Season Two contains many of the show's more memorable episodes like "Amok Time" (where we learn of the Vulcan mating ritual), "The Trouble With Tribbles" (with a whole disc devoted to everything tribble), "Mirror, Mirror" (our first encounter with the strange flip-universe) and "The Changeling" (the crew's encounter with the probe known as Nomad). But, of course, these are only some of the more commonly known episodes of Star Trek - The Original Series: Season Two.
Some episodes, like "Bread and Circuses", "Patterns of Force" and "A Piece of the Action" have the Enterprise stumbling on planets that bear striking resemblances to Earth's past. In cases like "Patterns of Force" (where a historian has turned a planet into a duplicate of Nazi Germany) and "A Piece of the Action (this time appearing to be the 1920's), these strange parallels to Earth history are the result of humans contaminating the alien's culture (both intentionally and accidentally). In the case of "Bread and Circuses," the similarities between the planet and ancient Rome appear to be the result of sheer random chance.
And, of course, what would a season of Star Trek be without some good, old fashioned time travel. In the season finale, "Assignment: Earth," Kirk (William Shatner), McCoy (DeForest Kelley) and Spock (Leonard Nimoy) end up traveling to the 1960's to find out what a strange traveler might be doing and why he seems to have technology no human during that time frame is even close to developing.
I don't want to go through every episode in this season, as they are all classic Star Trek goodness and those readers already familiar with the show would just get tired of my abridged summary of the episodes, while those who haven't seen it won't be able to get the full effect without actually watching the episodes themselves. Suffice it to say that Season Two's events just do more to lay down the groundwork that would carry the franchise on for another 40+ years.
As for this particular release's benefits outside the episodes themselves; Star Trek - The Original Series: Season Two comes with every featurette and special feature that the DVD Remastered Edition came with, including a couple of extras. Both versions contain discs dedicated to everything Tribble. Disc 4 not only contains the classic "Trouble With Tribbles" episode and the follow-up episodes "More Tribbles, More Troubles" from Star Trek: The Animated Series and "Trials and Tribble-ations" from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but it also has the featurettes created in 2002 for the Deep Space Nine episode that was released in that series' Season Five DVD boxed set.
This Blu-ray set also contains the second installment of regular-extra Billy Blackburn's memories of the set. Here he talks about the various minor, and non-speaking, characters he plays, from Lt. Hadley (the person at the Comm or Navigation stations when Chekov or Sulu aren't present) to various aliens (like one of the golden guys in "The Apple"). While typical viewers might not find these interviews all that interesting, many hardcore Star Trek fans out there will eat this up (provided they haven't already seen it on a previous release, of course). But some of the more interesting features are those that are unique to the Blu-ray release itself. For one, this is the first time that you will have access to both the original version and enhanced versions of the episodes on the same disc, and each version is just a pop-up menu option away. Another added special is the featurette "Star Trek: TOS on Blu-ray" which interviews the various people behind the show's visual enhancements and application to high definition.
The final bit of extra goodness is a new Blu-ray feature called "Mobile-Blu." Currently only available for the iPhone, this app allows you to use your mobile device as a Blu-ray remote control for movies (like this one) that support it. The other feature Mobile-Blu adds is four exclusive featurettes that get downloaded to your mobile device. In the case of Star Trek - The Original Series: Season Two, these featurettes include "Writing Spock", "Creating Chekov", "Listening to the Actors" and "Spock's Mother." Much like some of the other special features, only major fans will really find these features to be worth the effort of downloading and synching the Mobile-Blu system to your Blu-ray player.
While Star Trek - The Original Series: Season Two is most obviously geared towards the more hardcore fans of the franchise, this Blu-ray release is no less than the definitive Season Two package. Short of a future release that contains all three seasons of the classic series, even casual fans should look into picking up this release.
