Star Trek: Picard Movie & TV Collection
Blu-ray
Cast: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Marina Sirtis, Gates McFadden, William Shatner, Malcolm McDowell, Alice Krige, James Cromwell, Alfre Woodard, F. Murray Abraham, Anthony Zerbe, Tom Hardy, Ron Perlman
Paramount Home Entertainment
Release Date: October 15, 2019

CBS is readying to launch in January a new streaming series, Star Trek: Picard, featuring Patrick Stewart‘s famed Starfleet officer Jean-Luc Picard. The actor led the cast of TV’s Star Trek: The Next Generation as the captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise for 7 seasons beginning in 1987 and then in 4 theatrical films, the final being in 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis. To familiarize viewers with Jean-Luc Picard and the Star Trek: The Next Generation universe, CBS and Paramount have released Star Trek: Picard Movie & TV Collection, a new Blu-ray box set centering around the character.

The 6-disc Blu-ray set includes all four feature films starring TNG cast — Star Trek: Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, Star Trek: Nemesis — as well as the scifi television show’s 2-part episode “The Best of Both Worlds.” If you don’t already own one of the previously released movie Blu-ray box sets, then this new Picard-centric package is the way to go as far as what you get for the price — and you get a lot.

There’s a Star Trek VR game that exists out there right now, and it is titled Star Trek: Bridge Crew.

A trailer for the game was shown during Ubisoft’s presentation at E3 2016, and it includes some familiar faces from the franchise such as LeVar Burton (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: First Contact), Jeri Ryan (Star Trek: Voyager), and Karl Urban (Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek Beyond).

Click on over to the other side to check out the reveal trailer for Star Trek: Bridge Crew.

Lawrence Fishburne has been cast in the small but pivotal role of Alex Haley (originally played by James Earl Jones), in Roots, the remake scheduled to be simulcast on A&E, Lifetime, and The History Channel. Haley, is the author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family, the basis for the miniseries, along with historical research.

Check out the press release below.

I was a little too old for the PBS show Reading Rainbow, by the time it surfaced I was already a teenager who was reading on a daily basis (and I still do). But I have a love and appreciation for anything that makes children want to read. And that’s exactly what LeVar Burton‘s Kickstarter campaign is aiming to do, get more kids to read.

Bring Reading Rainbow Back for Every Child, Everywhere. That’s what he named it and it seems like it’s pretty straightforward, to be honest. Enough people think the same way as I do, and this crowdfunding project was fully funded in less than a day. Yep, over a million bucks in under twenty-four hours. And actually, at the time of this article being written, it’s over the three million mark!

Read more and watch the Kickstarter campaign video below.

Star Trek: The Next Generation
Season 3 – Blu-ray
Starring Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner, Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, Michael Dorn, LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Wil Wheaton, Colm Meaney, Whoopi Goldberg
Paramount Home Entertainment
Release Date: April 30, 2013

Paramount is slowly but surely remastering and enhancing each season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and now sees the release of the Blu-ray for Season 3, which was the season when the series really took off. When TNG started coming out on DVD, Season 3 was the first box set I purchased, because while I’m a great fan of TNG, I’ve had difficulty sitting through some of those early episodes where the show was still finding its footing in the late 1980s (although, the pilot was awesome). Back in those days, people were used to one Star Trek and one Star Trek only. Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura, Chekov – those were the characters who entered people’s living rooms each week and these are who viewers wanted to see. TNG was initially met with resistance, especially since it had a new Captain commanding a new Enterprise in the future.

Star Trek – The Next Generation (Seasons 1 & 2)
Netflix Streaming
Complete Series DVD
Season One DVD | Season Two DVD
Created by Gene Roddenberry
Starring Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, Michael Dorn, LeVar Burton, Wil Wheaton, Whoopi Goldberg, John de Lancie
Paramount
Originally Broadcast: September 28, 1987

One of the greatest things about Netflix’s streaming service is the immediate accessibility to television series, both old and current, without being interfered with by lame advertisements interrupting your viewing experience. On top of that, there’s also the bonus of watching entire seasons in bulk, demolishing the week-to-week wait. But when we were discussing Star Trek on a recent episode of the Social Blend podcast, I couldn’t help but hop down Nostalgia Avenue for this week’s Netflix Review as well.

Captain Planet and the Planeteers
Season One
DVD
Starring Levar Burton, Whoopie Goldberg, Meg Ryan, Martin Sheen, Ed Asner, and Jeff Goldblum
Shout! Factory
Release Date: April 19, 2011

The eco-conscious ’90s are revisited in this collection of Season One of Captain Planet and the Planeteers. In this collection, viewers are introduced to the Planeteers, a group of teens chosen by Gaia, the Spirit of the Earth, to defend the Earth from environmental villains. The Planeteers are a multicultural bunch that includes Kwame from Africa, Wheeler from America, Linka from Eastern Europe, Gi from Asia, and Ma-Ti from Brazil.

As a Reading Rainbow and Roots fan, I remember being happy that Levar Burton was included in the cast as the voice of Kwame. I was also a fan of the original voice of Gaia, Whoopi Goldberg. Sadly, Goldberg and several of the original voice actors for the eco villains would be replaced in later seasons. In Season One, however, we have the voice talents of Meg Ryan (Dr. Blight), Jeff Goldblum (Verminous Skumm), Martin Sheen (Sly Sludge), John Ratzenberger (Rigger), and Ed Asner (Hoggish Greedly). This all-star gathering gave the show legitimacy and made watching the series more exciting. After I read the credits, I began playing a guessing game and trying to match the celebrity voice with the eco-villain.