Rating: 
Summary: If not for the episodes, get it for the sound.
Review: Well as many have attested to here, the episodes contained herein Season 1 of TNG are not some of the greatest, however the selling point here should be the new Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround track. The reviews I've seen about this new mix is that ST:TNG has never sounded better. For one, no pun intended, you get a nice low bass rumble for the ship's engines in the .1 LFE. And the surround spacials has a nice effect of the ships computers 'n stuff.But for the episodes themselves, I actually find that some of these episodes are not all that bad. I especially enjoyed the "Heart of Glory" episode. It was one of those "Klingon heavy" episodes. I always enjoyed those. Especially the cliff hanger between Seasons 4 & 5 "Redemption" where we are introduced to the Duras Sisters and Gowron. But if you are in any way interested in collecting the Next Generation series, you can't really bypass this season or the next. Fortunately by mid-summer, it'll really start getting good.
Rating: 
Summary: Just received my Set Today
Review: I just received my 1st season DVD set today (4 days ahead of official release date, thanks Amazon.com ;). Finally Paramount has learned their lesson from the absolute RIP-OFF method they used for the original series on DVD, no more overprised 2 episodes per disc that made it practically impossible to get the entire series. This is a wonderful DVD set, and is exactly the way the series SHOULD be offered. Unlike some of the others here, I'd have to disagree about the first season. I personally found the 1st season excellent, and the reason? Because it was the classic Star-Trek / Hardcore Sci-Fi style episodes that I always enjoyed, not the later soap-opera style episodes which came to dominate the latter series and infected Deep Space Nine and Voyager like a bad plague. Basically as soon as Gene Roddenbury died, and ...Rick Berman took over, things went downhill fast.
Rating:
Summary: One of STNG's worst seasons, but with interesting extras
Review: I give the episodes of this season 3 stars, but the extras drive the score up to 4 stars, because they highlight the special place that this show and this season holds in Star Trek "history." The first season contains all the typical defects of any TV show in its infancy - characters and relationships are unfocused and undeveloped, actors are uncomfortable in their new roles, and writers come up with as many failured concepts as truly appropriate ideas. Gene Roddenberry still maintained control over Star Trek during this season, and you can witness this in the themes and stories presented, and how the cast is balanced. Roddenberry wanted more of an ensemble cast, without the overpowering stars who in the first series could drive the show in directions he didn't like. For this reason, you will see Patrick Stewart playing the captain while Jonathan Frakes leads all the away missions, a division of screen time designed to prevent Stewart from gaining too much power in the show. In many ways, this is a definite improvement for the series and all the others that followed it, for while I dearly love the Kirk/Spock/McCoy trio, later casts were much more interesting overall. Many of the episodes were recycled from the failed "Star Trek 2" series, which would have brought the original cast back ot television. Thus, this season has the most "Kirk-like" shows of any in STNG, which made for a strange fit with Patrick Stewart and company. Themes often have that typical Roddenberry "Utopian Earth" flavor to them, in which our crew is confronted with vague socio-ethical confrontations that push the limits of the Prime Directive and our current American cultural standards. Short on action, humor, or even personality but big on ideas, the shows make our characters seem more like Greek philosophers than real people on a space ship (very much like the first Star Trek movie). The Ferengi appear and immediately disappear as the new enemy, then the Romulans do the same. No Klingons, no Borg, no real enemies or purpose of any kind, not yet. Like seeing Riker without a beard, everything feels out of place. You might want to wait for the "middle years" if you want the best STNG episodes available. Later seasons have higher quality overall than this early year did, and the more familiar "modern Star Trek" flavor began to appear in the 2nd season, when Roddenberry stepped down and Rick Berman eventually took charge. Still, to most Trekkers I know, none of that matters.
Rating: 
Summary: Quick reality check here, given the price
Review: OK, I'm as big a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation as anyone, but let's not forget here that much of the first season was downright painful, starting with the Pilot "Encounter at Farpoint". Unlike the more recent excellent sci-fi shows such as "The X-Files" and "Babylon 5", ST:TNG had a rather long ramp-up period. While those two shows were off and running after a couple of episodes, Star Trek: TNG took a couple of years to really hit its stride. People who have become used to the higher standards of these more recent shows are in for a bit of a shock in the time machine back to 1987. Anyone taken by the artful camrawork and cinematography of the X-Files is going to find the "point and click" camera style of Star Trek in general somewhat maddening, and the cheesy retro sets of TNG Season 1 faintly pathetic; fans who have become used to the high standards of writing, characters and plot provided by Babylon 5 or The X-Files are going to be non-plussed by this first season of TNG (or are going to find it worse than they remember). Sometimes, I think the fond memories of when ST:TNG first aired, a time when there was no quality sci-fi on TV (and hadn't really been since 1967) are best left as fond memories. This is not to say that Season 1 is without its charms. Heart of Glory is the best Season 1 episode IMHO, and is a worthy candidate for any "top 20" eps list even without a first season handicap; Hide and Q is really quite good, and I have an odd affection for Conspiracy. Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner, and Michael Dorn show the skill and talent that will eventually make them the anchors of one of the best sci-fi shows ever to air. Despite these strengths, though, and given the rather high asking price for a season that features a great deal of below-average content (or worse), I have to think that the main appeal of this set will be for the die-hard fandom and completists.
Rating:
Summary: STNG Season One: Setting the groundwork for better things
Review: "Star Trek: The Next Generation" became a great television series, but it certainly was not that at the start. The first season was a concerted effort to use the original series as a launch pad and it was not until their first encounter with the Borg that we can really say the series kicked into high gear. Consequently, the chief joy of watching the first season again is to see how the bits and pieces start to fall into place. Since I have already reviewed all of the STNG episodes individually, I want to comment on the first season overall in regards to this DVD collection.
In retrospect it is clear the creators of STNG did an excellent job in shuffling around the key traits of the crew on the original series and providing some new twists centered around the notion that as soon as you looked at Jean-Luc Picard it was clear he was no James T. Kirk ("TV Guide" originally disparaged the series as "baldly going where one show has gone before"--later they declared Patrick Stewart the best actor on television for that decade). Picard gets to be the father-figure, Riker gets to be the stud, the ship's doctor is now a woman, the Vulcan on the bridge is replaced with a Klingon, and Spock's emotional detachment is transferred to an android, but with the twist that Data wants to have emotions. So there is a sense of familiarity without creating outright repetition.
The creators always felt the biggest mistake in the pilot was Troi's telepathic message to Riker and the use of the word Imzadi. While Peter David's STNG novel alone of that title justifies its inclusion in the Star Trek universe, this "error" actually speaks to a larger strength of the series, namely the backstories of the characters. Riker and Troi have a shared past but so do Picard and Crusher, both of which will be fruitfully explored in the future. Many of the best episodes of the original series had to do with the background of the characters ("Amok Time" and "Journey to Babel" immediately spring to mind), because ultimately it is the characters rather than the story lines that make a television series great and this will prove to be the same for STNG (e.g., "Datalore"). Mostly it was a matter of adjustment and finding the right roles for the characters. Consequently, in due time La Forge becomes the engineer, Worf the security chief, and Wesley the navigator. Tasha Yar suffers a meaningless death in "Skin of Evil," mainly because the producers have no idea of what to do with her character (Tasha is magnificently redeemed in "Yesterday's Enterprise" in Season 3, which only goes to prove my points about both the show's evolution and the importance of characters over plot).
Clearly the biggest flaw of the first season was the regurgitation of episodes and elements from the original series. "The Naked Now," the first episode after the two-part pilot, was a variation on "The Naked Time" and even allowed the crew to talk about Kirk's Enterprise. An episode where the characters are forced to reveal their true selves is certainly worthwhile, but not when it functions as exposition in the first regular episode (a similar complaint can be made against Riker's gift giving in "Hide and Q"). But it becomes hard to fully enjoy an episode like "The Arsenal of Freedom," when it is clearly a twist on "Shore Leave."
Finally, we get to add the holodeck to the Star Trek creative license list headed by the warp drive and transporter system. All of these technologies are scientific impossibilities but facilitate story telling (otherwise a five year mission ends up as traveling halfway to some star system). Little did we know that "The Big Good-Bye" would be the first of what would prove to be way too many "something is wrong with the holodeck and we are in danger" episodes. Still, the holodeck proves ideal for providing change of pace episodes (e.g., "11001001") and one of the strengths of STNG was its use of humor (e.g., "The Arsenal of Freedom," where Riker talks about being given command of a new ship, the Lollipop, which, he adds, "is a good ship"). I also think having families aboard the Enterprise is highly improbable to say the least. Yes, the saucer can detach and supposedly put the civilians out of harm's way, but not only do they rarely do that during the entire run of STNG, the Borg, Romulans or whoever the Enterprise faces in a fight probably would not have any compunctions about blasting the saucer into cosmic dust. But, again, the point is that the idea facilitates storytelling.
Clearly the first season on STNG is a time of discovery, which is not unusual in the evolution of a television (go back and look at the first season of "M*A*S*H" and count how many times you cringe at some of what they did). Fortunately, because they were in syndication the series was able to improve substantially. But I do not recall ever see an episode from the first season end up on anybody's list of Top 10 "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episodes. Yes, "Encounter at Farpoint" introduces Q, but the payoff is just not as good as the setup; still, there are much better Q episodes to come. "Conspiracy" is almost laughable in terms of secret alien threat, but in "The Best of Both Worlds" the show would take many of these same elements and create the best episode(s) ever. The first season is just, as Captain Picard would say, a chance to see what is out there.
Rating: 
Summary: Nice idea, but too overpriced.
Review: I like this new trend of putting a whole season out on a few DVDs. I have the 1st season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and just pre-ordered the second, and I'd love to pick this one up too. But [money]??? Buffy's Season Two has almost as many episodes (22 to 25) for less than half the price...
Rating:
Summary: No TNG or ST Fan of Any Kind Should Be Without It
Review: Season One was a great start to a magnificient series, definitely the best since the original series (even being too young to have seen it, I know nothing beats originals). While "All Good Things..." was my all time fav., all other top 5 favorites of many TNG fans are in the first season (personally I love 'Where No One Has Gone Before') and I can't wait to get this set of discs. If you were an original fan and just never got into TNG I'd strongly recommend buying this collection and watching it from the beginning, I guarantee after the first 25 episodes you'll be throwing money in the air hoping the next six seasons will magically appear. At $105 I'm happy and I'd pay $200 for a collection like this, TNG fans watch Amazon closely for seasons 2-7...
Rating:
Summary: Start your STAR TREK show DVD collection now!
Review: If you're one of those people like me who couldn't see buying the series on VHS, here's your chance to own the greatest Star Trek TV series ever. The Next Generation debuted in the fall of 1987 with mixed reviews, mainly because it seemed like they were rehashes of The Original Series episodes with a new cast and ship. This was in part due to the up-in-coming writer's strike of 1988/9. It was also due to it being the virgin season of a series as well. In most first seasons of any show, the characters and actors for that matter are trying to find themselves. In Season 1, we see a lot of tension between characters. Data always tends to ramble on and give exact answers to everything and the crew always ends up telling him to "shut up". Dennis Crosby becomes disenchanted with her role as Tash Yar and decides to leave the show. And William T. Riker has a goofy looking clean-shaved face. And Wesley Crusher seems to save the ship 2 too many times, if you know what I mean. However, in Season 1 we do get to see character development that forms the character backgrounds which are essential in later seasons. But even though Season 1 did not have much of a extended linear plot, there were some pretty decent episodes.
"Encounter at Farpoint"
"The Naked Now"
"The Last Oupost"
"Where No One Has Gone Before"
"Lonely Among Us"
"The Battle"
"Hide and Q"
"The Big Goodbye"
"Datalore"
"11001001"
"Heart of Glory"
"The Arsenal of Freedom"
"Sybiosis"
"Skin of Evil"
"Conspiracy"
"The Neutral Zone" I give the set 2 stars for the picture and sound quality are pretty good for 15 year old source material, and the sound has been remastered into 5.1 Surround. I give another star for packaging. I give a 4th star for the good episodes. It loses one star just for being the virgin season that it is.
Rating:
Summary: Finally...the wait is over!!!!!!
Review: ...ST: TNG has always been my favorite show out of the franchise, so I can't wait to get this. It is true that this is probably the weakest season, but it's still a good bunch of episodes, and essential if you are going to get the other boxed sets, as you want to get to know the characters. Plus of course, there's the few appearances of the true Tasha Yar- killed off in the twenty third episode(counting "Encounter at Farpoint" as two episodes), "Skin of Evil." The extras look to be OK, although I expected more than an hour. The only nitpick I have with this, is that it seem like there is no commentary. That would have been nice, and I'm a big fan of commentary tracks...
Rating:
Summary: It is a must have!
Review: This collection of the first season of ST:TNG is a must have for collector's of all ages. What better way to start your star trek DVD collection, then with the first season of TNG on DVD. This is the first in the seven DVD boxes series, so this is the best way to start and complete all seven seasons on DVD.
Besides having the episodes, you will get behind the scenes footage and allot more, like interview with cast members for example.
Truly a must own and order now before it is too late!
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