Gotta hand it to Star Trek. Midway through its fifth decade, the franchise is still successfully re-inventing itself. Sure, it hasn’t always been successful, but even after a pretty blah run, I’m still stoked for the new J.J. Abrams movie re-boot. To coincide with the imminent Trekmania, Paramount is releasing the first season of Star Trek: The Original Series (with more to come soon) in a beautifully restored Blu-Ray edition, and let me tell you, they are a joy to watch.

The blocky, simple colour scheme of the show’s interiors looks beautiful, and as for the special effects—well, here’s where things might have gotten controversial, as they’ve re-done the “exteriors,” mostly the spaceship shots, with new special effects technology. I’m really of two minds about this; I totally hate the revamped Star Wars films and all that they stand for, but I can see why the Star Trek team chose this route, as the effects shots, which by nature had to suffer generational loss because of the optical technology of the time, must have been hard to match up with the cleaned-up interiors.

And they really are subtle, especially compared to the Greedo-shooting-first Star Wars abominations. I wouldn’t be so kind if the originals weren’t included as well, so you can have your pick (and even switch mid-scene with the “angle” button). This is a terrific set and the show, naturally, really holds up—smart, funny and humanist.

I always envy those cable-subscribers with their Turner Classic Movies channel and its thoughtful, classy programming. But even if you don’t have TCM, you can get a blast of it with their new Greatest Classic Films series, which bundle four films at a time into slim box sets. Sets include American Musicals, Broadway Musicals, two WWII sets, a John Wayne Westerns collection and a plain old Western Adventures pack (the last which includes The Wild Bunch and McCabe & Mrs. Miller, to give you an idea).