Unfortunately, unlike the Season One, there is no HD offering of this season (last time, an HD-DVD version was released with the standard def on the flip side of each disc), but maybe a Blu-ray version is in the works soon.
Season Two of The Original Series has many great classic episodes that even the most casual of fan will probably be aware of. The show starts off with "Amok Time" where we first learn of the Vulcans' need to return to their home planet every seven years to mate (which also had a prominent spotlight in the classic Jim Carrey movie The Cable Guy). Spock's (Leonard Nimoy) need to go back home forces he and Kirk (William Shatner) into a life or death fight in arena-style combat.
This season also features the episode that introduces the Mirror Universe, a reoccurring flip world where the United Federation of Planets is a war-mongering empire. In "Mirror, Mirror," a transporter accident sends Kirk, McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Scotty (James Doohan) and Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) into this other world, where they must pass themselves off as their evil counterparts while trying to figure out how to get back home.
Other iconic episodes include "Assignment: Earth" where the crew is sent to the past (1968) in order to observe an upcoming historical event, but when they intercept a human being transported to the planet from a long distance away, they have to try and figure out if this person, named Gary Seven, is trying to avert or cause a nuclear disaster.
But the jewel of this season is "Trouble with Tribbles." Here, the crew stop off at a space station where a peddler is selling small furry creatures. Unfortunately, these creatures reproduce rapidly, and it isn't long before both the station and the ship are covered in little fur-balls. To make matters worse, the Klingons have also made a stop at the station, claiming the visit is just for a little R&R. In the end, a Klingon plot will be foiled, and all of the Tribbles will be taken care of. What really pleased me was the fact that the same disc that has this episode on it also contains the other Star Trek Tribble episodes. Both the Animated Series' "More Troubles, More Tribbles," and Deep Space Nine's "Trials and Tribble-ations" appear in this collection. Personally speaking, the DS9 episode is one of my favorites from that series.
Star Trek: The Original Series: Season Two Remastered also has quite a few episodes where the crew of the Enterprise will have to go up against powerful computers that go too far. In the standard Star Trek way, these villains will only be stopped by showing them the error in their logic. These episodes include "Nomad," "I, Mudd" and "The Ultimate Computer".
So what exactly got "remastered" in this version? For one, all of the external shots have been replaced with CG analogous ones. Instead of seeing the model moving across the screen suspended on wires (which does have its own bit of charm to it, I must say), we get very realistic looking ships and space scenes. Other areas have been touched up as well, but really, the most noticeable changes occur in space.
For Trekkers, this purchase really is a no-brainer. Not only is it the classic series, but it is really cleaned up. The only real complaint I have about this collection is the waste of the back-side of the discs. In the Season One release, one side was HD-DVD, the other was standard DVD. I understand that we can't put Blu-ray on one side and standard on the other, but it seems like, if nothing else, the original version could have been on Side B to compliment Side A's Remastered. But since that is more of a complaint about what this package doesn't have, than a commentary about what it does have, I really can't knock it too much for that.
