While watching the endless episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and The X-Files that I consumed on the old CRT of my youth, at the time I don’t recall ever thinking that it looked terrible. Compared to the pristine digital that the vast majority of today’s television is produced on, though, the difference is stark—it was softer, grainier, and there was way less detail. But that was never what the cameras actually saw.
From the 1950s through the 1990s, most scripted series were shot on 35mm film, then edited and finished on standard-definition videotape for broadcast. Those negatives held far more detail than your TV could display, but the good news is that many of those negatives sat preserved in vaults for decades, just waiting to be scanned, remastered, and released into the wild for us to enjoy.
Between that level of restoration, digital upscaling, and other forms of enhancement—some more successful than others—many older shows look better today than they ever have, even on streaming services. These four classic shows (in order of my least to most favorite) got the real treatment, even if they come with a few caveats.
4
I Love Lucy
Shot on film when no one else bothered
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s legendary sitcom broke so many molds and basically invented the rerun. The beloved show about a wily New York City housewife and her Cuban bandleader husband ran on CBS from 1951 to 1957.
While most shows of the era were preserved using kinescope, in which a film camera was literally pointed at the TV screen to record the live broadcast, I Love Lucy was groundbreaking in that it pioneered the three-camera setup and was shot on 35mm film.
The version streaming on Paramount+ is a solid HD presentation and a real step up from any broadcast or DVD you might remember. The four-year restoration that wrapped in 2024 for the Blu-ray box set went further, combining the original 35mm negatives with 16mm reels and archival videotape to recover material missing from some episodes. Reviewers consider the result pristine, despite a few, er, hiccups.
Where to watch: Paramount+ streams the series in HD, a real step up from any broadcast or DVD you might remember. The 2024 Blu-ray box set is sharper still.
3
The Twilight Zone
You’ve just crossed over into… the restoration zone
Rod Serling’s anthology of weird and wonderful tales aired on CBS from 1959 to 1964 and paved the way for everything from The Outer Limits to Netflix’s Black Mirror. I still can’t sit in a window seat overlooking a plane wing without expecting a gremlin to appear.
Like I Love Lucy, The Twilight Zone was shot on 35mm film, which is the only reason it is now available to watch in such great shape. The cleaned-up HD restoration went back to the show’s original elements. Its high-contrast black-and-white photography is beautifully focused, the atmospheric grain is intact, and it doesn’t have the smudgy look that ruins so many older transfers.
Where to watch: Free with ads on Tubi and Pluto TV, or on Paramount+. All carry the restoration, so seeing the difference costs nothing.
2
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Making it so, for $70,000 an episode
With all respect to William Shatner, Jean-Luc Picard was my Starship Enterprise captain. Seven seasons and 178 galaxy-warping episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation made the show the most successful first-run syndicated drama of its era, and the definitive Star Trek of a generation, including mine.
And as far as a restoration project, it was the hardest job on this list. TNG was shot on 35mm, but all of its edits and impressive effects (think phasers and photon torpedoes) were created and assembled on videotape, so there was no film to scan.
Rebuilding it reportedly cost CBS more than $12 million, or roughly $70,000 an episode, and took them from 2012 to 2014 to complete all seven seasons. Each episode was re-cut to match, from more than 25,000 original reels. The Enterprise you see in the restoration isn’t a new model; it’s the same footage, but with all the detail we’ve been missing from the digital transfer. They even kept the original 4:3 ratio instead of cropping. TNG fans from back in the day, like me, will notice how much better it looks.
Where to watch: Paramount+. The remaster is the only version in circulation, so streaming gets you the real thing.
1
The X-Files
The truth was on the negative
Chris Carter’s legendary alien conspiracy series that ran from 1993 to 2002 was an absolute phenomenon that made smoky flashlights in the dark cool and turned Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) into cultural icons that have long outlasted the show.
Like its contemporaries, The X-Files was shot on 35mm film and dumped to standard def for editing, which is why every broadcast, VHS, and DVD release of the time looked murkier than it was. Luckily, a 2013 remaster scanned the full negative in 4K, and a complete Blu-ray set arrived in 2015, vastly improving the image with more definition and clarity—although many complained that the first four seasons, which were shot in 4:3 ratio, had been reframed to 16:9, like the remaining seasons.
Effects-wise, unlike TNG, Fox didn’t pay to rebuild everything—some were properly rebuilt while others were just upscaled from the standard-def masters because the original elements were either missing, the shot was too complex to recreate, or it was computer-generated in the first place. The result is noticeable—the ones that weren’t recreated look softer than the updated footage around them. Even as a fan of the original, I can’t deny it looks far better now.
Where to watch: Hulu, or free with ads on Pluto TV. Both stream the remaster, so you’re seeing the same version that’s on disc.
What a time to be alive
What I find most fascinating about the availability of cleaner, clearer, and better-looking versions of the classic shows we loved growing up is that the creators had the wherewithal, whether intentional or not, to create them on a future-proof format that could later be used to extract their full potential. Three of these four stream in the best form available, and only Lucy really rewards the disc. Either way, if you last saw any of them on a CRT, VHS, or an old DVD, what’s waiting now is a lot closer to what the camera actually recorded.
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