Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season Six (1992-1993)

· Starring: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, Levar Burton, Michael Dorn, Marina Sirtis, Gates McFadden

· Studio: Paramount Home Entertainment

· Video: 4:3 Fullscreen

· Audio: English DD 5.1, English DD 2.0

· Subtitles: English, English Closed Captions

· Extras: “Mission Overview: Year Six” Featurette, “Departmental Briefing-Year Six: Production” Featurette, “Departmental Briefing-Year Six: Dan Curry Profile” Featurette, “Bold New Directions” Featurette, “Special Crew Profile: Lt. Commander Data” Featurette, Collectible Booklet, “Nemesis” and “Deep Space Nine” trailers

· Length: 1,177 minutes

· Rating: ****

The Complete Sixth Season of Star Trek: The Next Generation makes its DVD debut on December 03, 2002. Featuring the familiar silver cardboard outer-casing of the preceding five seasons’ box sets, Season Six’s insert and DVD color is lavender. Season Six’s memorable moments include an appearance from James Doohan as Scotty in the episode “Relics,” the return of John de Lancie as Q in the episodes “True Q” and “Tapestry,” and episodes with such favorite foes as the Borg, the Romulans and Lore. The entire 26 episodes from the 1992-1993 season are spread out over seven discs. (Disc One: Time’s Arrow (Part II), Realm of Fear, Man of the People, Relics. Disc Two: Schisms, True-Q, Rascals, A Fistful of Datas. Disc Three: The Quality of Life, Chain of Command (Parts I & II), Ship in a Bottle. Disc Four: Aquiel, Face of the Enemy, Tapestry, Birthright (Part I). Disc Five: Birthright (Part II), Starship Mine, Lessons, The Chase. Disc Six: Frame of Mind, Suspicions, Rightful Heir, Second Chances. Disc Seven: Timescape, Descent (Part I).

The video quality for Season Six is very good and the best so far to date of any of the Next Generation box sets. Images are clean with nice detail. Colors are vivid and warm with fully saturated hues. Black levels are consistently dark. Picture defect mastering is solid with no major flaws or digital compression artifacts. The overall audio quality is also very good with the English Dolby Digital 5.1 track serving as the basis for this review. The soundtrack mix predominantly favors the forward channels. Dialogue is natural sounding and properly anchored in the center channel. The surround channels are moderately active and are used for both ambient sound effects and the music score. The quality and quantity of tactile sound effects varies amongst episodes, ranging from average to good. The tactile effects are in the form of light to moderate impacts and originate both from the sound effects and the music score.

Reference equipment used for this review: [Video monitor- NetTV DTV-34XRT; Video scaler- Silicon Image iScan Pro; DVD player- Microsoft Xbox; A/V Receiver- Sherwood Newcastle R-963T; Speakers- BIC DV62si mains, DV62CLRs center, Adatto DV52si rears, D1210R subwoofer; Tactile Transducer- Clark Synthesis TST 329 Gold; Cables and Wires- Bettercables.com]