Star Trek: Deep Space Nine The Complete Seventh Season

The day any serious collector both loves and dreads has arrived. Fans of Star Trek's best show, Deep Space Nine, can now sleep soundly knowing that their DS9 collection is complete. But along with that comes a hole, a lack, as some have been collecting DS9 box-sets for so long that they can't remember a time without them. (At least, I can't.) Fear not, you geeky bastards, the Trek collecting game begins again when the Voyager box-sets start hitting the shelves in February. In the "Ending An Era" featurette, visual effects coordinator Gary Hutzel comments that the final season is just "endless war," and while he's exaggerating slightly (there's still a number of those goofy, funny, bizarre one-off episodes that alleviates so much of Trek's overtly serious nature) the concluding season does feature some of Trek's most ambitious and biggest battle scenes ever. None more so than in the concluding two-part finale "What You Leave Behind," where the combined forces of the Klingons, Federation and Romulans slug it out with the Dominion (the anti-Federation from the Gamma Quadrant) and the Cardassians once and for all after seasons of building conflicts. There is literally so much battle that it's impossible to take in even on repeat viewings. In the not sparse but not quite enough extras (the lack of episode commentary is an oversight that will haunt the entire collection) the challenges of creating such humongous battle scenes are addressed, as is the very difficult problem of tying up the arks, threads and plots of its numerous characters and storylines. Granted, the battle scenes look awesome and all of the major characters' issues are resolved (Sisko even becomes a god, sort of), but it does feel a bit rushed once the end is in sight. Other extras include a revealing featurette on Avery Brooks/Sisko, where he discloses his tight-knit relationship with his DS9 "son," Ciroc Lofton, how he didn't want to do Trek initially and almost turned it down, and how he would have left the series long before season seven if he wasn't a man of his word. Plus: featurettes, photo gallery, more. (Paramount)