Like many people here at Polygon, I'm a bit of a physical media nerd. I'm not going to extol its virtues here (we have regular reviews of that), but I've recently been taking my media library game to the next level, obsessing over the quality of a given release and learning about the work that goes into a good game restoration, a believer in packaging and extras. It's a fun way to become more aware of art, like a pop culture archaeologist.
This is how I recently learned what an incredible achievement it is Star Trek: The Next Generation remastered. The remaster, released from 2012 to 2014 in celebration of the show's 25th anniversary, brought the 1987 series into high definition with incredibly painstaking work. The short version is that, due to the production streamlining common at the time, the team working on the remasters essentially had to rebuild the episodes from scratch. Locating and then re-cropping the original negatives, rebuilding all the special effects, re-composing everything and striving to stay true to the original intent, warts and all.
The remaster was a fascinating and enormously expensive labor of love, at least will almost certainly not be repeated for Deep space nine or Star Trek: Voyager. So it's worth checking out each version of the release and considering picking it up. For example: this fall Picard Legacy Collection.
An absurdly comprehensive collection of just about everything Patrick Stewart's Captain Jean-Luc Picard was in (aside from a cameo appearance or two like Deep space nine's pilot), the box set includes all seven seasons of The next generation remastered, all four Star Trek films with the Next generation cast, and all three seasons of Picardall in a beautiful uniform design.
There's only one problem: the packaging sucks. Although it all comes in a nice big, sturdy box, the Next generation The discs come in two large clamshell volumes made of cheap plastic with thin disc trays bound inside, something you may be familiar with if you've bought other TV box sets such as the complete series collections of Mr. Robot or The good fight.
Image: CBS Studios/Paramount Pictures
The Blu-rays of the films are similarly collected into one volume, as are all three seasons Picard, but they are less annoying simply because they have far fewer disks. They still lack a premium feel, which is a disappointment considering this is being billed as a limited edition collectible. I also dislike the decision to print the disc's contents on the inside of each case's box art, where it's basically impossible to read. Because almost every disk is in it The next generation set has some special features, the lack of a handy pamphlet to refer to is kind of strange. A few trinkets like a themed card game and a book of Picard aphorisms, while nice, do little to alleviate this.
That said, if you have none or very little of the media collected here, the Picard Legacy Collection is still worth considering. It brings together a legendary remaster of an incredible show with all the sequels (albeit not the new 4K versions) and Picard, a divisive show that still managed to have a nice send-off in its final season. Add to that a huge library of special features, and the Picard Legacy Collection feels less like a TV series box set and more like a huge archive filled with everything you could want to know about a beloved show. You could dig through it forever – consider coming up with a better storage solution first.