{"id":52540,"date":"2013-11-09T14:36:16","date_gmt":"2013-11-09T14:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=52540"},"modified":"2013-11-09T14:36:16","modified_gmt":"2013-11-09T14:36:16","slug":"star-trek-the-next-generation-season-5-blu-ray-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/reviews\/star-trek-the-next-generation-season-5-blu-ray-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5 Blu-ray review"},"content":{"rendered":"

People talk a lot in Star Trek: The Next Generation<\/em><\/a>; that might explain why it rarely succeeded on the big screen. At the show’s core is a philosophy that strongly favours reason over impulse.<\/p>\n

It’s a far cry from the current cinematic vision of the franchise<\/a>, which puts spectacle before substance and gives characters little time to pause and reflect.<\/p>\n

The contrast between Star Trek<\/em> in the early Nineties and now is particularly clear in The Next Generation<\/em>‘s fifth season. Aside from ‘Redemption II’, which wraps up the Klingon civil war story started in the Season 4<\/a> cliff-hanger, the scripts are light on action and heavy on moral dilemmas. It’s ironic that Gene Roddenberry died a few weeks in, because if any single season of Star Trek exemplifies the values his creation is admired for, it’s this one.<\/p>\n

‘Unification’ has historically been one of the season’s most notable episodes because of the presence of Spock and the pre-teaser dedication to the Great Bird.<\/p>\n

In truth, though, it’s an ordinary two-parter with only a mundane conspiracy story behind the fan appeal. As such, it’s atypical of a season that is at odds with the idea that Star Trek<\/em> works best when it’s not taking itself too seriously.<\/p>\n

Among the issues touched on in the 26 episodes are assisted suicide, cultural relativism, medical ethics (all of which come up in a single script), terrorism, homosexuality, sacrifice, parental responsibility and the right of self-expression.<\/p>\n

These topics are almost always addressed through Jean Luc Picard’s commitment to reason and the scientific deconstruction of evidence, albeit with a large dose of technobabble. This emphasis on deliberation is in contrast to the often reactionary behaviour of the NX-01’s crew<\/a> or Kirk and Spock in Star Trek Into Darkness<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Next Generation<\/em> was peaking in its fifth season because viewers then were more confident that reason could resolve global threats. Given the direction Star Trek<\/em> has taken 20 years on, it’s hard to imagine we’ll see such a verbose interpretation of it again.<\/p>\n

\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=AJeZfInsWRc<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ll never see space opera quite like Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5 ever again<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":52542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[2617,8],"tags":[2031],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Star-Trek-The-Next-Generation-Season-5-Blu-ray.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52540"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}