First off let's get out of the way what seems to be the obvious. These episodes look and sound phenomenal, as explained in a special feature on the tenth and final disc in the set called "Transporting Trek into the 21st Century" the folks at Paramount have not only gone in and cleaned up and color corrected every single episode they have also done some new effects work. The new effects work includes new shots of the 17 standard exterior shots of the Enterprise that were used in the original as well as new matte paintings, some new phaser effects and a few more tweaks (oh, the Gorn now blinks). I was originally "not so psyched" about these new effects, remembering back to the travesty that was the remastering of the Star Wars films. Luckily, Paramount is not as unappreciative of their classic works as Fox and George Lucas are. Instead the new effects are just updated versions of old effects, if the Enterprise swooshed in from the left before it still does. They took take a few artistic liberties in an effort to give you a slightly different look at the Enterprise, but for the most part we are getting the same thing as before, just updated and it works very well with the remastered picture.

My problems with the set had nothing to do with the picture, the updated credit intro (a peek at that here) or any of the episode specific stuff. Nope, my problems reside in the special features and their ability, or inability, to work.

We will begin with the seven "Starfleet Access" features (found on episodes: "Where No Man Has Gone Before", "The Menagerie Part I & II", "Balance of Terror", "The Galileo Seven", "Space Seed" and "Errand of Mercy"). These features pretty much mirror Universal's U-Control feature which offers a menu on the right-hand side of the screen allowing you to activate certain feature such as a picture-in-picture commentary comparing updated scenes to their older counterparts and commentary, fact sheets on ships, creatures and technology and so forth. Like Universal's U-Control the amount of user interaction becomes tedious, but the "Genesis" feature is really the only one you will be interested in.

Now, my problem with the "Starfleet Access" feature began when I tried watching it on my first generation HD-XA1 player. This is the high-end Gen 1 player from Toshiba, and this feature would cause my player to instantly shut down. Boom, power off, lights out, not boldly going anywhere... Paramount sent me another set to see if the problem was my player or the discs... it was the player. Enter Toshiba's HD-A3 (currently only $232 at Amazon and well worth it). With the HD-A3 I didn't experience the shut down issue, so I would recommend HD-XA1 owners be wary, but my problems didn't end there.

As far as the rest of the special features go there are a few new ones, a few carryovers from the original DVD releases and a few missing from the earlier release. The missing bits are the photo gallery and pop-up text commentaries. All of the text commentaries (except "The Conscience of the King") have been replaced with the "Starfleet Access" feature, which is better anyway. The new stuff includes a "Kiss 'N Tell: Romance in the 23rd Century" feature detailing Captain Kirk's love affairs and "Trekker Connections," which you should avoid, but isn't a killer since it is only about four minutes long.

Disc ten boasts the new HD DVD only features "Spacelift", "Billy Blackburn's Treasure Chest", "Star Trek Online Game Preview" and "Interactive Enterprise Inspection". First off, the "Spacelift" feature is great as it takes a look at the restoration process, which is something I always marvel at considering just how time consuming it actually is. Paramount needs to do this with the Godfather trilogy and get it out ASAP. The "Star Trek Online Game Preview" is a short look at the coming multi-player online game, it looks pretty cool but I am not a gamer so take that for what it's worth.

My issues began with the "Interactive Enterprise Inspection". All this is is a little preview of the CGI Enterprise. It comes with a Data Track that can be turned on or off. With it on I couldn't play the feature with the disc from either of my two sets on either of my players. With the Data Track off I was able to give it a preview and it isn't anything special. My other issue came with the "Blackburn" feature in which Billy Blackburn, who played the Enterprise helm officer as well as the Gorn and the White Rabbit. With this one I got about six minutes in and it just froze. Of course all my issues were related to the special features, but you really shouldn't have issues at all, especially since we now have third generation HD DVD players and my tests with two different players and two different sets of the series prove there is certainly an issue.

Do I recommend this set? Definitely, I would have bought it in a second had it not been sent to me despite the $132 price tag at Amazon. I was amazed at how well the restoration looked and how well the new effects fit in with the episodes from 1966. They simply upgraded everything, they didn't really change anything, and that is what makes it work. George Lucas would do well to take a lesson from this.

Despite the issues I had with the HD DVD exclusive features I would recommend anyone with an HD DVD player second generation or higher pick this up. The high-definition picture and remastered audio are outstanding and worth every penny.