Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Next Level
Star Trek: The Next Generation had to do a lot to convince fans of Gene Roddenberry’s trendsetting original series that it was the same vision, merely updated. By then, there had been two decades of just Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise. The fans felt a certain ownership having saved it from cancellation during the original network run and then created an unprecedented following that led to an animated series and four feature films. The notion of continuing the series and setting it 78 years in the future left people wary.
The turmoil surrounding the birth of Star Trek: The Next Generation and the haphazard production of the first season had fans even more concerned before the new show debuted in late September 1987. In those early Internet days, word still spread at warp speed as familiar names David Gerrold and D.C. Fontana joined and left staff while other producers and writers seemed to be named with startling regularity.
The show survived a very shaky first year and matured into another trendsetting series that paved the way for tons of syndicated fare and showed that the Star Trek brand could be extended. And now, the second series has to prove itself all over again. The special effects for the seven seasons were produced using video production techniques, making it difficult to upgrade to Blu-ray. But not impossible.
Last September, CBS Home Entertainment announced they had solved the technical dilemma in a cost effective away, allowing them to remaster the entire series for Blu-ray release, with season one due later in 2012. Recently, we posted a video to show how the work was done, comparing scenes from the original video to the Blu-ray and it looked pretty amazing. The question then became, could this be sustained for entire episodes. (more…)
is being transferred to high definition for the first time ever and released on Blu-ray. All 178 episodes from seven seasons will be transferred to true high-definition 1080p for release on Blu-ray and eventual runs on television and digital platforms both domestically and internationally.
For geeks like us here at ComicMix, a real-life mash-up can be too good to be true. So, the notion of Captain Jean-Luc Picard sharing the same stage as The Doctor is just too good to be true, even if it means watching yet another production of William Shakespeare’s 
.
Stewart more than holds his own as the newly appointed King, who quickly marries Queen Gertrude (Penny Downie) while Hamlet is away from court. His sterling work was recognized with the Olivier Award, the British equivalent of the Tony Award.
Now when the crew of the Enterprise addresses him as Sir, they can really mean it.
If you’re not based in England but need a reason to travel to London, well, here you go. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen are about to share the stage together.
I finally watched most of the third X-Men movie on HBO last night, and found I didn’t really miss the absence of Patrick Stewart for half the film. A major reason for that, of course, was another wonderful performance by Stewart’s fellow Shakespearean thesp, Sir Ian McKellan.
Geoffrey James made a feature-length animated film by reprogramming computer games. The result, the Star Trek film Borg War, with Patrick Stewart, Tim Russ and Brock Peters, will debut at the Official Star Trek Convention 2007 at the Las Vegas Hilton August 10.
