UPDATED: TNG Season 4 On Blu-ray: What We Know So Far

While fans are eagerly awaiting the release of Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season Three on Blu-ray next week, CBS are already prepping Season Four for release and are well underway with the remastering of Season Five at CBS Digital.

Due to time constraints, CBS were unable to include the trailer for Season Four on the Season Three Blu-ray set however TrekCore can confirm that it will be shown at the upcoming NCM Fathom theater screening of “The Best of Both Worlds” tomorrow.

As the majority of our readers will be aware, when the Star Trek: The Next Generation remastering project first started, it was decided that the workload would be shared between CBS’s in-house VFX company, CBS Digital and independent post-house HTV Illuminate. CBS Digital were to kick off with Season One, while HTV would take Season Two with plans in place to alternate responsibility throughout the show’s seven seasons. After the release of Season Two in December, there was disquiet from a large number of fans who were upset at the differing standards of restoration between CBS Digital and HTV, something well covered in our review of Season Two on Blu-ray.

Prior to Season Two’s release in November last year, TrekCore revealed that HTV would not be involved in the remastering of Season Four and that responsibility for the VFX had shifted to another independent post-house, with the conform being handled by CBS Digital.

We can now confirm some further information about the upcoming release of Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season Four on Blu-ray.

Season Four is scheduled for release on July 30 2013. You can pre-order the set from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
Remastering of Season Four was carried out by post-production house Modern Video. We understand CBS Digital was close at hand to help Modern reach a more balanced and consistent look.
Max Gabl – the artist responsible for creating new planets for CBS Digital (Seasons 1 and 3) – also lent his talents to the planets in Season 4.
The set will carry another bumper collection of VAM including a brand new multi-part documentary, gag reel sourced from the original 35mm camera negative, audio commentaries on multiple episodes, deleted scenes (see our original report on these) and a special Art Department reunion featuring Herman Zimmerman, Doug Drexler, Mike & Denise Okuda, Rick Sternbach and Dan Curry.

We can also confirm that there are plans in place to release TNG’s 100th episode and Season 4 cliffhanger “Redemption” as a special feature-length movie in a single-disc release, taking on the same style as “The Best of Both Worlds“. Both parts of “Redemption” appear to have been handled by CBS Digital to make the finished product seamless in its presentation. We expect a release of “Redemption” to coincide with Season Four and anticipate it’s highly likely that an array of exclusive VAM will be produced for the disc.

UPDATED: Finally, we have ~~an initial low-resolution~~ a high resolution look at the cover art for Season Four. The box takes on a sea green color and features Picard, Riker and Guinan. As always, we should point out that cover art is subject to change.

Switching to commentary mode, I must say that from my first impressions of Season Four the look is far closer to that of CBS Digital. Many of the grievances we received from readers relating to Season Two referenced poor compositing and a “flat” look to the image. This certainly doesn’t seem to be the case with Season Four. We hope to be able to bring you the S4 trailer soon so you will be able to judge for yourself! Kudos to CBS for their efforts with Season Four – keeping Max Gabl on the planets and involving CBS-D more in the remastering effort is a welcome move, and one that seems to have paid off. Stay tuned to TrekCore for all the latest news about Season Four as we get it!