Star Trek: A Captain's Log

OK, all you Trekkers who have been resisting the Star Trek: Fan Collective series on principle because it's an inexpensive repackaging of the episodes you already have on DVD. Captain's Log, the fifth in the series, raises the bar, not just by including a fifth disc, but by providing a host of brand-new content. As usual, fans selected the initial 10 episodes--two per series--but each "captain"--William Shatner, James T. Kirk of the Original Series; Patrick Stewart, Jean-Luc Picard of The Next Generation; Avery Brooks, Benjamin Sisko of Deep Space Nine; Kate Mulgrew, Kathryn Janeway of Voyager; and Scott Bakula, Jeffery Archer of Enterprise--picked a third episode as a personal favorite. Each captain then introduces the selected episode in about a one-minute segment (the exception is Shatner, who dishes for 12 minutes about "The City on the Edge of Forever," joined partway through by co-star Joan Collins), and in most cases, introduces the fan-selected ones as well. Finally, each captain is interviewed in a series of featurettes (some with common themes, such as "The Importance of the Captain's Log," "What Makes a Good Captain," or the character's legacy or future) lasting 8 to 12 minutes total. (Brooks' segments don't follow the themes and appear to be recorded a while back.) And thankfully, of all the episodes in the set--"The City on the Edge of Forever," "The Enterprise Incident," and "Balance of Terror" from the Original Series; "In Theory," "Chain of Command," and "Darmok" from The Next Generation; "Far Beyond the Stars," "What You Leave Behind" parts 1 and 2, and "In the Pale Moonlight" from Deep Space Nine; "Counterpoint," "The Omega Directive," and "Flashback" from Voyager; and "Judgment," "These Are the Voyages," and "First Flight" from Enterprise--only "The City on the Edge of Forever" is repeated from a previous Fan Collective, and it's hard to complain about seeing that episode too many times. --David Horiuchi