Star Trek: The Next Generation VHS Discussion

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Today I'm going to be talking about the VHS releases for Star Trek: The Next Generation. Specifically the VHS releases released by Paramount Home Video from 1992 to 1999. I've done posts on the Columbia House Video Library Collector's Edition releases, as well as on the Paramount Home Video VHS release of "Encounter at Farpoint" and the The Borg Collective VHS box set, but today I want to talk about these releases as a whole, season by season since TNG is the last Star Trek series to get a complete series VHS run from Paramount Home Video, and there's a decent amount to cover. So let's get into it.

On September 5th 1991 Paramount Home Video released "Encounter at Farpoint", "The Naked Now", and "Code of Honor" on VHS. I guess this was sort of a test run to see how well the episodes would sell in stores given that for the last year prior to this, they'd only been available through the mail from Columbia House. I had these three tapes at my grandparents's house. The openings for all three tapes are the exact same. The teaser for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, which was only three months away from it's theatrical release date, is the only preview on these three tapes but, at least it's a Star Trek related preview. 

Then on April 1st, 1992, Paramount started releasing the rest of the season on VHS with "Haven", "Where No One Has Gone Before", "The Last Outpost", and "Lonely Among Us". It's interesting to note that these tapes were released in production order, rather than broadcast order, so "Haven" is labelled as Episode 5 rather than episode 11 and so on. These four tapes don't have any previews before the episodes. Neither do "Justice" or "The Battle", but beginning with "Hide & Q" and going until either "Datalore" or "Angel One", a preview for the soundtrack album, Star Trek: The Astral Symphony appears before the episodes. Then from either "Angel One" or "11001001" a preview for the first five movies, TOS, and TNG on home video, called the Star Trek Home Video Library, appears before the Astral Symphony preview. Basically the tapes released on August 26 and November 11th, 1992 had those previews on them. For the last four tapes that were released on May 26th, 1993 for the season, "Symbiosis", "We'll Always Have Paris", "Conspiracy", and "The Neutral Zone", those previews were removed and it was just the Feature Presentation title card and the Paramount logo that appear before the episodes.

The cover for these tapes are simple. They have a black background with the show's title in white and on a slant, at the top of the front cover, with the main characters and the Enterprise underneath the title. The episode title is in a yellow box on the left, and a still image from the episode in a half circle, which is actually a planet on the Columbia House releases, taking up the rest of the cover. The spines are black and the episode number is in a yellow upside down triangle. 

When I was a kid I had the entire season on VHS except for "Coming of Age", "Heart of Glory", and "The Neutral Zone". My grandmother would get them at Kmart for me all the time. "Conspiracy" was kept at my grandparents's place along with a second copy of "We'll Always Have Paris" and the first three tapes that I mentioned at the beginning.

 Paramount Home Video released season 2 of TNG on VHS from August 25th, 1993 to October 12th, 1994. The cover was changed to reflect the changes made for this season. The background colour is a mix of black and purple with a nebula behind the updated character picture. Geordi and Worf are now in Operations Gold, Tasha Yar was removed, Riker gained a beard, Deanna got a new hairstyle and new outfit, and Doctor Crusher was replaced by Doctor Pulaski. The show title was straightened as well, and the characters and ship are inside an upside down triangle, with the episode still in an oval underneath, with the episode title underneath that. The spine is still black but the episode number is now in a blue oval. There also aren't any previews on any of the season 2 tapes.

I only had four of these tapes when I was a kid. "Where Silence Has Lease" (episode 28), "The Outrageous Okona" (episode 30), "Pen Pals" (episode 41), and "Q Who" (episode 42). I had actually had two copies of "Q Who". One was included in the Borg Collective box set and the other was my original copy that Nana bought for me, and that copy went to her house since I didn't need two copies at home.

From March 22nd to October 3rd, 1995, season 3 was released on VHS. As you can see from the front cover, the characters are now shown on a blue background, the uniform collars have changed to reflect the new uniforms introduced in this season, and Doctor Crusher returns once again, replacing Pulaski. Otherwise the rest of the cast picture is exactly the same. Though the show title has a pink border arond the letters to go with the pink border at the top of the episode's still image. The episode title is now set into the still image on a purple and pink strip with the Starfleet emblem behind it, also in pink and purple. The spine is still black but the episode number is now in a pink six sided shape.

As with the season 2 tapes, the season 3 tapes didn't have any previews appearing before the episodes. Other than reprints of the 1991 VHS releases of the TOS movies, the 1991 re-releases of the TOS episodes, and movies like Star Trek VI and Star Trek Generations, not alot was coming out on home video for the franchise at this point. Though DS9 would start to be released on home video in 1996, and Voyager was just starting to air while these tapes were coming out. 

I only had two of the tapes from this season. "The Ensigns of Command" (episode 49), and "The Best of Both Worlds Part I" (episode 74). "The Best of Both Worlds, Part I" was included in the Borg box set. By the time I was getting these tapes, Kmart had disappeared here in Canada, and Nana actually found it more difficult to find these tapes. Not to mention we were still getting Disney movies and other movies on VHS at the time too.

 Season 4 would be released on VHS from February 6th to August 20th, 1996. The cover was changed entirely once again. Instead of using the previous artwork, they used the official season 4 cast picture, which includes Wesley in his red Ensign's uniform, and Guinan, They placed space with a purple nebula behind the cast, with no sign of the Enterprise once again, and the still image is in a purple triangular shape with the episode title in a smaller triangular shape, with a purple background. Once again, the spine is black and the episode number is in a purple six sided shape. I only had "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II" from this season, as it was in the Borg VHS box set.

On March 19th, 1996, at the same time that four season 4 episodes were released, Paramount Home Video released the series finale, "All Good Things..." on VHS in a special release. The show's title is slanted yet again on this release, and it shows Picard and Q (in his judge's outfit) on a blue background, with the Playmates Toys lights and sounds Enterprise-D toy under the episode's title (which is in red letters). The episode would get re-released on a retail VHS release as part of the season 7 line in 1999. I never owned this release so I have no idea if there are any previews before the episode or not.

On the same day that the last batch of season 4 episodes came out, Paramount began releasing season 5 on VHS, with this season coming out between August 20th, 1996 and October 7th, 1997. The cover art has changed once again, this time with a blue background that was also on the spines and the back covers of this season. The season 5 cast picture is placed in front of the blue background at the bottom, with the Playmates Toys Enterprise above it and then the show title, which now matches what was shown on the comic and novel covers that had come out, with "Star" lined up with "Trek" rather than "Star" being slightly higher than "Trek" as it was on the previous VHS releases and on the show's opening title card itself, and the episode still in an orange four sided shape with the episode title in an orange bar, and episode number in smaller orange four sided shape on the now blue spine. 

The only preview at the beginning of these tapes is the 1996 Star Trek 30th Anniversary special from Kate Mulgrew, in her Janeway uniform and hairstyle, standing in front of the warp core in Engineering on the Voyager set, which was introduced at the beginning of the original VHS release of Star Trek Generations. I don't actually know if this preview is on the 1997 releases for the season or not, but "I, Borg" has it because it came out in 1996 in the Borg Collective box set before it was released individually, almost a year after the box set came out. 

I just had "I, Borg" from this season, as it was in that Borg box set. Grandma got me that box set, and I actually got it quite late, getting it for Christmas in 1997. But what fascinates me is why Paramount waited so long to release all of TNG on VHS. They started with season 1 in 1991 and it took them a year and a half to get the entirety of season 1 out. And by the time they got season 5 completed, TNG had been over for almost four years, and DS9 was about a year and a half away from wrapping up its original syndicated run. I wonder if it's because the TNG movies were still coming out with Generations in 1994, First Contact in 1996, and Insurrection in 1998, with Nemesis not being released until 2002. So they probably had something to do with Paramount stretching out TNG's home video release run for as long as they possibly could, knowing that the show's popularity would only be maintained if they kept putting episodes out on home video formats, and packaged in VHS box sets with episodes from the other Star Trek shows, past and present. Which is weird to me because TNG was still airing in reruns all the time throughout the '90s, including when the show was still airing brand new episodes. 

Season 6 was released from March 3rd to November 10th, 1998. Everybody but Picard was removed from the front cover and the space background design was changed to a gray-ish honeycomb or chainmail pattern with the show title, episode still and episode title returned to the bottom of the cover. The episode title and episode number backgrounds are now a brown colour with the episode still window's shape matching the episode number's shape. The spines, and presumably the back cover, share the honeycomb/chain mail pattern as well. 

I have no idea if there are any previews before the episodes on these tapes because I've never owned any of the season 6 tapes before. But, I think the Star Trek Home Video Library preview from the opening of the VHS release of Star Trek: First Contact, which came out four months before season 6 started to be released, is included in the opening of at least the first batch of episodes which were released on March 3rd, 1998. But, I don't have any clue otherwise. Even YouTube is light on TNG VHS openings besides the ones for "Encounter at Farpoint", "11001001", "Q, Who", and "I, Borg". I'm relying on images of the VHS covers online, including some eBay pictures to look at the spines.

 Finally, season 7 was released from November 10th, 1998 until May 25th, 1999, with the re-release of "All Good Things...", in the season 7 packaging, ending things for TNG on May 25th, 1999. Again, I have no idea why it took eight years for Paramount to release all seven seasons of TNG on home video. Especially because TOS, which only has three seasons, took a year and a half to release all 79 episodes, plus "The Cage" during the original 1985-1986 series release, and about six months to a year, if that, for the 1991-1992 series re-release.

The packaging is actually pretty bland compared to the releases of the first six seasons. None of the characters are anywhere to be seen outside of the episode still window, which has returned to the top of the front cover, and the background is pretty bland (as you can see from the example above the last paragraph. At least the spines are still colourful, but the episode number box is a very dark gray, rather than yellow, pink, purple, orange, blue, or brown. So yeah, pretty bland.

Once again, I never owned any of these tapes when I was a kid. Because I didn't own any of them, I wasn't even sure if seasons 6 or 7 had VHS releases, or what the packaging looked like, until I started exploring the Star Trek Wiki, Memory Alpha. I don't know what previews are on the tapes, if any, either. 

TOS and TNG are the only two live action Star Trek shows to get a complete VHS retail release, as DS9 stopped coming out midway through season 5, and Voyager didn't even make it to the end of the third season. Star Trek in general is one of the few TV shows to have more than ten to thirteen episodes on North American retail VHS releases, letalone the whole show. Rainbow Brite, Sailor Moon, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987-1996) are the only other shows that I've watched that either had the entire series on VHS, or a good chunk of it getting released. Even Mighty Morphin Power Rangers only has about ten episodes from each season released on VHS, and The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin only had 19 out of the show's 65 episodes released on VHS.

VHS was just too primitive to release entire TV shows on. Just because it was harder to put more than one or two episodes on a tape, and when it did happen, they were edited together into a feature film most of the time, with the exception of The Collector's Edition Columbia House Star Trek releases, Sailor Moon releases from the 2000s, the Pokemon VHS releases and Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. It wasn't until DVDs became a thing in the late '90s, and improved in the early to mid 2000s that we started getting entire shows on DVD in season sets, as well as complete series sets. And even then for some shows we still don't have any DVD releases for them, and others are STILL incomplete sets. Luckily Star Trek, in all of its forms, is complete on DVD, with some shows being complete on Blu-ray, and others complete on VHS as well. Just not all of them. 

That's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back soon for another post soon. So until then have a great night and I will talk to you all later. Take care.