I’m a huge Star Trek TNG Fan and since Spike TV stopped playing the series at the end of the 6th Season I decided to get the whole set. Just before I thought of it - the new 20th Anniversary Set was being introduced (October 2nd I believe was the date).

After some search around the net for the most affordable price, I found it at FamilyVideo.com for $269 bucks! Now, even though this is a lot of money by itself, it beats the suggested retail price of $440!

I may have expected too much. While the video quality and the content is as expected, I simply wanted more from the whole Box experience. Here is the graphic rendering of how it should look like:

While this is nice, the real box looks simply OK. Once you open it you find these cheap and ugly green DVD holders, one of which was chipped by the way. Maybe I’m making a too big deal out of it - but even a little poster inside was a piece of crap: a description of seasons! What a hell? Can’t I at least get a list of episodes and content of each DVD, or maybe a picture of all the crew together!?

What ever the case - I just thought some of you might like the real photos of what you will be getting once you order it. I’d get it again simply because I love TNG, love the actors, and hope they are getting something from the cash I shelled out for the set. If that was not the case - I’d go for an older set which goes around $130-170 bucks, save some money and get the same thing in the end.

Here are the pics:

It looks a bit smaller in reality

Once opened - I thought the plastic inside broke in 3 pieces, however this was not the case. it appears that it’s split in 3 pieces

Ah, for a detail freak like me - this little chip ruined the experience a bit.

Hey, it splits … Whew, I thought it broke while being shipped.

Looks nice from this angle.

Damn crappy poster.

While the discs look OK in as in the picture below (Thanks to my 6.1MPixel Nikon D40), in reality they look like they were printed in some Chinese basement with a cheap Ink-Jet printer! I swear, the moment I saw one I thought the whole set was some cheap copy of what I should’ve got in the first place. Alas, that was not the case. There are 49 DVDs total.

So there you have it. Family Video offers a REALLY good deal on the whole set. While their shipping is REDICULOUSLY slow (even if you do not choose a free option), with so much love for the actors and the series in general - I’d order it again. This does not beat the fact that Paramount could have done a better job on the whole thing.

Shame on our Paramount - you money sucking machine! I hope at least the actors are getting some piece of action - if that’s the case - then all right, damn it!