, The High Ground, Deja Q, A Matter of Perspective, Sins of the Father, Allegiance, Captain's Holiday, Hollow Pursuits, The Most Toys, Sarek, Menage a Troi, and The Best of Both Worlds (part 1).

2 Stars (Okay):

The Bonding, The Price, Transfigurations

1 Star (Poor):

No episodes in this season were poor.

The interesting thing about this season, which made it the best for me, was the high number of episodes that I consider to be 'Good' science-fiction and the absence of any 'Poor' episodes in the entire set. Granted, there are only 4 that I consider exceptionally Good, but the high number that are Good, compared to the other early seasons, (1 - 5), makes up for that lack of exceptionality.

Also, there are certain episodes ranked amongst the Good ones that would have been better if it were not for minor flaws, and for the most part, would be given a 3 point 5 rating if I bothered to cut my stars in half, but I never got into it that deep. In any case, here are some of the episodes I would give a 3.5 rating: Booby Trap, The Enemy, A Matter of Perspective, Hollow Pursuits, and Sarek.

Upon comparing season 3 to both 2 and 4, while these seasons do have some very good episodes, they also have too many poor ones and not enough 'Good' ones to rate as highly as 3. As for 5, it is not much better than 2, but 6 and 7 are both much better than all the others, including 3. Some have said that season 6 is the best in the series, but I'd have a hard time choosing between 6 and 7, both which I consider the best of the series.

The thing that makes 6 and 7 better than 3, aside from the obvious upgrades, are the number of Excellent and Very Good episodes. Season 6 has 4 Excellent and 6 Very Good episodes, and Season 7 has 5 Excellent and 7 Very Good episodes.

Of the 3 seasons that i don't have yet, I'll probably go for 1, even though the crew is still very green, because it still ranks better than 2 and 4. Both 2 and 4, imo, have too many episodes which I rate as poor or okay, because they tend to be lacking good sci-fi element or have too much soap opera. In too many of those episodes, also, there seems to be too much of a preoccupation with individual character's personal situations. I realize the producers did those eps on purpose, to give the program a closer sense of realism, but I just don't think that stuff makes very good science-fiction unless it includes science-fiction, if you get my drift.

Of course, this is not to say that even 2 and 4 didn't include some very good episodes, because they did. Season 2 had "Where Silence has Lease" (a 5-star mystery thriller), "Elementary Data" (4.5 stars), "The Schizoid Man" (4), "The Royale" (4), "The Contagion" (4), and season 4 had "The Best of Both Worlds" (4-star Borg sequel), "Remember Me" (4), "Future Imperfect" (4), "Night Terrors" (another 5-star thriller), and Qpid (4).

If I were a wealthier man, I'd purchase all the other seasons in one order, and probably most of the Voyager series also, but when one has to pay off debts, monthly rents, and a sky-rocketing electrical bill on a minimum wage, there's little if anything left over for much else at the end of the month, so that's quite impossible. February 3, 2008

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