For a while now, Trekkies have had all of the Star Trek they could have ever wanted made available to them. The Original Series, regular and remastered, the Next Generation (TNG), Deep Space Nine (DS9), Voyager, Enterprise, and even the Animated Series have all been released. Granted you need a pretty penny to get everything you want, but if you're a Trek lover on a budget the Fan Collectives are a tempting morsel that are worth biting into.

Back in 2006, Paramount started releasing the "Collective" line of Star Trek, which assembled episodes from each of the series and presented them together in a nice compact package with a more affordable price. The efforts thus far have been appreciated, but as is the case with any re-release your mileage may vary depending on what you already have in your collection. To date the Borg has been featured as well as the Klingons, Time Travel, Q, and there has even been a collection of episodes based on the best from each Captain. While the last release came out over a year ago, Paramount decided to revisit the line again with the Alternate Realities Collective.

The prior Collectives had a much more focused view of the subject matter than the Alternate Realities set has given. In this collection of episodes you can expect to find content from the Mirror Universe, Parallel Dimensions, Twisted Realities, and some Alternate Lives. With the four somewhat diverse subject matters, you should have some understanding about each series in order to piece together what's going on, who the characters are and what-not, before some of these episodes get underway. Then again, I doubt any non-Trekkie will be picking this release up, so chances are very good that if you're reading this review, you already know what's happening.

Going through the themes in order, the first one that is featured is most notably, the Mirror Universe. Arguably one of the most popular spin-offs ever conceived by Trek writers, the Mirror Universe gave the crew a chance to explore the darker side of things. Starfleet is a domineering and evil entity known as the Terran Empire, humanity is vicious and rules the galaxy with an iron fist, and names such as Kirk inspire fear throughout the cosmos. It's an enticing concept considering the show's characters explored the stars for knowledge and in peace.

Kicking the Mirror Universe off is an episode from the second season of the Original Series, "Mirror, Mirror". One of the most popular Trek episodes ever, "Mirror, Mirror" creates an incident that thrusts Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura into an alternate universe where things are much different. For starters Spock is walking around with a mean looking goatee and doesn't flinch at the thought of torturing a subordinate, but as the episode progresses the stark contrast between the known universe and this one begin to emerge. The real kicker is that Evil Kirk and company have landed in the regular universe! It's worth mentioning here that the Original Series episodes included on this set, such as "Mirror, Mirror" are taken from the recent remaster with updated effects and such.

Unfortunately, "Mirror, Mirror" was the only Mirror Universe episode produced for the Original Series. It wouldn't be until DS9's second season with the episode "Crossover" that the alternate universe was fully explored once again. In this episode Kira and Bashir find themselves on an alternative space station which is run by Kira's Mirror Universe twin, the Intendant. All of DS9's characters appear as opposite versions of themselves from Odo the taskmaster to a Sisko who is trapped between being the Intendant's lapdog and an informant against the Terrans. It's a solid episode and helps to set up two other DS9 entries. "Through the Looking Glass" follows Sisko as he's drawn to the Mirror Universe so save his dead wife Jennifer, and "Shattered Mirror" drags Jake into the fold and brings Sisko back once again to lead a Terran rebellion.

Before the Trek TV franchise was put to pasture, Enterprise was able to squeak in a two-part storyline revolving around the Mirror Universe. "In a Mirror Darkly Parts 1 & 2" takes a somewhat different spin on the established mythos. Rather than bring regular Archer or T'Pol to the alternate universe, these two episodes feature a new intro and are themed as if the Mirror Universe was the show you were watching. Brilliantly executed, "In a Mirror Darkly" constructs a story that draws ties to the Original Series "Tholian Web" episode with the Defiant. It's full of twists throughout, and it's definitely refreshing to not have the established characters figuring out what's going on.

With the Mirror Universe out of the way, the Parallel Dimensions leg of this Collective's journey gets underway. For this theme there are only two episodes, "The Alternative Factor" from The Original Series, and "Parallels" from TNG. In the "Alternative Factor" a mysterious man named Lazarus comes to the Enterprise claiming to be pursued by an insane creature, but there's more to the story than meets the eye as Kirk continues to refuse his aide. I always felt that "Parallels" was an interesting episode by itself, as it features Worf trapped between realities as he attempts to get back to his own Enterprise. Both episodes are entertaining on their own, but can't really be considered a benchmark of quality for both series.

Twisted Realities is the third theme here and there are four episodes that make the grade. The first two are from The Original Series and are, "The Enemy Within" and "Turnabout Intruder". In both, Kirk plays something of a role reversal. "Enemy Within" has Kirk splitting into pieces with his good and bad sides warring with each other, and "Turnabout Intruder" has his body being possessed by a woman from his past. Both episodes are very well written and acted, and stand out as entertaining snippets from the original Trek. "Frame of Mind" from TNG is a very memorable episode which features Riker caught up in events that make him question reality in an alien asylum. Voyager's crew, Chakotay in particular, gets to deal with a fragmented ship where its First Officer is the only one who knows what's going on in the final Twisted Realities episode, "Shattered".

Finishing off the rest of this collection's episodes is the Alternate Lives theme. First up is "Yesterday's Enterprise" from TNG. This is the episode that returns Tasha Yar and features a split reality where the Klingons are at war with the Federation. When the Enterprise-C appears, it screws up the timeline and Guinan is the only one who knows that something is amiss, so it's up to her to convince everyone of the way things should be. Another TNG episode, "The Inner Light" appears in this set as well. This was always a favorite episode of mine and it stands out as one of the best episodes from TNG. The plot focuses on an experience that Picard has when the Enterprise comes in contact with an alien probe from a long-dead world. The probe grants Picard a lifetime's worth of experiences as a member of its creator's race in an effort to pass on knowledge of their existence. While he lives out a full life on the alien world, it was all in its head and turns out to have only lasted less than half an hour.

"The Visitor" is DS9's only episode for this theme, and it's one that features an older Jake trying to find his father who dematerialized in a warp-core accident years ago. It's not a bad episode, but it definitely wasn't one of DS9's best or the cream of the crop from this release. Voyager actually features three episodes here: "Before and After", "Timeless", and "Course: Oblivion". "Before and After" was a Kes episode that depicted her jumping through time and it's definitely one that keeps you guessing until the end. "Timeless" has Chakotay and Kim launched into the future and Voyager crashes on an ice planet in the meantime. It's a fun story that features wonky time traveling mechanics, but nonetheless it's a solidly written episode with a few nice twists. The final Voyager episode, "Course: Oblivion" has a mock version of the crew flying through space, and it becomes an interesting character study because they realize they are just copies. Enterprise closes out this Collective set with "E²", an episode that features the descendants of Archer and crew thanks to a temporal anomaly, and "Twilight", which was an solid episode that takes place in the future and features a sickly Archer under the care of T'Pol.

All things considered, the Alternate Realities Collective is a solid bunch of episodes. Some all-time classics are here, and if you're a Trek fan then the episode titles will speak for themselves. A couple of weaker episodes are scattered throughout the set, but overall there are some of the greatest highlights from each series included here. While just about every episode is fresh here for the Collectives, "Yesterday's Enterprise" was featured in the Time Travel set. This has been one of the weaknesses of this DVD series and if you're only collecting these instead of the seasons you're going to have some overlap. If you're a Star Trek fan on a budget or you just don't want to bother with getting every single episode, then consider the Alternate Realities a no-brainer. This release isn't for everyone, and in all honesty it's a glorified "Best Of" release, but it's solid nonetheless.

The simple fact that Star Trek covers such an expansive amount of years between series leads to some very diverse video quality. The Original Series, TNG, DS9, and Voyager are presented in their original 1.33:1 aspect ratios, while Enterprise comes with an anamorphic widescreen. The picture quality for each of them is comparable to, if not better than broadcast, but in some instances there are more noticeable compression artifacts in the transfer than could be found on the regular full season collections. This wasn't always the case, though it was something that popped up every once in a while. All around the quality is very good, diverse, and more or less what you'd expect from Paramount.

The episodes here are presented with options for 2.0 and 5.1 Dolby Digital English tracks. The quality was very good with an overall clean presentation and fine channel separation. The audio could have been more pronounced, but as it stands fans of the shows will be very pleased thanks to the decent use of the rear channels during key moments. The dialogue is very crisp and clear with no distortion or dropout. There are also some optional English subtitles included if it tickles your fancy.

Something that may entice fans with this set, is the inclusion of some new special features and commentaries. Five commentary tracks are available with one on each disc in the set. "Crossover" offers a commentary by David Livingston, "Parallels" has Brannon Braga talking about it, "The Enemy Within" features Garfield and Judith Reveves-Stevens, "Yesterday's Enterprise" is commentated by Davide Carson, and "Twilight" is discussed by Mike Sussman and Tim Gaskill. Each of these commentaries are interesting in their own right, but considering the timestamp on some of these they feel a tad loose in terms of structure. For instance Livingston's commentary track is full of gaps as he attempts to remember specific things about an episode from fourteen years ago. This trend continues with the other commentaries and your mileage will vary depending upon your expectations. All in all it was nice to have these tracks, but I wouldn't say that they make these episodes worth double-dipping with.

For this release some new featurettes were put together to offer some discussion about each of the four themes. The Mirror Universe segment is broken up into two parts and clocks in at just over nineteen minutes altogether. It features clips of the episodes with producers discussing the episodes and thought process behind them, as well as even a few original recorded discussions with actors from the shows. The Parallel Dimensions, Twisted Realities, and Alternate Lives all have similar features with minimal amounts of information being spread around with some commentary and clips from the episodes.

As great as most of these episodes are, the bottom line for these Fan Collectives is that if you already own some of the Trek seasons on DVD then don't bother picking them up. These collections are made with fans on a budget who can't buy the sets, or casual viewers who don't want to invest over a thousand dollars on all of Star Trek. With that being said, Alternate Realities includes some outstanding episodes that remain all-time favorites for most fans. It's a strongly recommended release but take it with a grain of salt and consider your position if you already have some Trek on your DVD shelves.

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