Star Trek: The Original Series — Vol. One:

When you’re seven years old and your dad says you oughta check something out, by God you do. It was the early seventies, and Star Trek was apparently entering into its second wave of syndication. A commercial for the show appeared suddenly on our local UHF station, and I was immediately intrigued. Next to me, my dad looked out from behind his paper and said “Oh, hey, you should watch this. Spaceships, ray guns… Should be right up your alley.” The visuals I was seeing coupled with that prompting from my pops were all I needed to give Star Trek a whirl, and for many years thereafter, the original episodes were a constant companion to me. Sure, the spaceships and the ray guns were cool, but more than anything else, I enjoyed the chemistry between the three lead characters. I never doubted for a second that Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were friends and colleagues who respected one another. The fact that they happened to work together on a starship was almost incidental.

Over time, the Star Trek feature films became my primary touchstone for the doings of Kirk and his pals, and I lost touch with the original shows. Now, thanks to a tremendous new Blu-ray set, I’ve reconnected with the “Trek” of my youth. I hadn’t seen many of these episodes in close to twenty years and I was tickled at just how well they hold up. With the exception of one entry (”The Alternative Factor”), there’s really not a bum show in the whole lot. Right out of the gate, in Season One, we get classic episodes like “City on the Edge of Forever” and “Space Seed” (which introduced the world to Khan from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan). Not only do we get well-told stories performed by fine actors, we get new visual effects which, I feel, enhance the experience tremendously. For you purists out there, give these remastered shows their day in court. The new FX are very much in keeping with the aesthetic of the old show. If the creators of the effects from the 1960s had had computer technology, they would have produced  shots which look very much like what we’ve been given in this set.

I’m Dying Up Here:

William Knoedelseder’s book I’m Dying Up Here: Heartbreak and High Times in Stand-up Comedy’s Golden Era tells the story of the rise of stand-up comedy as a mainstream force in entertainment in the middle 1970s. Comics like David Letterman, Robin Williams, and Richard Lewis feature prominently as does the strike against the Comedy Store in 1978. As I think I may have mentioned, I’m a bit of a comedy junkie so “I’m Dying Up Here” was fascinating stuff to me. Knoedelseder was obviously there when a lot of the events in the book went down and his access to the participants is impressive. If you were around during that era and you were a fan of stand-up as I was, definitely give the book a shot.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931):

The best thing about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is Fredric March’s performance — or, more specifically, his performance as Hyde. A lot of what goes on with Jekyll is pretty stock and uninteresting, but it’s a necessary contrast to the Hyde scenes which are a tour de force. March won an Oscar for the role and it’s not hard to see why — he’s simply outstanding.

Postscript: The Perils of Hi-Def Redux:

I did have one problem with the Star Trek set which I failed to mention above… Periodically, the sound would drift out of sync and I would be forced to pause and then re-start the episode in order to correct the problem. A little online research quickly revealed that other Blu-ray early adopters were having similar issues — further proof that perhaps this new technology was not quite ready for prime time.