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Site created 12/15/97.
reviews added: 6/13/00
Star Trek: The Original Series
reviews by Bill Hunt, editor of The Digital Bits
Back to Volumes 1-4
On to Volumes 9-12
Let's take a look at the content of the next four volumes of the series on DVD. We'll run them down episode by episode... Volume 5, Episode 10 - What Are Little Girls Made Of? The Enterprise arrives at Exo III, in search of Dr. Robert Korby, an exobiologist who has been missing for some time. Beaming down with Captain Kirk is Nurse Chapel, who was Korby's fiancee at the time he disappeared. They discover that Korby is indeed alive, and has discovered an ancient alien technology that allows him to construct human-like androids. But Korby isn't quite the person Chapel remembers, and has a secret plan to replace all humans with his android creations. For trivia fans, Nurse Chapel was played by Majel Barrett, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's wife. Volume 5, Episode 11 - Dagger of the Mind While delivering supplies to the Tantalus Penal Colony, an escaped prisoner manages to sneak aboard the Enterprise. He's quickly discovered, and is found to be Dr. Simon Van Gelder - the former assistant to the director of the colony, Dr. Adams. Van Gelder seems mentally unstable, and is unable to answer questions without feeling pain. When Dr. McCoy insists on investigating, Captain Kirk soon discovers that Adams has been using a brainwashing device to control the inmates... and his staff. So Adams turns the device on Kirk in an effort to keep his secret. Volume 6, Episode 12 - Miri Upon investigating a years-old distress signal, the Enterprise discovers an unknown planet whose only inhabitants are a group of children, each more than 300 years old. They're victims of a longevity experiment which instead created a deadly virus. The virus induced rapid aging in all the adults, killing them, but slowed aging to a crawl in children. The Enterprise's landing party unknowingly contracts the virus, and McCoy must work to create an antidote. The crew must also try to save the children, who are openly hostile and want nothing to do with them. Volume 6, Episode 13 - The Conscience of the King Captain Kirk agrees to ferry a travelling theater troupe to the Benecia Colony aboard the Enterprise. But his real goal is to ascertain whether the troupe's lead actor, Anton Karidian, is really "Kodos the Executioner", a mass murderer whose crimes were witnessed by Kirk as a young man. When an attempt is made on the life of one of Kirk's crewmen (also a witness to the crimes), Kirk learns that Karidian's daughter may be trying to hide her father's secret. Volume 7, Episode 14 - The Galileo Seven The series began to hit its stride with this episode. While en-route to deliver much needed medical supplies to plague-ridden Hansen's Planet, the Enterprise passes Murasaki 312 - a nebula they are duty-bound to study. Spock, Scotty, McCoy and a handful of crewmen are sent in a shuttlecraft to investigate, but they crash on an uncharted (and extremely hostile) planet. Spock is forced to make difficult life or death decisions to save his crew. And with the plague spreading fast, Kirk has only hours to find them before he must abandon the search. Volume 7, Episode 15 - Court Martial After surviving an ion storm that killed one of its officers, the Enterprise puts in to Starbase 11 for repairs. It turns out that the crewman who died was Captain Kirk's long-time friend, Ben Finny. Upon reviewing the ship's computer tapes of the accident, Commodore Stone places Kirk on trial for negligence in Finny's death. But an idealistic lawyer named Samuel T. Cogley comes to Kirk's defense and struggles to prove that the computer was tampered with in an effort to frame the Captain. Elisha Cook, Jr. guests as Cogley. Volume 8, Episode 16 - The Menagerie, Part I Volume 8, Episode 17 - The Menagerie, Part II The series' only two-parter finds Spock hijacking the Enterprise to bring the ship's former captain, Christopher Pike, to Talos IV. Pike was horribly disfigured by an accident that left him in a wheelchair, unable to speak. And Talos has been declared off-limits by the Federation - any visit carries the death penalty. Why would Spock risk everything to bring his former commander to this forbidden world? That's what Kirk must find out, during a trial of which the cost may be his friend's career... and his life. Winner of the coveted Hugo Award for excellence in science fiction writing, these two episodes also feature footage from the show's unaired pilot, The Cage. Jeffrey Hunter stars as Pike, in an outstanding 100 minutes of classic Trek. Since the quality of each of these discs is basically the same overall, visit this link for a detailed rundown of their general quality (as described in our review of the series' first four volumes). Bill Hunt billhunt@thedigitalbits.com |
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