TOS

Remastered episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series are pacing upwards after a slow start back in September of last year. The latest data shows the  ‘The Corbomite Maneuver’ registered a a 1.6 household rating, marking a season high for the series. The show is currently averaging a 1.3 household rating, just slightly below what Star Trek: Enterprise averaged in its first and only season in off-network broadcast syndication last year (1.4, with a peak of 1.7). However the show is following a similar pattern as Enterprise did and the recent 1.6 rating is the first time Star Trek has registered a stronger rating than Enterprise (see chart below for a detailed view). For the week of December 11 Star Trek was the second highest rated program in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Syndication category behind the 1.9 of Alias (ahead of Smallville – 1.4, Stargate SG-1 -1.3, Stargate Atlantis – 1.2, Farscape – 0.7 and The Outer Limits – 0.6). Click More to see ratings chart

it has been 3 weeks, but TOS-R is back…with Klingons!! (wmv)

The digital distribution of Star Trek continues, now the first season of the Original Series is available on Apple’s iTunes…including many remastered episodes. Episodes are available for $1.99 each, or the whole season (29 episodes) is available for $56.99…a whole savings of 72 cents! The episodes are uncut and in 640×480 resolution (not as good as DVD) and presented in standard 4:3. Just like with XBox Live, there are Remastered episodes mixed in, so far it seems just the season one episodes that have been broadcast. It is assumed that like with XBox Live, additional episodes of Star Trek Remastered will be added over time.  click to go to iTunes Trek page

In the new issue of Star Trek Magazine, Trek Remastered Producer Dave Rossi wants to get some stuff off his chest. In article written by Rossi  about how the project to enhance the Original Series came to be, the Producer makes it clear that they are listening…but not always agreeing with the reactions to Trek Remastered. Rossi fires back at the critics: We’ve already been bad-mouthed and cursed and burned in effigy by a handful of people, including some friends and colleagues, who know better than most what we’re up against from a production standpoint, yet have firmly placed their fanboy hats on to criticize the work. Sitting in their armchairs they have the luxury to do that. Tell us how you really feel Dave…

This weekend ‘Mirror Mirror’ is the last repeat for Star Trek Remastered winter hiatus. XBox 360 owners can download ‘Mirror Mirror’ in HD as XBox Live have recently added all the 2nd season of the Original Series (including the HD versions of the TOS-R episodes that have been produced so far). StarTrek.com have now put up a total of 7 TOS-R wallpapers, however they haven’t put up one for ‘Mirror Mirror’. UPDATE: since they didn’t make one…we thought we would make two. (Hopefully in the future we will offer higher res versions from the HD master)    TrekMovie.com coverage: PREVIEW  |  VIDEO/SCREENSHOTS  |  REVIEW

This weekend is another repeat for Star Trek Remastered: ‘Devil in The Dark’. In honor of the event StarTrek.com has put up a wallpaper (in 3 sizes) of the excellent matte painting by CBS Digital’s Max Gabl. Click image below to go to their download page.

As we have reported, CBS is future-proofing The Original Series by creating all the new effects for Trek Remastered in 16:9 widescreen and HD. Although CBS affiliates are broadcasting only in SD (where all effects shots are cropped to a 4:3 aspect ratio), many episodes are now showing up in HD on the XBox Live download service.  Due to a fluke of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing at CBS, these XBox Live episodes include the widescreen effects shots mixed in with regular 4:3 live action shots. I have been told this is not how the TOS-R team want it to be shown, but it does give us a glimpse of what Trek can look like in widescreen. So for your enjoyment here are some clips of TOS-R WS. Opening Title (mov | avi)  

While TOS Remastered is taking a winter solstice we here at TrekMovie.com aren’t sitting on our laurels, we have updated all our past episode picture articles to include the new CG effects reels like you’ve become accustomed to in the new screenshot articles of the past few weeks. A huge thanks goes to Joe for making these important clip reels. Balance of Terror is being repeated this weekend so if you missed it the first time for gosh sakes watch it! …and then come on back by the Balance of Terror picture and video clip page or the review page and share your thoughts with us. Remember Balance of Terror is one of CBS Digital’s first episodes, so cut them a little slack this time through , we know it gets better. UPDATE: Just wanted to let you all know that there are now two new metadata tags for the articles so you can have the site show all Episode Screenshot articles or all Episode Previews. Click to visit the TrekMovie.com TOS Remastered episode portal for more

Just a quick reminder that Trek Remastered is entering a hiatus until January. The next three weekends will have reruns. Originally the remastered ‘Friday’s Child’ was to air December 23rd, but that has now been moved to January 6th and replaced with a rerun of ‘Devil in the Dark’. See our Trek Remastered Episode Guide for the full list. During the hiatus TrekMovie plans some stuff to keep you all entertained while we wait for 2007. UPDATE: For those that were wondering, the repeats of  ‘Balance of Terror’ and ‘Devil In The Dark’ will not have the new Enterprise model. Any replacement for those shows would be done down the line for DVDs and is still not definitely decided. However, in cases where a new show comes up and there is a shot that repeats a shot previously done with the old model CBS will redo the shot (for the new show) with the new model.

The Enterprise heads to uncharted territory and encounters a powerful force..and Kirk plays some poker with it.PreviewLocal Station & ShowtimesMore at Memory Alpha After two pilots, this is Star Trek’s first produced show and  was the first to feature glowing nacelle caps as well as Uhura, Rand and McCoy. This week the effects will likely be limited to space effects, including: cool zoom in shot on Enterprise (w/ the right nacelles) new ‘bouy’ cube in various shots new Fesarius and pilot ship maybe a new chronometer (seen before in Naked Time) expect TrekMovie.com’s screenshots and videos later tonight  So what did you think of the remastered Tranya?

The new Fesarius…Buckminster Fuller would love it!  

Spock tries to talk his way out of the death penalty with a AV presentation of Captain Pike’s strange adventure on Talos IV(sorry no video preview this week…maybe the preview guy got fired) / Local Station & Showtimes / More at Memory Alpha Trek’s only two parter comes to a close. Part I had most of the new effects but you can expect a few things: new Rigel VII matte new Mojave City backdrop matte for Pike’s picnic more shots of Talos IV and Enterprise maybe some new effects around the (Dr Evil voice) Giant Laser …and an Orion Slave girl looking greener than ever  

We reported a few weeks ago that Microsoft was touting ‘remastered Star Trek episodes’ as part of the offering for their new TV download service with XBox Live. Now that the service has gone live we can report that there are a total of 2 HD versions of the remastered Original Series available: ‘Miri’ and ‘The Naked Time’. These two remastered HD episodes are mixed in with the 27 other non-remastered SD versions of the entire first season of the Original Series. All episodes are uncut and cost $2 with the HD versions taking up a signficant 2.5 gigabytes of the 20 GB hard drive (the SD versions take up half a gig).  To make things even stranger, the two HD TOSR episodes have the expected ‘pillar box’ for all live action shots, but all the new effects (including the opening credits) are presented in 16:9. This means that the black bars on the left and right appear and disappear as you watch.  Sources in CBS seem to be just as confused about all this as we are, and it is unclear if this is the way they want it to be shown and if more episodes will become available. So far only two Star Trek films are available (in SD): ‘The Wrath of Khan’ and ‘Generations.’ Regardless this still makes XBox Live the only way to get TOSR in HD for now, but due to the storage and availability limitations it is hard to recommend buying an XBox 360 just to watch Star Trek.TrekMovie.com will continue to keep track of XBox Live and will report any changes.

CBS has sent over an image of Mojave City from "The Menagerie Part II".   Captain Pike and Vina get a brand new background matte painting 

Spock hijacks the Enterprise for his old pal Captain Pike(sorry no preview this week…blame the holiday) / Local Station & Showtimes / More at Memory Alpha The Menagerie is Trek’s only two part episode which cleverly uses the (at the time) unaired pilot ‘The Cage’.  The enhancements to expect: new Starbase 11 matte paintings new Starbase 11 planet and new Talos IV various new shots of the Enterprise a new (seen for the first time) shuttlecraft tracking zoom-in shot of Pike’s Enteprise (with CGI crew transitioning to live action crew) various view monitor shots  …and look for tiny versions of the Trek Remastered Producers and Effects Team in the background at Starbase 11  

Last week we reported on how there was an errant editing goof in ‘Mirror Mirror’. This is something that CBS readily admitted and committed to fixing. In fact they sent out the fixed version to all of their affiliates right away. Unfortunately some of their affiliates mistook this fixed version of Mirror Mirror as the episode that should air next. TrekMovie has received a number of reports that say the fixed ‘Mirror Mirror’ was shown instead of ‘Space Seed’. Unfortunately there really isn’t anything CBS can do about this, this was done by a handful of affiliates. Producer Mike Okuda recommends that if you didn’t see Space Seed last weekend to contact your local station and ask them to use Space Seed for their second broadcast (many stations repeat episodes on the following weekend). For the rest it looks like you will have to wait until March 7th when ‘Space Seed’ is repeated. Regardless it can’t hurt to call your local affiliate and tell them you love the show, and if you get it in an undesirable timeslot let them know that too.