Star Trek The Original Series - The Complete Second Season

Rating:
Summary: The pinnicle of TOS
Review: After barely getting renewed for a second season, ST came back the next year in full force.The biggest hero was not Captain Kirk himself,but Gene Coon.The executive producer who contributed some of the best episodes, as well as set the tone for the show which inspired future Trek's as well.
One of the prime factors for the second season's brilliance was the charater's themselves as the actors found the tone of their characters.And the famous trio of Kirk-Spock -McCoy were finally established at the focal point of the show.The remaining supporting characters performed admirably as well, even with the introduction of Paval Chekov (Walter Keonig). Many classic episodes came from season two(Mirror,Mirror, Amok Time, Doomsday Machine, Deadly Years,Trouble With Tribbles, A Piece Of The Action, Journey to Babel).
As brilliant as season two was, it was not enough to get high numbers in the Nielsons.Thanks to a letter campaign by fans led by Bjo Trimble,ST was renewed for a third season.But with Coon's departure from the show after the second season,the third season suffered and even the fans couldn't save it.

Rating:
Summary: The Second Complete Season in an 8-DVD Set! Fantastic!
Review: When Paramount Home Video first started to release the original series of "Star Trek" in 1999, I was aghast at the fact that only one DVD with two episodes per DVD were being released one DVD at a time at a very high cost. The cost to own all 40 volumes (DVD's) was staggering. Of course, this doesn't even address the amount of shelf space required for all 40 DVD's.

Now, with this repackaged version, all 26 episodes of the second season are being released together on 8 disks. This is the packaged version of the original "Star Trek" that I fully intend to purchase because even at full list price, the cost of owning the second complete season is less than half the cost of owning its earlier cousins on an equivalent 13 DVD's. Also, the packaging itself has been designed similarly to the packaging used for other "Star Trek" series released in complete seasons, meaning that it will only require a small amount of shelf space. It is also possible that extra documentary and commentary material not released originally will be included in this complete second season box set.

The original series of "Star Trek", that ran for three complete seasons between 1966 and 1969, started a franchise that has included six television series and ten big screen motion pictures. The main original characters of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), Lt. Commander/Commander Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Dr. Leonard H. 'Bones' McCoy (DeForest Kelley, 1920-1999), Lt. Cmdr. Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott (James Doohan), Lt. Hikaru Sulu (George Takei), Lt. Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), Ensign Pavel Chekov (Walter Keonig from 1967-1969), Yeoman Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney from 1966-1967) and Nurse Christine Chapel (Majel Barrett) have become an inseparable part of Americana. Though series creator Gene Roddenberry (1921-1991) was not able to keep the original series alive for five seasons as originally envisioned (it was cancelled after its third season), he, along with the countless series fans, was able to resurrect it in the form of six motion pictures beginning in 1979 and the first series spin-off, "Star Trek: The Next Generation" in 1987, which ran for seven years and had spin-offs of its own. There was also a 22-episode animated version based upon the original series that ran from 1972 to 1974.

The most memorable episodes of the second season include "Amok Time" (Spock's Vulcan mating ritual), "The Changeling" (the inspiration for the 1979 film "Star Trek: The Motion Picture"), "Mirror, Mirror", "The Apple", "The Doomsday Machine" (with guest star William Windom as Commodore Matthew Decker, the father of the character Capt. Willard Decker (Stephen Collins) in the 1979 film "Star Trek: The Motion Picture"), "I, Mudd" (with returning guest character Harcourt Fenton 'Harry' Mudd, as played by Roger C. Carmel, 1932-1986), "Journey to Babel" (which introduces Spock's parents: Ambassador Sarek as played by Mark Leonard (1924-1996) and his human wife Amanda as played by Jane Wyatt), "Friday's Child", "The Deadly Years", "Obsession", "Wolf in the Fold", the fan-favorite "The Trouble with Tribbles", "A Piece of the Action", "The Immunity Syndrome", "A Private Little War", "Return to Tomrrow" (with guest character Dr. Ann Mulhall as played by Diana Muldaur, who also played the unpopular character Dr. Katherine Pulaski in the second season of "Star Trek: The Next Generation"), "By Any Other Name", "The Ultimate Computer" and "Assignment: Earth". The were no truly awful episodes during the second season, but there were a few that had rather weak plots, including the ancient-Greek-inspired "Who Mourns for Adonais?" the gothic "Catspaw", the Nazi-inspired "Patters of Force" and the twentieth-century version of the Roman Empire in the episode "Break and Circuses". The episode "The Omega Glory" was rather good until the final scenes that are somewhat corny.

Overall, I rate the 8-DVD set of "Star Trek: Original Series Season 2" with an anticipatory 5 out of 5 stars. Clearly, this is how Paramount should have released the original series to begin with. Thank you Gene Roddenberry for taking all of us "where no man has gone before".