The ‘Star Trek’ Spin-Off That Never Was – ‘Assignment: Earth’

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By the end of Star Trek ‘s second season, it looked as though the show would be canceled. Word spread among cast and crew in the summer of 1967, as episodes continued to be filmed. Low ratings and network disputes with show creator Gene Roddenberry over how the program should be run had given NBC reason to pull the plug.

In all likelihood, the cancellation would have happened had it not been for the work of Bjo and John Trimble, two dedicated Star Trek fans who organized a letter-writing campaign of fans around the country. The enormous volume of mail convinced NBC to give Star Trek one more season.

Before the campaign took off in earnest, however, Roddenberry was already looking for other opportunities. He cared for Star Trek , but the reality of the time did not seem to show any real future for the series. Near the end of 1967, Roddenberry began work on “Assignment: Earth,” a brand new television series. It had many sci-fi elements, but was totally unconnected to Star Trek .

“Assignment: Earth” focused on Gary Seven, a super-skilled Doctor Who-esque traveler of sorts, who went into Earth’s present day to ensure history followed its proper course. He is joined by Roberta, a secretary, who learns about his mission and follows him along on his adventures. Seven is also accompanied by a shape-shifting cat (a humorous foil to his serious-toned character), along with Beta 5, a super-advanced computer who acts as a kind of advisor. They fight against the Omegans, an evil alien race attempting to undermine Earth via time travel, just as Gary Seven would attempt to set things right. Roddenberry pitched the series as a combination of spy-adventure and science fiction.

Gary Seven actor Robert Lansing describes the character background in a 1989 interview with Starlog Magazine , quoted on an Assignment: Earth fan website , The Complete “Assignment: Earth.”

“Gene was a good friend, but I was a New York snob actor, out to Hollywood. Many folks in my self-perceived position didn’t do Star Trek because it was considered a kid’s show, or a young show at any rate. Gene said, ‘I’m writing this for you and we can play with it. It might be a series.’ He said, ‘Well, you don’t have to, but just do this one thing for me.’ So, I did. It was a damn good script and a lot of fun. “What Gene had done, was to go to futurists and scientists and ask them what advanced societies out in space might do towards more primitive societies like ours. One of the futurists said that they would probably kidnap children from various planets, take them to their superior civilization, raise them, teach and enlighten them, and then put them back as adults to lead their worlds in more peaceful ways. That was the idea behind Gary Seven.”

On its own as a script pitch, “Assignment: Earth” failed to gain any traction. Instead, Roddenberry adapted it into a Star Trek episode, aired as the Season 2 finale. It had become a backdoor pilot, an attempt by a currently running show to launch a new series. The idea of the Omegans was dropped. Gary Seven was no longer stopping aliens, and he had to save mankind from itself: war, greed, corruption, and so on.

The “Assignment: Earth” fan website has a copy of the original pitch, dated from December 1967, used to sell NBC on the idea, now revised as an episode of Star Trek . Roddenberry gives a description that emphasized the modernity of the concept.

“‘Assignment: Earth’ is the Star Trek spin-off pilot of a new show, ‘Assignment: Earth,’ a totally new today concept which can be described as ‘Science Fiction 1968!’ Laid against 1968 backgrounds and stories, but without losing the excitement and imagineering which identified futuristic Star Trek .”

The Star Trek episode “Assignment: Earth” tries to balance screentime for the regular crew against the needs of promoting the new show idea. Kirk and crew inadvertently intercept Gary Seven beaming to Earth. Seven and Kirk tussle throughout the episode, as Kirk attempts to learn of Seven’s true nature, and Seven attempts to accomplish his mission of destroying a space-orbit-bound nuclear warhead.

In a review of the episode, The A.V. Club ‘s Zach Handlen criticizes the disconnected nature of the story from a traditional Star Trek episode.

“Kirk and Spock and the rest are reduced to cameos on their own show… Maybe ‘Assignment: Earth’ could’ve been a decent series; but it’s terrible Star Trek . ” “At least we get some quality time with Teri Garr [who portrayed Roberta]… a pleasure to watch as always. She’s just kind of sweet and friendly, and while I can’t imagine wanting to tune in to her and Seven’s adventures every week, I do feel kind of bad that the show wasn’t picked up, for her sake. But hey, things turned out okay for her in the end, at least.”

If “Assignment: Earth” had been picked up as a series, it might have opened using the following narration, according to documents on the fan site.

“In the hands of this one man… could rest the future of all mankind. His name…Gary Seven… born in the year 2319 A.D. The only survivor of Earth’s attempt to send a man back through time to today. Assignment…fight an enemy who is already here, trying to destroy us. If he fails…there’ll be no tomorrow!”

In this case, there was no tomorrow. The characters of Gary Seven and Roberta have survived in Star Trek books and comics, but no TV series was ever made.

Star Trek would continue for one more season before being cancelled. Reruns, movies, and new TV shows would ensure a future for the franchise. “Assignment: Earth” is a unique footnote to that storied history.

[Featured Image by CBS]

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Origins & Analysis

First Pilot

Welcome to the web's only complete reference to Assignment: Earth (Æ) .

This episode of the original Star Trek was intended to spin off into a series of its own.

Thanks to everyone who has written in. Your comments are always appreciated. This site first appeared on the net in 1998 – this is the seventh major revision – and its growth is due, in part, to those people who wrote in and said, "Hey, did you know…?" Well, no, no I didn't, but now I do, and thanks for your help. If you have info, please feel free to @ me.

– Scott Dutton

The Original Pilot Script : November 14, 1966

Gene Roddenberry developed the first version of Æ as he worked on Star Trek 's first season, and pitched it to Desilu in a 47-page script.

Gary Seven is a man sent back in time from the 24th century, the only Earth man to ever survive the transit. His goal is to defeat the Omegans, a race of shape-changing aliens who have sent agents back in time to change Earth's history so they can defeat Earth in the future. Harth and Isis would be the primary Omegan antagonists. Roberta Hornblower is described as she appeared in the final episode, but as a 20 year old.

Seven's cover in the 1960s is The -7- Agency, a private investigations firm. We meet Roberta as she enters the office looking for Mister Seven. The gadgets from the final episode are here, including the servo, and a pair of working x-ray glasses. She sits down at the typewriter to leave him a note. Roberta had nearly been killed by a falling chunk of a building, and had been pushed out of the way by a woman who instead died. The woman looked very much like her, and Roberta found Seven's address on her body.

Seven and Roberta meet and come into conflict with Isis and Harth, setting up the series' premise. After their initial adventure together involving going back in time to reset a mishap and Roberta transporting instantly around to different locations, Seven tells Roberta he needs an assistant.

The Series Proposal : December 5, 1967

While developing the script, they also generated a 13-page series proposal.

Now conceived of as a Star Trek spin-off pilot, the new Æ had Roddenberry and Wallace selling themselves as individuals respected in the business who were teaming up for the series. They made the clear distinction that while futuristic like Trek , Æ would be set against modern-day 1968.

One of Roddenberry's strengths and benefits was to go to specialised individuals and organisations (like NASA) and ask them, "What if?" By going outside entertainment circles, he gave his work a depth and credibility that became a model for a better-informed process.

Some of the connecting-the-dots promotion of the series' ideas to already known commercial quantities is a bit funny to read now. Having done enough creative briefs and seeing the tell-tale signs in this proposal, I get the feeling studio execs have the same thought processes as other businessmen.

The First-Draft Trek Script : December 4–20, 1967

In the middle of Star Trek 's second season, Roddenberry and writer Art Wallace reworked the Æ premise:

"Assignment: Earth is interesting in a sense," Wallace points out, "because I had gone to Paramount and pitched a series idea to them. They had said that Gene Roddenberry had come up with a very similar idea. So I saw Gene and we decided to pool the idea, which was about a man from tomorrow who takes care of the present on Earth. That was intended to be the pilot, although it was never made into a series. It was a good pilot and it's a shame, because I think if they had done it as a series with just Gary Seven, it would have been a very successful show." Source: Captain's Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages.

There were some differences from the final episode in this version:

No black cat! Isis – either human or feline – is nowhere to be seen.

Gary Seven's transporter beam came from even farther across the galaxy than it did in the episode.

After Seven was confined in the Enterprise brig, he revealed his mission to Dr. McCoy, turning the tables on Bones by asking him to think like a doctor, not a mechanic.

Roberta London, recruited by Mr. Seven, was beamed up to the Enterprise for interrogation. The frightened Roberta was soothed by Uhura, who reassured her that she was still among Earth people.

About 30–50 per cent of the Seven-Lincoln-Isis story is not developed yet. It feels much more like a Trek episode with Seven and Lincoln as guest stars, instead of the back-door pilot it became. A lot of re-writing was done over the holidays by Art Wallace to deliver the episode we know.

The Final-Draft Trek Script : January 1, 1968

Notable changes from the final-draft script to the produced episode include:

The supplemental Captain's log which immediately follows Seven's capture where Kirk describes "A man in a 20th-century business suit. What is he? Not even Spock's…etc." was not in this script.

In the briefing room, a line by Spock is cut:

Spock: Medi-scanners indicate it is a cat, Captain. Female… as we've seen, remarkably intelligent…

McCoy was to enter the briefing room scene earlier, with Kirk showing impatience with him to report.

Just before the Beta 5 says, "In response to nuclear warhead…" an exchange between Seven and the Beta 5 is cut:

Seven: Computer, how much longer? Beta 5: Useless questions will only prolong search. Seven: Are you a one-relay machine? Clear a circuit; describe present mission of agents 201 and 347.

Immediately following Seven saying, "That's the same kind of nonsense that almost destroyed planet Omicron IV," a line has been cut:

Seven: Balance of power won't work. The other side will launch still more, they'll end up with the sky full of H-bombs waiting for just one mistake.

The scene where we first see Roberta Lincoln was scripted to include Kirk and Spock in the background, following her. In the episode we see Roberta make a comedic entrance, and Kirk and Spock travel the same sidewalk a few minutes later.

When Seven poses as a CIA agent to Roberta, some of the dialogue was softened to make it a more friendly exchange. Originally, it was to be more combative, as it was in the first part of this scene.

After Seven transports out from his vault, the scene with Kirk, Spock and Roberta has been restructured. The three were scripted to come into Seven's private office together, they weren't aware of the vault transporter, and it was Spock who found the map of McKinley Base. In the episode, Kirk rushes into the office alone, sees the vault close before he can reach it, and brings the map back out to Spock and Roberta in the outer office.

During the scene with Sergeant Lipton phoning in the security check on Seven, Isis was scripted to be following Seven. Knowing cats, this was most likely impossible to accomplish on set, and so Seven carried Isis and the unscripted line for Seven to put down the cat was necessary to have her under foot to finish the scene as written.

Seven and Isis on the gantry arm is unscripted, though what they're doing is detailed. As written, Seven and Isis walk out of the elevator in one scene, and in the next Seven is removing the panel. Perhaps Wallace did not describe the exact environment because he knew that it would depend on matching the stock footage supplied by NASA with the sets that Desilu would build in response, and that happened after the scripting process was completed.

The cigar box Roberta uses to konk Seven in the back of the head was originally scripted to be a heavy art object. Given Teri Garr whacked Robert Lansing with the small padded box hard enough for the actor to see stars, it's probably just as well.

The call from Scotty to Kirk about all powers being on alert was scripted for Spock earlier in the scene.

Roberta was to lower the servo on her own, rather than having Seven intervene. As shot, the scene works better, building trust between Seven and Kirk.

Roberta's plea to Kirk, "He's telling the truth." was to have another piece:

Roberta: A woman feels things about a man. Spock: A point against him, Captain. They are usually 100 per cent wrong.

Probably a good idea to have excised all that.

Kirk says, "Spock, if you can't handle it I'm going to have to trust him." As scripted:

Kirk (agony): Spock, it's all mankind at stake. No man should have to make this decision.

During the wrap-up, a whole piece of the scene was removed:

Kirk (glancing at Roberta): One other thing is needed to maintain history as it is supposed to go, Mr. Seven. A permanent secretary. (indicates) Our historical records indicate that one Roberta Lincoln resided at this address many years. Roberta: 'Resided'? Now wait just one minute, friend… Seven: Living here will be no threat to your 20th century moral code, Miss Lincoln… Seven: It's a separate adjoining apartment which was leased for Agent 201… You'd find it quite luxurious…

Much of this happens while Roberta is looking at the human Isis, and as such, it probably didn't work because everyone else's attention was on Roberta and they would have seen Isis too.

After the "Simply my cat, Miss Lincoln" gag, Roberta's living arrangement dialogue continues:

Seven: Can you use the apartment? It would be convenient for the new agents to have a secretary nearby. Seven (to Kirk): I expect to be replaced shortly. Your record tapes showed other names listed at this address. (waits, then frowning) They did, didn't they, Captain? Kirk: I'm afraid we can't tell you everything we've learned, Mr. Seven. (glancing at Roberta, back at Seven) It might change history if you knew too much.

The line Spock says about "interesting experiences in store for Seven and Lincoln" is absent from the script, and was most likely used to replace the longer explanation for a quicker and cleaner wrap up, and perhaps to leave things more open ended for how Æ might eventually be produced.

"Assignment: Earth" aired as the last episode of Star Trek 's second season. It failed to generate interest, and the series never materialised.

Roads Untaken : 2013

assignment earth spin off

Adam Riggio Ï is a writer/philosopher, and he created a series of posts for his blog on his version of an Æ series. Fascinating stuff.

Available as a PDF above.

VHS

The episode has been released as part of the numerous video series by Paramount/CBS. The remastered version can also be purchased as a download through iTunes Ï and Amazon Ï . The trailer is below.

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The first servo appears to be the original prop. The antennae are curved and the knurled rings are flush with the barrel. It has a chromed finish.

The second is a typical replica made for the collectors' market. The antennae are straight and the knurled rings are raised.

The last is from the Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas, and is a third version of the servo.

Map and IDs

McKinley Rocket Base Map

Courtesy of Michael Davis, fantastic re-creations of the map to McKinley Rocket Base and Gary Seven's IDs. (For personal use only.)

Roberta's Dress

It was very bright

Roberta Lincoln's distinctive dress was a sore spot for actress Teri Garr. The dress' hemline started out being more modest, but the powers-that-be kept that hem rising until it was almost a micro skirt instead of a mini.

"This dress was important since it was worn by the Roberta Lincoln character, who was intended to be the co-star of a new television series. The mid Sixties are reflected visually whenever Roberta appears. The colours and material [William Ware] Theiss used for this dress, although mildly psychedelic, are really quite mainstream for the time." Source: The Star Trek Sketchbook: The Original Series .

Set Blueprints

Seven's Office

This started out as me wanting to re-create the set plans for the episode and it quickly got out of hand. The script called for an attached apartment Roberta would live in, so that was next. And with Seven and Isis remaining on Earth, they'd need more space.

Available as a PDF above, with layer control to focus on different details.

Behind-the-Scenes Info

Star Trek Giant Poster Book 9

Adaptations

assignment earth spin off

James Blish adapted the episode as one of the stories included in the Star Trek 3 anthology. In his version, the Trek characters dominate. When I came to do mine, I went in the opposite direction, writing the story from Seven, Isis, and Lincoln's point of view, leaving out the Trek crew's scenes which didn't include the Æ characters.

Both are available as ebooks above in ePUB (iBooks, etc.) and KF8/MOBI (Kindle) formats.

Star Trek 3

The original series episodes were adapted into short story form by noted science fiction author James Blish ( Cities in Flight , etc.), with Æ appearing in the third volume.

The three novels have been authored by Greg Cox. While one might hope for an Æ project that isn't tied to Trek , we'll take what we can get. Assignment: Eternity is fun and involved, and we get to see a possible outcome for the team of Seven and Lincoln.

The Eugenics Wars pair open in 1974. Gary Seven watches with growing concern as the children of a top secret human genetic engineering project called Chrysalis grow to adulthood. In particular, he focuses on a brilliant youth named Khan Noonien Singh. Can Khan's dark destiny be averted, or is Earth doomed to fight a global battle for supremacy?

The Strange New Worlds series is an annual collection of fan fiction. Each of these volumes contains a story with Gary Seven as a major or supporting character.

Star Trek 49

Beginning in the 1980s, DC Comics held the licence to publish Star Trek comic books. Previous publishers included Gold Key and Marvel Comics. However, DC produced a consistent, high-quality product, and the books remain fan favourites.

To celebrate the 50th issue of Star Trek , they decided to bring back Gary Seven. An interesting story, it adds some new elements to his tale.

The trade paperback collects Star Trek 22–24 with Harry Mudd, and 49–50 with Gary Seven and Isis.

Star Trek Assignment: Earth 1

Veteran comic book artist and writer John Byrne Ï produced a five-issue mini series (also collected in trade paperback) which showed his version of what an independent Æ series might have been like.

Alternate Credits

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These credits sequences were made by Andy Patterson Ï and friends, and are ideas for a non- Trek opening for Æ . They combine episode footage with new pieces.

Video Vignette

This video – with Roberta Lincoln and the Beta Five desk cube – was made by The Outer Rim Ï (formerly Star Trek Anthology).

It has been a number of months since Miss Roberta Lincoln has been working for Agent Gary Seven. Her duties have tended to consist of 90 per cent boredom, 10 per cent chaos. In this vignette, we get a glimpse of that 90 per cent, but all of that is about to change…

Mego Action Figures

Mego Gary Seven, Roberta Lincoln and Isis

These fantastic custom figures were made by James "Captain Dunsel" Brady and are featured on his Mego Madhouse Ï website.

Playmates Action Figures

Playmates Seven, Lincoln, Isis and Beta 5

Here's another set of nicely-done custom figures. Seven, Lincoln, Isis and the Beta 5 done in the style of the Playmates line by customiser Matthew Hackley Ï . And check out the Sixties orange shag carpet.

These photos and info come courtesy of James Sawyer's A Piece of the Action Ï blog.

Episode Poster

CBS commissioned Juan Ortiz Ï to create an original print for each Star Trek episode.

Trading Cards

Gold Plaque Card G55 (front)

Robert Lansing

The Great God Brown

Robert Lansing had already established himself as a stage, movie and television actor in leading roles when Gene Roddenberry asked him to appear in this back-door pilot. In the interview below, he speaks about his Assignment: Earth experience, and the bio goes into detail on his entire career.

Join the Robert Lansing group on facebook Ï . Ï , created and maintained by Paige Schoolcraft. -->Lansing also has IMDB Ï and Wikipedia Ï entries.

1989 Interview

Approached by Gene Roddenberry to guest star as Gary Seven in "Assignment: Earth," Robert Lansing at first refused. "At the time," he confides, "Gene was a good friend, but I was a New York snob actor, come out to Hollywood. Many folks in my self-perceived position didn't do Star Trek because it was considered a kid's show, or a young show at any rate. Gene said, 'I'm writing this for you and we can play with it. It might be a series.' He said, 'Well, you don't have to, but just do this one thing for me.' So, I did. It was a damn good script and a lot of fun. "What Gene had done," Lansing continues, "was to go to futurists and scientists and ask them what advanced societies out in space might do towards more primitive societies like ours. "One of the futurists said that they would probably kidnap children from various planets, take them to their superior civilisation, raise them, teach and enlighten them, and then put them back as adults to lead their worlds in more peaceful ways. That was the idea behind Gary Seven. "The fun with that show," he discloses, "was working with the cats." With obvious pleasure, Lansing confesses that whenever he meets fans, he always asks them, "What was the name of my cat?" "We had three black cats. That was because in those days, the theory was that you couldn't train cats. Cats would have a certain propensity: One would like somebody, would want to follow them around, so that day, you would release the cat that would probably do what you wanted it to do. One of the cats took a great liking to me. It was always loose on the set when I was working, so it happened that the stuff on the rocket gantry was all ad lib. I would say something like, 'Isis, come on, you're getting in the way. You know, there is a bit of a hurry. This is not the time to be jealous.' We added meows in later." Not a practical joker himself, Lansing confirms that the Star Trek set was still full of fun and pranks. "William Shatner and I would get mixed up and start 'camping' a scene," he remembers. "We did plenty of outtakes." Of his fellow guest, Teri Garr, Lansing recalls, "She hadn't had much experience then, but she had this kooky personality that certainly worked. Gene saw that very early on and dressed her for it and worked her with it. "She had a terrible time with this bit where she had to hit me with a box and knock me out. It was a small box and it was padded, just a box. She was so nervous that finally I said, 'Teri, hit me.' And she gave me such a clobber that she nearly did knock me out. Gene said it didn't look right and we had to do it again. "I was never asked to do another episode. That was my Star Trek swan song. "It turned out, though, that I'm better remembered for Star Trek than any of the Broadway plays I've done," he says with a bemused smile. Source: Starlog 149. The full interview can be read by clicking on the thumbnail above.

The following biography was written by Jeanne DeVore Ï , who was kind enough to grant me permission to reprint it here. It was written as a tribute and to help raise money for cancer research Ï .

Robert Lansing was born Robert Howell Brown on June 5, 1928, in San Diego, California, and died October 23rd, 1994 in New York of the cancer he had been suffering from for some time. His career spanned more than a generation, in film, on stage, and on television.

Born at the dawn of the Great Depression, Robert Lansing's early years were spent traveling around the country with his salesman father. When he was nine, he snuck under a loose flap into a visiting tent show in Texas and fell in love with the make-believe world of the theatre. Determined to become an actor, he volunteered for his grammar-school play, and immediately began driving himself with total commitment.

Back in California a few years later, he kept polishing the dream, appearing in every amateur theatrical he could. He dropped out of high school to enlist in the army, served his two years, and started hitchhiking from Los Angeles to Broadway.

Stopping in Fort Wayne, Indiana to visit an aunt, he became an actor with a local civic theatre group, a radio announcer, and a teen-age husband. Two years later, the Lansings took off for New York. Using his GI Bill benefits, Robert enrolled at the American Theatre Wing's dramatic school.

These were lean years, as he struggled to make a living. He and his first wife divorced, and he married actress Emily McLaughlin (best known as nurse Jessie Brewer in General Hospital ).

Soon after, their fortunes changed. Cast as the psychiatrist in Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer , Robert Lansing was named one of that season's two best off-Broadway actors (the other was George C. Scott). That success led to his first Hollywood TV part in Alcoa Presents .

His first Broadway role was in 1948 in Stalag 17 , and his first feature film was 1959's The 4-D Man . His career encompassed all genres, though he was well-known to science fiction fans through his appearances in cult films like Empire of the Ants , and his appearance as Gary Seven in the Star Trek episode "Assignment: Earth."

Lansing's television work won him critical acclaim, if not financial success. Of his role as Detective Steve Carella in the series 87th Precinct (based on the books), author Ed McBain was reported as saying, "He is Carella." And his replacement as the lead in the series 12 O'Clock High caused a great deal of furor. TV Guide critic Cleveland Amory, who liked to refer to himself as a curmudgeon, wrote, "Make no mistake about it. Robert Lansing is magnificent."

Robert Lansing's final television role was that of Police Captain Paul Blaisdell, on the series Kung Fu: The Legend Continues . Executive Producer Michael Sloan, who had been friends with Lansing since both men worked together on Sloan's series The Equalizer in the 80s, wrote the part expressly for Lansing, who had already been diagnosed with the cancer which would eventually kill him. Despite failing health, Lansing appeared in almost two dozen episodes during the series' first two seasons. But eventually, the strain became too much. The final episode of the second season "wrote out" the character of Blaisdell, though left the door open for his return, should Lansing's health rally. As it was, the episode "Retribution," filmed in February of 1994, was Lansing's final appearance. It aired a month after Lansing's death and was dedicated to his memory.

Robert Lansing was survived by his wife, Anne, and two children from previous marriages: Robert Frederick Orin Lansing and Alyiki Lansing West.

Biographical information source: "The General Died at Dusk," Jerry D Lewis, TV Guide , May 15, 1965. The full interview can be read by clicking on the thumbnail above.

Pajama Party

Teri Garr started off as a dancer, but it was this early acting appearance as Roberta Lincoln that set her on her future path.

After Assignment: Earth , Teri Garr went on to become a star. Her films include Young Frankenstein , Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Tootsie . She also played Phoebe's mom on Friends . In 2002, she went public with her battle with multiple sclerosis.

Garr's IMDB Ï and Wikipedia Ï entries.

1991 Interview

In a 1991 interview, Teri Garr expressed a negative opinion of her Star Trek experience:

Teri Garr appeared in "Assignment: Earth". However, Garr responds, "I have nothing to say about it. I did that years ago and I mostly denied I ever did it." She does admit that she would have been in the TV series that the episode was a pilot for, but it didn't sell. "Thank god," she says with genuine relief. "Otherwise, all I would get would be Star Trek questions for the rest of my natural life – and probably my unnatural life. You ever see those people who are Star Trek fans? The same people who go to swap meets." How about Marc Daniels, who directed that episode? "He's dead. I liked Gene Roddenberry, but I don't remember those people. I really don't want to talk about Star Trek . That's what I told them about this interview. If it's a science fiction magazine, they're going to ask me about this stuff I don't—" She breaks off abruptly. So much for that line of inquiry. Source: Starlog 173.

2005 Autobiography

In her 2005 autobiography, Garr took a more neutral position:

And then I got my first big break as an actress. A friend in my acting class told me that they were casting a guest role on Star Trek .… This role was supposed to spin off into its own series – Assignment: Earth . It was going to be tough to get an audition – all the big agents were clamouring to get their clients seen, and my agent wasn't in that league.… Luckily my friend from acting class had an in and helped me get through the door. I never thought I would get the part because I was still really just a dancer.… I had no real credibility as an actress.… Then I read the script and saw that in the first scene my character was flustered because she was late. I thought: Well, I'm always late. I can do late. After I did the reading they asked me to come in for a screen test. I'd never had a screen test before! They cut my hair short and put me in front of a camera. They had me turn in a circle very slowly. Then they asked me easy questions.… I was overjoyed to be having a screen test. I didn't dare hope I'd get any further, but the next thing I knew, they were calling me to appear on set. I was dizzy with joy – and that dizziness helped me get into character. …Had the spin-off succeeded, I would have continued on as an earthling agent, working to preserve humanity.… But it was not to be. Source: Speedbumps: Flooring It Through Hollywood .

April Tatro

Assignment: Earth

A number of Trek -related sites – including this one – previously identified Victoria Vetri as the human version of Isis. Turns out we were mistaken. Thanks to the folks at The Trek Files podcast Ï , we now know that contortionist/actress April Tatro played Isis.

Of her cameo in “Assignment: Earth,” she said, “I’d never had so much attention in all my life.”

In addition to her role on Trek , Tatro appeared in Laugh-In , Wonder Woman , Big Top Pee Wee , as well as other films and TV shows.

Tatro's IMDB Ï entry.

This could be Sambo

Courtesy of collector William McCullars Ï , an NBC press release dating from the original broadcast names Sambo as the cat who played Isis.

According to Robert Lansing:

"We had three black cats. That was because in those days, the theory was that you couldn't train cats. Cats would have a certain propensity: One would like somebody, would want to follow them around, so that day, you would release the cat that would probably do what you wanted it to do. One of the cats took a great liking to me. It was always loose on the set when I was working, so it happened that the stuff on the rocket gantry was all ad lib. I would say something like, 'Isis, come on, you're getting in the way. You know, there is a bit of a hurry. This is not the time to be jealous.' We added meows in later." Source: Starlog 149. The full interview can be read by clicking on the thumbnail in the Robert Lansing section.

I think it's safe to say that it was Sambo he developed the working relationship with.

Roddenberry's 1970s Pilots

Genesis II Script

In between the original Star Trek series and Star Trek Phase II (which would become Star Trek - The Motion Picture in 1979), Roddenberry tried to sell three concepts as ongoing series: Genesis II/Planet Earth , The Questor Tapes and Spectre . All three had their merits.

Sources: Some materials courtesy of John Fraraccio and Frank Stone.

Assignment: Earth , Star Trek and all prominent characters are © & ® CBS Studios Inc. Ï All Rights Reserved. Beta Five source render © Geoffrey Edwards Ï . Design and original material © Scott Dutton Ï , who is in no way affiliated with CBS Studios Inc., but would consider any offers.

Den of Geek

The First Star Trek Spinoff Would Have Explored a Very Different Kind of Frontier

As Star Trek was meeting its potential end, Gene Roddenberry tried to make a very different sci-fi spinoff with Assignment: Earth.

assignment earth spin off

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Enterprise in Star Trek: The Original Series

By the end of Star Trek ‘s second season, Kirk and the Enterprise had encountered many godlike beings and advanced technologies. Yet, they still reacted with shock when, during a trip back to 1968, a mysterious person interferes with the ship’s transporters, and even more so when the person reveals himself as a serious-looking human holding a black cat named Isis.

That man, they discover, is Gary Seven a 20th-century human and member of an alien peacekeeping force. Seven has been sent back to his home planet to prevent a rocket launch that would further enflame the Cold War, a mission that Kirk and Spock take too long to understand.

Such is the plot to “Assignment: Earth,” the 1968 finale to the Original Series ‘ second season, which was also almost the last episode of the entire series. But even if that had been the end of Kirk and crew on television, it may not have been the end for Gary and his feline companion. After all, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had originally hoped to turn “Assignment: Earth” into an ongoing spinoff series, one that would have taken a slightly more grounded approach than exploring the final frontier.

A Missed Assignment

“Captain, we could say that Mister Seven and Miss Lincoln have some… interesting experiences in store for them,” says Spock at the end of “Assignment: Earth.” The line was intended as a tease for the audience, capping a backdoor pilot that Roddenberry hoped would lead to his next hit sci-fi series. But even before it was folded into Star Trek, the idea for “Assignment: Earth” began life as its own standalone show. Unfortunately, when none of the networks showed interest in ordering a pilot, Roddenberry and co-creator Art Wallace reworked the idea, instead launching “Assignment: Earth” via the also imperiled Star Trek .

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For that reason, “Assignment: Earth” spends more time with Seven than it does Kirk and Spock. Played with stoic reserve by Robert Lansing, Seven goes about his mission to disrupt the launch at the (fictional) McKinley Rocket Base with utter seriousness. Along the way, we learn a bit about his backstory. The descendent of humans abducted by aliens in 4000 BC and brought to peak mental and physical ability, Seven has returned to his people’s planet to prevent Earth from destroying itself before they can achieve harmony.

Along the way, Seven dazzles audiences with his high-tech equipment, including a massive computer hidden behind a bookcase in his apartment, his voice-activated typewriter, and his “servo,” a pen-shaped device that operates as a multipurpose tool.

The episode also gave Seven two partners, the first was Isis, who may or may not also sometimes be a sexy lady (this is a Roddenberry show, after all). The second is a hip ’60s woman called Roberta, played by Teri Garr . In her first major role, Garr shows off the comic timing that will make her a star, playing Roberta as sometimes overwhelmed by the advanced technology, but with a strong moral core and moments of bravery.

But despite all of the pieces in place for a cool sci-fi series, in which Gary and his crew continue to protect Earth’s timeline from being altered, neither audiences nor networks wanted more of Gary Seven. And when we next saw the Enterprise crew, they had much more important issues to deal with, namely finding Spock’s Brain in the season 3 opener.

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The assignment continues.

Even if Lansing and Garr never returned as Seven and Roberta, Trekkies didn’t forget about them. The characters play key roles in the Eugenics Wars novels by Greg Cox from the early 2000s. In those stories, Seven finds the boy Khan Noonien Singh in a secret lab in 1974 India. Seven rescues the boy and plans to raise Khan in the ways of the aliens who taught him, hoping that Khan will use his augments for the good of humanity.

But when Khan takes steps that lead to the Eugenics Wars, Seven and Roberta try to stop him, essentially becoming his first nemeses. Seven’s failure to prevent Khan’s rise leads to his retirement from his post, with the mature Roberta taking over in his place.

Seven and Roberta have also appeared in several Star Trek comics, including a 2008 five-issue miniseries Star Trek: Assignment Earth by IDW Comics , written and penciled by none other than comics legend John Byrne. The comic picks up three months after “Assignment: Earth,” and follows the duo on a series of adventures, which involve more nuclear facilities, secret cloning labs, and even a return trip to the Enterprise .

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All of these stories present Seven and Roberta as secret agents, which makes sense, given that Roddenberry modeled the characters on popular British agents James Bond and The Avengers . However, sci-fi fans will notice quite a few similarities between the “Assignment: Earth” heroes and another popular franchise timey-wimey franchise following an alien protagonist: Doctor Who .

Like the Doctor, especially William Hartnell ‘s first incarnation, Seven has a stoic demeanor, which sometimes clashes with his cool young female companion. He uses alien equipment to go where he needs to anywhere on the planet (not through time, but given how easily the Enterprise time travels, it’s hard to believe that Seven didn’t have a few tricks to pull it off).

Seven solves problems by pointing his pen-shaped servo at things, which allows him to open and unlock doors, turn on computers, and that can even be set to stun, just like the sonic screwdriver. He even gets past security with a wallet full of fake ID cards, which feels a lot like psychic paper. Of course, psychic paper wasn’t added to Who lore until the Russel T Davies reboot. And even the sonic screwdriver didn’t appear until the Second Doctor serial Fury from the Deep , which aired at the same time as “Assignment: Earth.” Clearly, Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln were onto something in 1968.

“I have never felt so helpless,” Kirk confesses in a supplemental log late in the episode. It’s a telling statement. Not only does Seven get most of the attention in “Assignment: Earth,” but Kirk and Spock spend the entire episode following his trail, confused and inert.

Had a letter-writing campaign not convinced CBS to produce one more season of Star Trek , “Assignment: Earth” would have been an ignoble end to the series but perhaps also the jumping off point for new adventures starring Mr. Seven and his companions. But even if Trek ‘s legacy is more than secure in 2024, it would still be nice to see the characters of Seven and Roberta make some sort of return. After all, humanity still needs a lot of help.

Joe George

Joe George | @jageorgeii

Joe George’s writing has appeared at Slate, Polygon, Tor.com, and elsewhere!

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“Assignment: Earth” Remastered Review with Video & Screenshots

Star Trek - Assignment: Earth

| May 6, 2008 | By: TrekMovie.com Staff 169 comments so far

REVIEW by Jeff Bond

Long before The Jeffersons, Rhoda and Private Practice, Star Trek got an early start on the idea of spin-off series with this peculiar but very entertaining stealth pilot for a series that would have starred Robert Lansing as Gary Seven, a human being trained by aliens to keep a secret watch over Earth during one of the most dangerous periods in its history.

The last broadcast episode of Trek ’s season two, “Assignment: Earth” takes the once shocking concept of time travel as depicted in “Tomorrow Is Yesterday” and “The City on the Edge of Forever” and makes it so commonplace that it’s merely another routine task for the Enterprise to slingshot around the sun and travel back to 1967. What’s not commonplace is Seven himself, a seemingly superpowered humanoid who appears on the Enterprise transporter pad with his cat, almost overpowers Spock and some security guards before succumbing to a phaser stun.

The opening scenes with Seven are well done, effectively establishing an urgent aura of mystery around the man and emphasizing Kirk’s anxiety at the potential disaster inherent in messing with history. Once Seven escapes the Enterprise and Kirk and Spock don civilian Earth clothing to pursue him, the episode shifts easily into comedy with Teri Garr’s scatterbrained and amusing secretary Roberta Lincoln trying to make sense of her strange new boss and the two oddball strangers who invade his office. Yet there’s still room for some interesting dramatic moments, as when Seven broods over the death of two fellow agents “in something as meaningless as an automobile accident.”

It’s interesting to wonder how this might have played out as a television series, a kind of earthbound companion piece to Star Trek (one fan went so far as to design a title sequence and record a piece of theme music for the show that “Assignment: Earth” might have been… see below for more ). Robert Lansing was always a popular and intriguing television performer in everything from Twelve O’Clock High to his role as Control on The Equalizer . At the time of “Assignment: Earth” Terri Garr had primarily found work as a dancer in Elvis Presley pictures—her Star Trek guest shot was a breakthrough role for her and demonstrated a quirky comic presence that would later be used to great effect in films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Tootsie . And Trek staple Barbara Babcock conspires with art director Matt Jefferies, Trek special effects guru Jim Rugg and the Trek sound effects editors to create a memorably bitchy computer in the Beta 5, an obvious first cousin to Richard Daystrom’s M-5 unit.

Oddly Kirk and Spock get very little comedy to play in this episode as they spend the bulk of the story in hot pursuit of Seven, But Kirk’s anguish and tension over the mystery of Seven and what kind of havoc he might wreak in Earth’s past is well played and the missile detonation countdown finale, simply staged though it is, is a nice suspense sequence.

As for CBS-D’s contribution to this episode I have only one thing to say: AGAIN with the Earth-like planets! I’ve had it up to HERE with you people—I mean show some imagination for once! Would it kill you to show a planet that wasn’t—what? Oh, this IS Earth?

Never mind.

Some nice shots here, and placing the moon into several of them really helps differentiate these not only from the original shots but also from other Remastered episodes that feature Earth. There was a lot of talk on the boards about replacing the gantry shots or other stock footage of Saturn boosters intended to stand in for nuclear missile launch platforms or whatever—I suppose some of that could have been done but I don’t remember really being bothered by the stock footage use in the original episode. The quality of the original rocket footage was good enough and the episode does a rather clever job of putting Mr. Seven into the gantry environment, so the few orbital shots done here are more than sufficient for the episode.

( higher quality version at YouTube )

SCREENSHOTS REMASTERED v ORIGINAL by Matt Wright

assignment earth spin off

Bonus Video: Assignment: Earth…the series Here is a glimpse at a possible opening theme for the Trek spin-off that never was…

This was created by musician and school teacher Andy Patterson (with help from his brothers Michael and Phillip). Andy wrote the music for the theme and recorded the original music using real live musicians . There is also an alternative ‘jazzier’ version at YouTube . Visit Andy’s Gary Seven Website for more.

Seasons One and Two discounted at Amazon The Season Two box set is now available at Amazon for pre-order, discounted to $63.99 (Amazon has a low price guarantee that if they drop the price before ship date of August 5th you will get that lower price). Amazon has also discounted the Season One DVD / HD DVD combo disk is to $96.95 (retail is $194.99).

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first? hmm- always wondered what the show would be like if they had done it?

A lot of the screen stills make great desktop pics you know

i have one spanned across both my monitors at work! they are all lovely. :)

that policeman should have gotten his own show!

Justman tells a great story about Roddenberry making Teri Garr’s skirt shorter and shorter. It’s why it looks so peculiar in the episode

Star Trek started it’s run in germany with “Tomorrow is yesterday”, all three seasons were shown totally mixed up over the years. So I was quite surprised that it was no problem no more to go back in time, should star fleet command ask for it. But the funniest part about this ep was that the dubmeisters of german TV called Gary “Seven Rock”…

One of my favorite episodes.

“That, Ms. Lincoln, is only my cat.”

I could’ve use that line once or twice.

oh and re: earth type planets & cbs-d ……LMFAO.

I would have enjoyed CBS-D’s work on “Assignment: Earth” much more if they just didn’t have the Earth rotating in the WRONG DIRECTION throughout the whole episode.

The original had it right… why make that dumb change?

If the had to change something, I would have liked the Big E heading toward the sun at the fade-out.

Yip,,Good old 20th century Earth,,,

It must of been a good place,, their always going there

( I love that poster )

ReallyMan (#8),

Holy Cow! You’re right! The Earth is spinning in the wrong direction in those clips. I can’t believe it.

Actually, yes I can. In the original FX (as well as many of the remastered ones) the Enterprise always seemed to be orbiting against the rotation of the planet below it. This despite the fact that the ship was supposedly in geosynchronous orbit over some significant point on the planet’s surface.

The folks at CBS-D probably disn’t even consider the planet’s rotation when they rendered the new FX. Whoopsie!

It’s spinning in the wrong direction… because.. they, uh, went BACKWARD in time! Yeah! That’s it!

I always liked ‘Assignment Earth’, it’s groovy. Shame they didn’t find a way to fix that dreadful shot of Gary lying across a gantry near the rocket by compositing in a new background or whatever.

‘Assignment: Earth’ would make a good series today.

This was a nice episode. It gave us a break of the “starship Enterprise discovers strange new worlds in the future” routine. Also we got a powerful guest star in Gary Seven. Some of Kirk and Spock’s troubles on 20th century Earth prefaces Star Trek IV.

Actually, it was a really bad day that day.

That just happened to also the day when arch villain Lex Luthor attempted to devastate the United States, and dramatically improve the value of his otherwise worthless real estate purchases, by launching two re-programmed missiles to induce a major earthquake.

What you couldn’t see in those orbital shots was Superman speeding around in orbit, reversing the flow of time.

It was a two-fer cross-over episode. Two aliens: one Kryptonian, one of ancient human ancestry reliant on technology, working to save Earth.

1. …BE the day…

2. LL didn’t launch the missiles, but, just re-programmed them

(shakes head) time to get some coffee for myself…

13. RTC – May 6, 2008

‘Assignment: Earth’ would make a good series today.

Yes it would.

You know,…knowing this episode as well as I do,….being very aware of the rhythms and pace of this show, makes me very aware of the seconds they shave off to make it fit in today’s commercial. Kind of jarring.

Did anybody notice the sound effects still left in from I Mudd and transplaned at the beginning of this episode?

Thanks for the mention Jeff. If Darren is out there,…any chance my theme two will ever be shown at the conventions you speak at? I’d really like to get the fan reaction to it. I’m starting to like it more and more after all this time.

#13 RTC –

I always thought that the 1997 show “The Visitor” with John Corbett must have been an attempt to realize “Assignment: Earth” as a series.

The main problem I had with “Assignment: Earth” was the contrived uselessness of Spock, to make Kirk’s choice more dramatic. Spock could not destroy the platform in time, so the only logical choice was to let Gary Seven try. Spock’s lack of logical thinking was very out of character. Otherwise, I wish they would have made a series out of this. Very similar to Doctor Who in many ways. Had Roddenberry recently travelled to England and happened to watch some of their science fiction tv? Hmmm, I wonder…

Re Terri Garr and comedy, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN is a better example than CLOSE ENCOUNTERS.

Also, notice that Roddenberry gets the ‘producer’ credit at the end. Did John Meredyth Lucas quit by then?

Gary Seven… always made me wonder about Gary One, Two, Three… etc.

Perhaps it’s not too late to have a series about Gary Eight, Nine or Ten…. I mean, c’mon if Andromeda and Earth: Final Conflict can be scraped off the bottom of the frying pan, certainly a series “Assignment: Earth” starring Jamie Bamber as Gary Nine, Nicki Clyne as his flighty secretary Jane Henderson, and Kim Kardashian in a non-speaking role as Isis the… “cat”… could be filmed in Vancouver starting next week for the Sci Fi channel…. It could even play in the Star Trek universe as we sort of know it, and reference all sorts of things. They could be busy revising history to eliminate all incidences of Khan, the Bell Riots, WW III, you name it. The Ultimate Trek Retcon, yep.

Good call by everyone on Earth rotating the wrong way. It’s simply stupid, inexcusable, and impossible. Yes, you could make a perspective argument, but only IF the darkened limb was moving westward. It’s not… you can see the shadow creeping eastward.

Furthermore, the ending flyby should have been on a heading for the Sun. After all, the return to the 23rd century should have been hinted at, following Tomorrow is Yesterday’s effects.

This is one of my favourite TOS eps. Great acting, story, suspense, and humour.

The only problem is that it was a huge mistake to make time travel so easy (further compounded in ST:IV). It’s a hard enough leap of faith to accept warp drive, transporters, cloaking devices, etc. But at least once you accept their existence, ST does a pretty good job of using these gimmcks in logical and consistent manners.

Time travel is another story – ST is all over the map (and usually completely ILLOGICAL) in explaining the paradoxes inherent in the concept. They covered the whole spectrum from saying that there was only one “real” timeline (City on the Edge of Forever, Yesterday’s Enterprise, etc) all the way to saying that there were an infinite number of coexisting timelines (Parallels) so in fact it doesnt matter whether someone messes with the past, because all possible realities exist anyway!

They should never have opened the time travel can of worms in the first place.

Roddenberry revisited the Gary Seven idea when he did “The Questor Tapes.” Which he revisited again when he created Data.

He sure did a lot of “revisiting” of earlier ideas…

I loved this show as a kid…Gary Seven and all his gadgets, going back in time, etc. I still like it today.

I liked that they didn’t change much in this episode (the new shots of Earth were a nice touch, though).

Further to this idea – the only time travel explanation that really makes some sense is the coexisting timelines idea. This one does the best job of avoiding the embarassing paradoxes. It means that when someone goes back in time and “changes” the past, all they are really doing is jumping to a different alternate timeline. The “original” unchanged timeline still exists somewhere in the multiverse – it’s just that our heroes are now existing in a different reality.

Well, how do you expect me to type, with my nose?

Hey, wait a minute – the typewriter is typing everything I….

Again, very disappointing. CBS-D didn’t even both removing the very noticeable dirt from the (twice-shown) still close-up of the rocket. No exploding rocket shot. The earth rotating in the wrong direction?! A stock footage snore-fest.

This was supposed to be spin off , I wish this one had happened.

it’s a hopeful spin-off, that’s why ole Gene was credited as the producer… so as to beam away from unemployement if ST were to walk tha’ plank after season two…

arrrr… isn’t Terri Garrrrr so darn adorable here that ye just wanna hug tha’ stuffin’ outta her? I do… awwwww…

Gary Sieben be interesting character, James Bond meets Spock meets Doctor Doolittle meets Mr. Bic… arrrrr

CBS-D could have made Spock more able ta’ control a secretary rather than push her down inna huff and run away… playground flashback?

Kirk: There’s a man on the rocket girder… and there’s a monkey on the plane’s wing… Spock, if you didn’t like the tribbles, why are you petting the kitty cat? Get those coppers outta here!

ahhhhh, but I kid… actually better than I remembered it ta’ be… arrrrrr…

As 20 cd points out, The Gary Seven / Doctor Who parallels are utterly uncanny, right down to his attractive young female companion and sonic screwdriver. Very intriguing, and more than a little suspicious! (Come to think of it, I wonder if that had anything to do with it not becoming a series.)

I’ve always been very fond of this episode, though, just because Lansing’s so cool and Garr is so fun (and young and cute!), and it’s a delightful, unexpected departure from the Trek norm — though, yes, the overly casual use of time travel is cringe-inducing, as it begs the question… if time travel is that easy, why aren’t all warp-capable starships in Trek (Federation, Klingon, Romulan, you name it) time-traveling all the, er, time, and frakking things up? A huge can of worms.

Anyway, I hadn’t seen this episode in years — not since discovering the joy of Doctor Who, in fact — so it was a treat, as well as a completely new experience given the Who-ian lens I now view it through.

Damn shame about the Earth rotating in the wrong direction, though. They’re never gonna live that one down. ;-)

It always weirded me out that in the original version Earth was having a completely cloudless day. Now THAT’S a problem for an advanced space ship to work on.

Those of you interested in what this would’ve been like as a series, might I recommend the Eugenics Wars books? Gary Seven and company are pretty key players, and it’s weird hearing them refer to the supposed adventures they’ve had on Earth in the last few decades… like they’re some sort of Star Trek Torchwood.

Backwards rotating Earth? They must have rushed out the last episodes to save money after Toshiba backed out.

I own Gene Roddenberry’s original treatment for “Assignment Earth” courtesy of the Profiles in History Auctions a few years back. It’s quite a thing to have from the production of the original show.

It’s interesting that Bob Justman really doesn’t consider this episode as a good pilot or even just an entertaining episode. I’ve always liked this one and I wish that the Saturn V could have been replaced with something else, but that’s really wishful thinking considering the limits of this project.

Gary’s office and the Cape… Why- those are the most detailed sets that TOS ever had! Wonder why?

And Terri Garr was so darn cute with her gestures and expressions that she made Mary Tyler Moore look like a pile of puke….

Oops… mixing sentiment…

And Robert Lansing- hey, they hired actors for guest stars! Wow.

Overall- highly enjoyable and fun… starnge it’s an attempt at a pilot rather than a TOS-like ep… I mean who the hell was that Kirk guy who sort of just stood around? the villain?

arrrrr… Terri Garrrrrr be so cute…

oops I did say that alreday… I mean better than an Orion whose juzt lookin’ fur condoms and a switchblade…

I’m sorry but the Earth spinning backwards is a major problem that undermines this entire remaster project.

Very disappointed.

I’ve always dug the idea of cat being. Cool concept. Dig the gantry scene. Lansing is add-libbing dialogue with the cat that makes the whole scene.

Also….I think they cut out, to make time, the reaction shot of McCoy in the sickbay when Kirk asks for his analysis of Seven. It seems DeForest Kelly wasn’t even told what line he was reacting to. “It’s like they said “just look perturbed De”. Which he does. It’s also interesting to see so many shots of actors reacting to things that are’nt there. It’s clear that Shatner and Nimoy are’nt even in the room with Lansing and Garr in the final scene. Both sides are reacting a little off.

And do people notice Barton Larue (Guardian of Forever) and Doohan’s voices on the Mission Control floor?

The earth was spinning in the wrong direction because this episode was supposed to be a “spinn-off”.

33. Thomas Jensen — Dare I ask if you’d consider scanning and posting that “Assignment: Earth” treatment to share with the rest of the class? ;-) I’d dearly love to see/read it.

Nice write-up, Anthony. Thanks!

I also enjoyed reading everyone’s commentary, as always.

38 – LOL

AAARGH! Yet another ‘Earth-like’ planet… ;) And spinning the wrong way at that. Doesn’t surprise me at this point, as it’s been a bit of a backwards project from the start where certain factors have been concerned.

#28 Izbot – And yeah, they could at least enhanced any obvious artifacts on the stills you mentioned…

Another sub-standard effort guys, but those that are not bothered, enjoy!

I liked this episode. However, was it just my broadcast or did some of the scenes look washed out and overexposed. I noticed several scenes where the quality was pretty poor. Not the FX fault as it was likely the original film. Just wondering if anyone else noticed anything like that?

One of my favorite scene was the launch of the Saturn V. Such a beautiful rocket!

Would also love to learn more about the Aliens that took the humans 5000 years ago. That would be some cool stuff to see in a movie…

Great Effects!!!!!!!!!!!

Were any scripts written for the spin-off series? If so, are any in existence today?

There is a Star Trek novel, Assignment: Eternity, that brings Gary Seven and Roberta into the TOS time for an important mission. I read it a while back, and as I recall, there are mentions of Gary & Roberta getting involved with The Prisoner/The Village and The Avengers. And one of the Strange New Worlds books has a story about them rescuing Capt. Christopher from an obsessed Men-In-Black agent who has photos of the Enterprise from its visit to 1968 and who was present when Quark & company visited Roswell back in 1947.

I would like to ask what people have against “Earth-like” planets. DOn’t they make sense to be there with what they look like on the surface. If It has life on it, doesn’t it stand to reason that it would be earth-like?

I agree with #43 – the transfer on this ep was all over the place, with contrast and saturation changing from cut to cut in alot of the scenes. Kind of disappointing given how great many of the remastered transfers have looked.

Oh, and if I could go back in time, I’d go back twenty years and make sure TNG did a Gary Seven episode with Robert Lansing…

I t’ond kniht eht htraE gninnips sdrawkcab sah dah yna tceffe no su……

Loved this episode and loved Teri Garr as Roberta though she does not love us Trek fans!

But I won’t be harsh on her nowadays, dear lady is living with MS and I wish her the best.

Assignment: Earth series you will not find a bigger proponent than I!

Forget Earth: Final Conflict and Andromeda, they should have dusted off A:E and revived it as a series instead!

I always hated this episode, it is so cheesy and probably has the worse staying power of any TOS episode.

assignment earth spin off

Subspace Chatter

assignment earth spin off

A Fresh, New Way To Expand the Franchise: Finally Spin Off ‘Assignment: Earth’

After more than 50 years, paramount should make series roddenberry once dreamed of.

assignment earth spin off

With some 56 years between production of the original Star Trek pilot, “The Cage” and production of the latest franchise spinoff — Star Trek: Strange New Worlds — the quip has been that Strange New Worlds had the longest lag time between pilot and series in television history.

The conceit being, of course, Strange New Worlds is the story of USS Enterprise under the command of Captain Christopher Pike before the years of Jim Kirk as we saw in the first original pilot, “The Cage,” which was rejected by NBC and eventually reworked into the two-part original series story, “The Menagerie.”

Now Paramount should greenlight a new and novel series that would be nearly as long in the making.

Thank you for reading Subspace Chatter. This post is public so feel free to share it.

That would be a new series based on the episode from the second season of the original series, “Assignment: Earth.”

It would have an impeccable pedigree, as Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry always intended “Assignment: Earth” to launch a new series.

Guest starring Robert Lansing and a very young Teri Garr, “Assignment: Earth” told the story of an encounter on Earth in 1968 between the Enterprise crew and an interstellar agent — played by Lansing — codenamed Gary Seven, who was planning to intervene in 20th-century events.

Garr played Roberta Lincoln, a human secretary employed by two of Gary Seven’s fellow agents who have gone missing.

assignment earth spin off

Roddenberry produced “Assignment: Earth” as a backdoor pilot for what would have been what would have been Star Trek’s first spin-off.

Learn more here:

Lansing described Roddenberry’s vision for his planned series in a 1989 interview with Starlog Magazine , quoted on an Assignment: Earth fan website , The Complete “Assignment: Earth.”

“What Gene had done, was to go to futurists and scientists and ask them what advanced societies out in space might do towards more primitive societies like ours. One of the futurists said that they would probably kidnap children from various planets, take them to their superior civilization, raise them, teach and enlighten them, and then put them back as adults to lead their worlds in more peaceful ways. That was the idea behind Gary Seven.”

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Roddenberry, himself, described it this way in his original pitch to the network:

“‘Assignment: Earth’ is the Star Trek spin-off pilot of a new show, ‘Assignment: Earth,’ a totally new today concept which can be described as ‘Science Fiction 1968!’ Laid against 1968 backgrounds and stories, but without losing the excitement and imagineering which identified futuristic Star Trek.”

The proposed series had a very Doctor Who sort of vibe, with a mysterious traveler — Gary Seven — wandering the cosmos with a human companion, Roberta Lincoln. Gary Seven even had his own device which was very much like The Doctor’s sonic screwdriver.

The network passed on Roddenberry’s pitch.

But NBC and 1968’s loss today could be Paramount, 2023’s — and our — gain, as the studio ought to reach back and fire up “Assignment: Earth” as a modern-day series.

Subspace Chatter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Such a series could well be perfect as the next extension of the Star Trek franchise, and even its largest expansion ever.

assignment earth spin off

Star Trek has, through its history, mostly told stories of Starfleet and a the crews aboard a variety of hero ships.

The series, Assignment: Earth , would represent a radical departure.

It would, by definition, tell very different kinds of stories, the more-intimate sorts of stories folks expect from, well, Doctor Who .

And that would be its genius.

It would be both Star Trek and non-Star Trek simultaneously.

To be sure, just as with the crew from Strange New Worlds , Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln would have to be recast. (Lansing passed away nearly 30 years ago and Garr has been seriously ill for years, nevermind her advanced age today.)

Indeed, Assignment: Earth even would be a budget-conscious series for the financially ailing Paramount to pick up (once the current Hollywood strikes are resolved) given that it would feature just a two-person main cast with others coming on as guest players.

But such a series also could be a perfect vehicle for Paramount, as it could attract Star Trek fans as well as the kind of broader audience that gravitates towards series like Doctor Who and Quantum Leap .

It might even function as a gateway, of sorts, luring casual fans and the broader non-fans into the rest of the Star Trek franchise.

Which is precisely the kind of series Paramount and its Paramount Plus streaming service need both to hold existing subscribers while picking up new ones.

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assignment earth spin off

John Lindley Byrne (born July 6, 1950) is a British-born American comic-book writer and artist. Since the mid-1970s, Byrne has worked on many major American superheroes. Byrne's better-known work has been on Marvel Comics’ X-Men and Fantastic Four and the 1986 relaunch of DC Comics’ Superman franchise, the first issue of which featured comics' first variant cover. Coming into the comics profession exclusively as a penciler, Byrne began co-plotting the X-Men comics during his tenure on them, and launched his writing career in earnest with Fantastic Four (where he started inking his own pencils). During the 1990s he produced a number of creator-owned works, including Next Men and Danger Unlimited. He scripted the first issues of Mike Mignola's Hellboy series and produced a number of Star Trek comics for IDW Publishing. In 2015, Byrne and his longtime X-Men collaborator Chris Claremont were inducted into the comic book hall of fame.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Corey Bond from United States (John Byrne. Cropped prior to upload.) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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assignment earth spin off

Memory Beta, non-canon Star Trek Wiki

A friendly reminder regarding spoilers ! At present the expanded Trek universe is in a period of major upheaval with the continuations of Discovery and Prodigy , the advent of new eras in gaming with the Star Trek Adventures RPG , Star Trek: Infinite and Star Trek Online , as well as other post-57th Anniversary publications such as the ongoing IDW Star Trek comic and spin-off Star Trek: Defiant . Therefore, please be courteous to other users who may not be aware of current developments by using the {{ spoiler }}, {{ spoilers }} OR {{ majorspoiler }} tags when adding new information from sources less than six months old (even if it is minor info). Also, please do not include details in the summary bar when editing pages and do not anticipate making additions relating to sources not yet in release. THANK YOU

Assignment: Earth (episode)

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"Assignment: Earth" was the 55th episode of Star Trek: The Original Series , the 26th and final episode of the show's second season, first aired on 29 March 1968 . The episode was written by Gene Roddenberry and Art Wallace MA , directed by Marc Daniels MA and novelized in Star Trek 3 by James Blish .

  • 1.1.1 Episode characters
  • 1.1.2 Novelization characters
  • 1.2 Starships and vehicles
  • 1.3 Locations
  • 1.4 Races and cultures
  • 1.5 States and organizations
  • 1.6 Other references
  • 2.1.1 Adaptations
  • 3.1.1 Translations
  • 3.2 External links

References [ ]

Characters [ ], episode characters [ ], novelization characters [ ], starships and vehicles [ ], locations [ ], races and cultures [ ], states and organizations [ ], other references [ ], appendices [ ], related media [ ].

"Assignment: Earth" was originally intended to be a back door pilot episode for a spin-off TV series from Star Trek: The Original Series . The series never made it into production but Gary Seven has subsequently been featured in numerous stories in other spin-off media. Assignment: Earth finally became a series of sorts in 2008 when IDW Publishing produced a comics miniseries inspired by the original idea of a TV series: Star Trek: Assignment: Earth , detailing the adventures of Gary Seven in the late 1960s and early 1970s .

Media featuring
• • •
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" " • " " • " " • " " • " "
" " • " " • " " • " " • " " • " " • " " • " " • " " • " " • " " • " " • " " • " " • " " • " " • " " • " " • " " • " " • " " • " " • " "

Adaptations [ ]

Novelized in Star Trek 3.

Connections [ ]

Timeline [ ].

published order

produced

aired



chronological order




:

Translations [ ]

External links [ ].

  • Assignment: Earth (episode) article at Memory Alpha , the wiki for canon Star Trek .
  • Assignment: Earth article at Wikipedia , the free encyclopedia.
  • ↑ The character of Clifford Brent was not named in the episode but the same actor, wearing an officer 's Starfleet uniform , was addressed as Brent in TOS episode : " The Naked Time ". The same actor also played the character of Vinci .
  • 1 Achilles class
  • 2 Ferengi Rules of Acquisition
  • 3 Odyssey class

Memory Alpha

Assignment: Earth (episode)

  • 1.2 Act One
  • 1.3 Act Two
  • 1.4 Act Three
  • 1.5 Act Four
  • 2 Log entries
  • 3 Memorable quotes
  • 4.1.1 Original pilot (no Star Trek connection)
  • 4.1.2 Star Trek version
  • 4.2 Spinoff
  • 4.3 Production
  • 4.5 Continuity
  • 4.6 Apocrypha
  • 4.7 Video and DVD releases
  • 5.1 Starring
  • 5.2 Also starring
  • 5.3 Guest star
  • 5.4 Co-starring
  • 5.5 Uncredited co-stars
  • 5.6 Stand-ins
  • 5.7 References
  • 5.8 External links

Summary [ ]

After Captain Kirk finishes his log entry, suddenly the Enterprise is rocked, and Spock reports that they appear to have intercepted someone's transporter beam. Kirk remarks that there were no such devices in the 20th century . Spock maintains that someone is beaming aboard. Spock discovers that the transporter beam originates more than a thousand light years away. Scott finds that difficult to believe, stating that no transporter beam could reach that far, not even in their time . Suddenly a man in a dark suit, holding a black cat , appears on the transporter pad .

Act One [ ]

The strange man asks Kirk why he was intercepted and who his interceptors are. Kirk identifies himself and tells the man that he is aboard the United Space Ship Enterprise . The man asks what planet they are from, and Kirk says they are from Earth . This the man refuses to believe, because 20th century technology would not allow for a ship like the Enterprise . But when he notices that Spock is a Vulcan , he realizes the ship is indeed from the future and asks to be beamed down to Earth. As security arrives, the man identifies himself as Gary Seven , calling himself a man from the 20th century, and gives his cat's name as Isis . Kirk states, however, that Humans of the 20th century do not go beaming around the universe. Seven explains that he has been on another planet , one much more advanced, and that he was beaming to Earth from that planet when the Enterprise intercepted him. When Kirk asks which planet it is, Seven says that the inhabitants wish their planet to be kept secret and that even in Kirk's time, it will remain unknown. Seven reiterates that he is of this time period and adds that, if Kirk does not allow him to do what he needs to do down on Earth, then Kirk will have changed history. But Kirk, unsure that Seven is telling the truth, decides to keep him aboard the ship until that can be determined. However, Seven tries to escape, overpowering the security guards, and he even shrugs off Spock's attempt at a Vulcan neck pinch . Seven is only subdued by a phaser stun from Kirk. Kirk calls Dr. McCoy and asks him to examine the mysterious man in the brig to determine if he really is Human.

In the briefing room , Spock, who is stroking Isis, mentions that he finds himself strangely drawn to the cat. Ensign Chekov reports that analyzing the direction Seven's transporter beam came from show no habitable planets in that area of the galaxy and Scott says that they will not be able to analyze the transporter beam, as it had fused their recording circuits. The beam could have brought him across tremendous distances across space, and perhaps even through time; there is, quite simply, no way to know. Spock also mentions that current crises on Earth could fill a tape bank, noting that, on this one day alone: "There will be an important assassination today, an equally dangerous government coup in Asia , and, this could be highly critical, the launching of an orbital nuclear warhead platform by the United States , countering a similar launch by other powers." Kirk and Spock briefly discuss the nuclear arms race and how that once the sky was filled with orbiting H-bombs , the slightest mistake could have brought one down, setting off a nuclear holocaust.

Seven soon escapes from the brig using a device called a " servo ," disguised as a pen, to deactivate the force field and put the guard to sleep .

Back in the briefing room, McCoy tells Kirk that Seven is indeed Human, but also that his is a totally perfect body, without a physical flaw at all within him. This raises the possibility that he could be an alien taking Human form, and Spock points out again that Seven could be telling the truth. Kirk laments that neither of them is telling him anything definite. At that point, Isis jumps out of Spock's lap and leaves the briefing room. Security then alerts them that Seven has escaped. In the transporter room, where Isis rejoins him, Seven renders Lemli and Leslie unconscious with his servo and beams down before Kirk can stop him.

Act Two [ ]

Seven materializes inside a transporter chamber , disguised as a vault concealed behind a sliding rack of drinking glasses, in what appears to be an otherwise normal office.

Seven accesses a computer behind the bookcase. Seven asks for the locations of agents 201 and 347. The computer asks Seven to identify himself and Seven tells the computer to check his voice pattern, and it will identify him as Supervisor 194 , code name Gary Seven. The computer recognizes his voice pattern but is unaware of a Gary Seven being assigned to this planet. Seven then tells the computer that he is a Class One supervisor and that the computer is to override all previous instructions and answer his questions. The computer identifies itself as a Beta 5 computer capable of analytical decision and forces Seven to prove himself by describing the mission of the two agents that were sent here. Finally Seven, after griping that he has "little love for Beta 5 snobbery," relents and tells the computer that missing agents 201 and 347 are a male and a female descendant, respectively, of Humans taken from the Earth approximately six thousand years ago ( circa 4000 BC ) and that they were specially engineered and trained for this mission. The problem is that on Earth, its science and technology have progressed faster than its political and social knowledge have. Their mission is to prevent Earth from destroying itself before it can become a peaceful society. The computer states that Seven's information, while incomplete, will suffice and tells Seven that the agents have not reported for three days. Seven tells the computer to immediately begin a search and begins describing how to do so when the computer tells him it is aware of proper search procedures.

Meanwhile, back aboard the Enterprise , Kirk, Spock, and Scott are trying to determine where Seven had beamed down. Scott says that they can get to within approximately one thousand meters of where he had gone. Spock reminds Kirk that following him down is very risky because they may end up accidentally doing something to alter history. Kirk says he knows but he must also know if Seven is being truthful with them. Kirk tells Scott to have ship's stores prepare the proper costumes and then prepare to beam them down.

In his apartment, Seven learns that the agents' mission was to disable a rocket that will launch an American orbiting nuclear platform which is a counter-move to an opposing country that has already done the same. This appalls Seven, who says that this arms race is the same kind of nonsense which almost resulted in the destruction of planet Omicron IV , which the Beta 5 computer confirms. Seven asks if the warhead has been disabled, but the computer says both that it has not been and that there are just under ninety minutes before launch. Seven says that unless the agents are immediately located, he will have to undertake their mission in their absence.

Having beamed down, Kirk surreptitiously calls Scott with his communicator and tells him to lead them to Seven. Scott gives Kirk the coordinates and Kirk and Spock proceed.

Roberta Lincoln at typewriter

Roberta at her typewriter

The computer provides Seven with various pieces of false identification, including identification listing Seven as a colonel with the CIA , a lieutenant in the NYPD , and a colonel with the NSA . It also produces a map of McKinley Rocket Base . At that moment, a young woman walks in and asks if anyone is in. Seven steps out and demands to know where she has been. The woman sees no reason to tell him and asks who he is. Seven asks where 347 is but she neither knows nor understands, jokingly replying that perhaps he is with 348. She then threatens to call the police. After insisting that she sit down, Seven, wrongly believing her to be agent 201, tells her that he is "Supervisor 194, code name Gary Seven" and that he needs a complete report of all that she has done in the last three days. As the woman prepares to start typing, Seven flips a switch and tells her not to bother with her hands. When she wonders how she will type, the typewriter begins typing everything she says. This gets the young woman very frustrated, and after she yells at the typewriter to stop typing what she says, Seven finally switches it off and she says that she will quit. Seven then realizes that she is not acting. Using his servo, he locks the door; he then accesses the computer and has it identify the woman in the room. The Beta 5 identifies her as Roberta Lincoln and says that she is a secretary hired by Agents 347 and 201. Realizing the terrible mistake he has made, Seven asks Roberta what work her employers said they were doing and she says they were doing research for a new encyclopedia. Seven tells her she can go, though she will not be helping her country, unless of course, she does not care for her country. When Roberta protests that she does, Seven tells her that thanks to his incompetence, he has made her aware of some top secret devices vital to the security of the nation. He shows her his false CIA ID and she accepts that it is legitimate. Isis opens the door and meows at Seven. Seven explains to Roberta that Isis is a trained cat and asks Roberta not to let anyone in and she agrees to do so.

Out on the street, Kirk calls Scott again, and Scott tells Kirk that the source was about thirty meters higher than his present location. Thus, Kirk and Spock enter Seven's apartment building.

The Beta 5 tells Seven that agents 201 and 347 were killed in an automobile accident ten miles north of McKinley Rocket Base on Highway 949 . Seven laments the uselessness of dying in such a manner and asks if the facts are verified. The computer does confirm this, noting that the description of the agent's bodies is accurate.

On the floor outside Seven's apartment, Scott tells Kirk which way to go and they find the right apartment. Kirk rings the doorbell and Seven has the computer deactivated. Roberta opens the door, but when Kirk asks about Seven, she says that she has no idea who he is talking about, that this is a government office, and that they should leave immediately. But Kirk will have none of it, demanding to know where Seven is. Roberta demands that Kirk leave, but he refuses, and she finally grabs the phone and calls for the police. Kirk and Roberta briefly struggle over the phone and she asks Seven to come help her. Seven, meanwhile, has entered the transporter in his safe and disappeared. Spock discovers where Seven was, and Kirk goes in and has Spock restrain Roberta. She manages to pull Spock's cap off and is dumbstruck at the sight of Spock's pointed Vulcan ears.

Seven rematerializes inside the rocket base and observes the rocket which is armed with the warhead.

Act Three [ ]

Kirk finds Seven's map of McKinley Rocket Base. Roberta tells them she has already called the police to the office. When the police arrive, Spock tries to keep Roberta quiet, but she screams before he can. Kirk calls Scott, whom he orders to perform a wide scan, as they will be moving, and be ready to beam them up. They run into the office, but Roberta runs to the door, admits the police, and points them into the office. They run in just as Kirk orders them beamed up – and the two police officers are beamed up with Kirk and Spock, all four disappearing before Roberta's eyes. Kirk and Spock jump off the transporter platform, and Kirk immediately orders Scott to beam the policemen back down, which he does. The two policemen are returned to the office, leaving them dumbstruck at what they have seen and experienced and Roberta not knowing what to believe.

At the rocket base, there are only fifty minutes until launch. Seven is approached by a security guard as he approaches launch control. The guard, Sergeant Lipton , has Seven lower Isis to the ground and requests identification, and Seven produces his CIA ID. While the guard calls to verify, Isis distracts Lipton, allowing Seven to stun him with his servo and he then takes the phone and tells the security identification office at the other end that everything is now OK. He then sits the stunned guard down and tells him to take a nap. Seven then makes his way to the gantry elevator by hiding in the trunk of the launch director's, Cromwell 's, car. When the car arrives at the launch pad, he exits the trunk, hides in the elevator, reaches a gantry, removes an access panel with his servo and begins to rewire the rocket.

Meanwhile, Kirk, Spock, and Scott, in the transporter room, search for Seven at the launch site by reflecting their sensors off a low-orbiting weather satellite. Unable to find him, Kirk and Spock decide to beam down to the base to search for Seven the old-fashioned way. They materialize in front of the previously stunned guard as he awakens. Lipton takes them into custody and escorts them to the control room in the launch complex. They are briefly interrogated, but all attention is focused on the launch preparations. Kirk and Spock stand there unable to act.

Meanwhile, planning to quit again and telling the computer interface that she promises not to tell anyone about Seven or anything she has seen, Roberta accidentally discovers that depressing a pen holder on the desk opens the sliding glass rack. She then fiddles with the combination lock to the safe and succeeds in opening the safe/alien transporter room. At the same time, using the ship's sensors, Scott locates Seven on the rocket gantry while he is manipulating wires on the rocket. Scott calls for security and then attempts to beam Seven back aboard. Sensing the transporter beam, Seven gathers Isis into his arms. But at the same time, Lincoln's fiddling with the safe/alien transporter controls pulls him back to the NYC office.

In the launch facility, Kirk and Spock watch helplessly as the countdown progresses. The security officers inspect Kirk's and Spock's phasers and communicators. The security supervisor tells Kirk that only the slightest possible charges will be brought against them if they explain why they are here and what they are doing. Kirk can only stand silently and watch as the rocket launches up toward space.

Act Four [ ]

Spock and Kirk, 1968

Spock and Kirk in custody at McKinley Rocket Base

In the office, Seven is initially angry at Roberta for interfering, but he then calms down when he realizes that what she had done likely kept him from being transported back aboard the Enterprise and again taken prisoner. He then goes over and begins to work at the Beta 5 computer. He inquires whether he had done enough to take control of the rocket, and the Beta 5 confirms that he had.

Seven uses the Beta 5 exceiver circuits to cause the third stage of the American rocket to malfunction and veer off course. He also arms the warhead and Roberta, who had become very suspicious of Seven, hits him on the head with a small jewelry box, for she now realizes that what he has been doing is beyond the CIA's abilities. She grabs Seven's servo and tells him to stay where he is. Seven begs Roberta to let him finish what he had started, otherwise when the rocket warhead detonates somewhere in six minutes, it will start World War III.

From the science station on the bridge, Chekov and Sulu see the warhead arm and call Scott in the transporter room to inform him of what has happened. Sulu tells Scott that the computers indicate an impact somewhere in the heart of the Eurasian landmass. Uhura, listening in to broadcasts from her station in multiple Earth languages, reports that she is receiving military alerts from the major powers. Scott decides that he will have to risk calling Kirk, and tells Uhura to open a channel to his communicator.

At launch control, the mission planners note the malfunction in the rocket and try to override it and get it back on course. When the warhead arms itself, the scientists are confused as to how it could have done so on its own. They prepare to send a self-destruct signal to prevent the H-bomb from otherwise detonating on an unsuspecting population somewhere.

Kirk, taking advantage of this distraction, steps over and tries to activate his communicator, but Lipton catches him and sends him back to his corner. Just then, Scott attempts to contact Kirk for instructions. When the communicator beeps and the rocket base guard picks it up and tries to talk to Scott, Spock steps over, under the guise of showing Lipton how to use it, and uses his nerve pinch to render him unconscious again. Kirk has Scott beam them directly to Seven's office. Unfortunately for the scientists, the self-destruct signal does not work. The lead flight controller picks up a red phone to make a call to the President .

Back in Seven's apartment, Seven tries to tell Roberta the truth about what has been happening and that truly advanced civilizations would neither take strange forms nor visit Earth in force, explaining that the best option is to bring Humans to their planet and train them for generations, until they are needed on Earth. Roberta tells him that she wants to believe him, for she knows that her world needs help; this explains the seemingly insane conduct of some of the people of her generation, of whom she points out, "We wonder if we're gonna be alive when we're thirty."

Just as Seven tries to run back to the computer, Kirk and Spock enter the apartment again. Kirk asks Spock if he can detonate the warhead using the computer, to which Spock replies that he can attempt it. Seven says that he wants the warhead detonated too, but that he will have to do it, and at least a hundred miles above the ground, so that it will frighten the people of Earth out of the arms race. At that moment, Scott calls Kirk, telling him that the Enterprise 's monitors show all major powers on full missile alert and a retaliatory strike is ordered upon warhead impact. Spock says that without more time, he can only estimate, and Seven angrily asks Kirk to allow him to do his job. Kirk insists that he still does not know what Seven's job is , and that for all he and Spock know, Seven may set the controls so that the warhead may not even be detonated. Then Roberta points the servo at Kirk and demands that he leave Seven alone. Seven quickly grabs it from her hand and tells her that the servo was set to kill. He deactivates it and then hands it over to Kirk. Kirk tells Spock if he cannot detonate the warhead, then they will both have to trust Seven. Spock tells Kirk that in the absence of facts, there is no logical decision and that he will have to rely on his Human intuition to guide him.

After a brief moment, Kirk tells Seven, " Go! " Seven runs over to the Beta 5 and begins working the controls, activating a visual of low Earth orbit and having the computer count down the miles by tens. Finally, at 104 miles, Seven manages to detonate the warhead.

Later in the day, Seven is dictating the last bit of his report into the typewriter. " …and in spite of the accidental interference with history by the Earth ship from the future, the mission was completed. " Spock then corrects Seven and tells him that by all appearances they did not interfere but that, rather, that the Enterprise was simply part of what was supposed to happen on this day in 1968. Kirk says that their record tapes show that while it was never generally revealed, a malfunctioning sub-orbital warhead was exploded exactly 104 miles above the Earth. Spock adds that, furthermore, it caused the nuclear powers to re-assess the risks of a nuclear orbiting platform. That everything turned out just how it was supposed to leaves Seven feeling relieved.

For a moment, Roberta looks over at Isis and sees a rather gorgeous woman. She steps over to Seven and asks if he will explain who that is. Seven says that it is simply his cat. When Roberta looks back, Isis is a cat again. Seven then asks Kirk what else their record tapes show, but Kirk says they cannot, in turn, reveal all they know. Spock does say that it would be safe to say that Seven and Roberta have some interesting experiences ahead of them and Kirk agrees with that assessment. Kirk calls to be beamed up by Scotty, Spock tells Seven to "live long and prosper," and Kirk says that the same goes for Roberta. They shimmer and vanish with Roberta looking on in awe once more, and the Enterprise leaves orbit to go back to its proper time.

Log entries [ ]

  • Captain's log, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), 2268

Memorable quotes [ ]

" Humans of the twentieth century do not go beaming around the galaxy, Mister Seven. "

" It's impossible to hide a whole planet. " " Impossible for you, not for them. "

" Mr. Spock, historical report. " " Current Earth crises would fill a tape bank, Captain. "

" Where's Three-Four-Seven? " " With Three-Four-Eight? "

" Well, how do you expect me to type? With my nose? "

" I'm telling you, you're through monkeying around with my country's rocket. "

" I know this world needs help. That's why some of my generation are kind of crazy and rebels, you know? We wonder if we're gonna be alive when we're thirty. "

" Without facts, the decision cannot be made logically. You must rely on your Human intuition. "

" That, Miss Lincoln, is simply my cat. "

Background information [ ]

Production timeline [ ], original pilot (no star trek connection) [ ].

  • Story outline "Seven" by Gene Roddenberry : 20 April 1965
  • Revised story outlines: 23 April 1965 , 25 April 1965
  • First draft teleplay: 14 November 1966
  • Revised first draft: 16 November 1966

Star Trek version [ ]

  • Story outline by Roddenberry and Art Wallace : 21 October 1967
  • Revised story outline by Wallace: 13 November 1967
  • First draft teleplay: 21 November 1967
  • Revised first draft: 11 December 1967
  • Second draft teleplay: 14 December 1967
  • Revised second draft: 18 December 1967
  • Revised draft by Roddenberry: 20 December 1967
  • Final draft teleplay by Roddenberry: 1 January 1968
  • Additional page revisions: 3 January 1968 , 5 January 1968 , 9 January 1968
  • Day 1 – 2 January 1968 , Tuesday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Engineering , Sickbay , Bridge , Transporter room
  • Day 2 – 3 January 1968 , Wednesday – Paramount Stage 5 : Int. Gary Seven's apartment , Hallway corridor
  • Day 3 – 4 January 1968 , Thursday – Paramount Stage 5 : Int. Gary Seven's apartment
  • Day 4 – 5 January 1968 , Friday – Paramount Stage 5 : Int. Gary Seven's apartment
  • Day 5 – 8 January 1968 , Monday – Paramount Windsor Street backlot : Ext. New York City street , Paramount office buldings : Ext. McKinley Rocket Base
  • Day 6 – 9 January 1968 , Tuesday – Desilu Stage 10 : Int. Mission control room ; Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Briefing room , Transporter room
  • Day 7 – 10 January 1968 , Wednesday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Bridge , Briefing room , Transporter room ; Desilu Stage 10 : Int. Rocket Platform
  • Original airdate: 29 March 1968
  • Rerun airdate: 9 August 1968
  • First UK airdate (on BBC1 ): 4 November 1970
  • First UK airdate (on ITV ): 27 February 1983
  • Remastered airdate: 3 May 2008

Spinoff [ ]

  • This episode was designed partly as a pilot for a new series featuring Gary Seven and his mission. Star Trek was teetering on the brink of cancellation late in its second year, and Roddenberry hoped to get a new show going for the fall season. The first draft pilot script ( 14 November 1966 ) had no mention of Star Trek or its characters. [1]
  • Assignment: Earth did not enter production as a television series, but Seven and Roberta were featured in several stories and they spun-off a comic book series from IDW Publishing , Star Trek: Assignment: Earth by John Byrne .
  • The plot concept of benevolent aliens secretively helping Earthlings, as opposed to the much more common "villain aliens" scenarios, was later resurrected by Roddenberry for his movie The Questor Tapes.
projects
Films: • • • • • •
Series: • • • •
: • • • • • • •

Production [ ]

  • Stock footage of the Enterprise orbiting Earth (without clouds) is reused from " Miri ".
  • A closeup of Montgomery Scott behind the transporter station is recycled from " The Enemy Within ".
  • According to The Star Trek Compendium (1st ed., p. 140), the first draft script (dated 20 December 1967 ) had the Enterprise bridge crew watching an episode of Bonanza on the viewscreen.
  • East 68th Street is also the street that was home to the main characters from the Desilu TV show I Love Lucy .
  • The typewriter is a Royal Emperor, which could type from a cassette tape recording of the text. [2] (X)
  • The Beta 5 computer contains many components from the M-5 multitronic unit in " The Ultimate Computer ". These components were recycled yet again for " All Our Yesterdays " and " Spock's Brain ".
  • A new effect is used for the transporter as Seven is beamed aboard for the first time – slow motion flames can be seen behind the opaque back wall of the chamber. This may be due to the Enterprise 's unintentional interception of Seven's unusually powerful transporter beam.
  • NASA shot all their footage using the anamorphic format, hence all the rocket launch stock footage in this episode is cropped from the 2.35:1 aspect ratio to television's conventional 1.33:1. [3]
  • The rocket stock footage in this episode is actually of three Saturn Vs: footage of the rocket on the ground is a combination of the SA-500F Test Vehicle (the only Saturn V to feature "USA" markings on the third stage) and Apollo 6 (the only Saturn V launched with a white service module). Footage of the rocket launching is of Apollo 4 .
  • This is the only episode of the second season to have Gene Roddenberry credited as "Producer" instead of "Executive Producer," the first time he had received such a credit since the first season. Roddenberry wanted to be very "hands-on" for this episode, as he hoped to turn it into a spin-off series. He rewrote Art Wallace 's script and was heavily involved in production, including sets, props, casting of actors, and even the costume of Terri Garr – he insisted on shortening her mini-skirt to be "more revealing," much to the anger of costume designer William Ware Theiss . ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story ) Garr had a very unpleasant time filming this episode, perhaps stemming from Gene Roddenberry's involvement in decisions regarding her costume, specifically the length of her skirt. The hem was taken up so much it became very distorted. In interviews since, she has refused to talk about Star Trek in any way. [4]
  • This is also the only episode of the second season that has no credited studio executive in charge of its production, as Herbert F. Solow had left Paramount Television by this time, and would be replaced by Douglas S. Cramer beginning with the third season.
  • Robert Lansing ( Gary Seven ) is the only Star Trek: The Original Series guest star whose credit appears after the opening credits instead of during the end credits – complete with character name. The fact that the episode was to serve as the pilot for a proposed spin-off series explains the unique credits.
  • William Blackburn appears as a rocket control room technician in this episode. He can also be seen walking in front of Gary Seven just after he materializes at McKinley Rocket Base.
  • This episode marks the final appearance of the unknown actor who portrayed Bobby . His appearance in the corridor was "new" recycled footage that was originally shot during the filming of " The Corbomite Maneuver ".

Continuity [ ]

  • This is the only episode of Star Trek in which time travel is treated as "routine." The Temporal Prime Directive does not yet appear to have been proposed, let alone taken effect.
  • This is the only episode where a Federation transporter system is used to intercept and re-direct another transporter beam.
  • Along with the Vians and Khan , Colonel Gary Seven is one of the few humanoids to have ever manifested insensitivity to a Vulcan nerve pinch .
  • This episode was first aired on 29 March 1968 . Six days later, on 4 April 1968, there was indeed an important assassination – that of Martin Luther King, Jr. .
  • However, the coincidence goes beyond this: Spock says that the same day as the assassination that the US was launching an orbital nuclear warhead platform. The King assassination was the same day as the launch of the unmanned Apollo 6 Saturn V rocket. This same Saturn V amazingly enough also suffered a serious mishap and went off course. The details of the mishap with the Saturn V on April 4th differ greatly in detail from the events of Assignment: Earth. However, Kirk comments at the end of the episode that the real events were never "generally revealed" at the time. It makes sense therefore to assume, within the context of Star Trek 's fictional history that there was a massive cover-up about the Apollo 6 mishap and that a false cover story was put out to hide the truth that they were launching a nuclear weapon into orbit. This episode uses footage of the Apollo 4 Saturn V, the only previous test of that rocket. Chronologically, the closest candidate to Spock's other "prediction" of a government coup in Asia would be the July 17th military coup in Iraq that brought Saddam Hussein to power ( 17 July Revolution ).
  • This episode takes place entirely in 1968 , with no scenes in the 23rd century . Along with ENT : " Storm Front " (which takes place in 1944 ), this is one of only two Star Trek episodes based entirely in the 20th century . Furthermore, both episodes take place mostly in and around New York City.
  • The events of this episode, which take place in 1968, occurred (from the point of view of the Enterprise crew) over a year after those of " Tomorrow is Yesterday ", which take place in 1969 .

Apocrypha [ ]

  • In various novels and comics, the alien race that trained Gary Seven was revealed as an ancient race called the Aegis .
  • Seven and Lincoln have appeared in several Star Trek novels ( Assignment: Eternity and the two-volume series, The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh by Greg Cox ) and short stories ("The Aliens Are Coming!" by Dayton Ward in Strange New Worlds III , "Seven and Seven" by Kevin Hosey in Strange New Worlds VI and "Assignment: One" by Kevin Lauderdale in Strange New Worlds VIII ).
  • Gary Seven has also appeared in several comic books , including " The Peacekeeper Part One ", " The Peacekeeper Part Two: The Conclusion ", " Split Infinities ", " Future Imperiled ", and the Star Trek: Assignment: Earth mini-series.
  • The Department of Temporal Investigations novel Forgotten History explicitly places the episode on April 4, 1968.

Video and DVD releases [ ]

  • Original US Betamax release: 1986
  • UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video ): Volume 29 , catalog number VHR 2381, 3 September 1990
  • US VHS release: 15 April 1994
  • UK re-release (three-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 2.9, 22 August 1997
  • Original US DVD release (single-disc): Volume 28, 10 July 2001
  • As part of the TOS Season 2 DVD collection

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

  • William Shatner as Capt. Kirk

Also starring [ ]

  • Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock
  • DeForest Kelley as Dr. McCoy

Guest star [ ]

  • Robert Lansing as Mister Seven

Co-starring [ ]

  • Terri Garr as Roberta Lincoln
  • James Doohan as Scott
  • George Takei as Sulu
  • Nichelle Nichols as Uhura
  • Walter Koenig as Chekov
  • Don Keefer as Cromwell
  • Lincoln Demyan as Sergeant
  • Morgan Jones as Col. Nesvig
  • Bruce Mars as First Policeman
  • Ted Gehring as Second Policeman
  • Paul Baxley as Security Chief

Uncredited co-stars [ ]

  • James Doohan as Mission Control announcer (voice)
  • Beta 5 computer (voice)
  • Isis (voice) [5]
  • Rocket base technician
  • Frank da Vinci as Brent
  • Rudy Doucette as rocket base technician
  • Eddie Paskey as Leslie
  • Roger Holloway as Roger Lemli
  • Woman passerby
  • Edwin Rochelle as Passerby #1
  • Robert C. Johnson as Ground Control (voice) [6]
  • Sambo and two unknown cats as Isis in cat form [7]
  • April Tatro as Isis in Human form
  • Esther Ying Lee as Passersby
  • Monitor room personnel
  • Rocket launch watchers
  • Security guard 1
  • Security guard 2
  • Several passersby
  • Two control room personnel
  • People at snack van

Stand-ins [ ]

  • William Blackburn as the stand-in for DeForest Kelley
  • Frank da Vinci as the stand-in for Leonard Nimoy
  • Jeannie Malone as the stand-in for Teri Garr
  • Eddie Paskey as the stand-in for William Shatner
  • Edwin Rochelle as the stand-in for Robert Lansing

References [ ]

6,000 years before ; 20th century ; 1948 ; 1968 ; 1978 ; acceleration ; accident ; agent ( government agent ); Agent 201 ; Agent 347 ; alien ; all decks alert ; altitude ; analysis ; ancestor ; animal ; apartment ; arc ; area ; arms race ; Asia ; assassination ; automobile accident ; auxiliary transmitter ; baby carriage ; badge number ; balance of power ; behavior ; Bermuda ; Beta 5 computer ; bird ; birthmark ; body ; " Bones "; briefing room ; business suit ; button ; Canary Islands ; cat ; Central Intelligence Agency (aka CIA ); century ; chance ; channel ; charge ; chronological age ; circuit ; civilization ; class 1 supervisor ; close orbit ; coat rack ; code name ; colonel ; control center ; control setting ; costume ; countdown ; country (aka nation ); coup ; course ; crisis ; custody ; date ; day ; deflector shields ; degree ; Department of Investigation ; descendant ; destruct signal ; detonation ; device ; dial ; Dodge Coronet ; doll ; door ; Earth ; Earth Cold War ; East 68th Street ; elevator ; employer ; encyclopedia ; engineering personnel ; era ; estimate ; Euro-Asian continent ; exceiver (aka exceiver circuit ); existence ; experience ; expert ; extended orbit ; fact ; Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); feet ; finger ; flight control ; flight path (aka trajectory ); flight telemetry ; force shield ; Ford Falcon ; Franklin ; French language ; friend ; fur coat ; Gary Seven's homeworld ; gantry (aka rocket gantry ); gantry area ; generation ; government ; government office ; green ; groovy ; ground station ; Ground Station 3 ; Ground Station 4 ; Ground Station 11 ; guard dog ; H-bomb ; hair ; hand ; heart ; hello ; Highway 949 ; historical report ; historical research ; history ; Hobson, Albert ; Homicide Squad ; honey blonde ; hour ; Human ; Human history ; hundred ; hydrogen ; idea ; identification ; identification card ; impact ; inch ; incompetence ; information ; inspection ; instruction ; intelligence quotient ; international agreement ; intruder ; Intruder alert ; intuition ; IQ ; jealousy ; jerk ; job ; knowledge ; Johnson, Lyndon B. ; launch ; launch area (aka launch pad or launch site ); launch director ; launch site scan ; light-speed breakaway factor ; light year ; Liquid hydrogen ; location ; logic ; machine ; major power ; malfunction ; McKinley Rocket Base ; medical analysis ; meow ; meter ; mile ; military alert ; Milky Way Galaxy ; minute ; missile ; missile alert ; mission ; mistake ; mole ; name ; nap ; National Security Agency ; navigation report ; news broadcast ; New York City ; New York City Police Department ; nonsense ; no parking sign ; north ; nose ; nuclear holocaust ; nuclear warhead ; Omicron IV ; " on the double "; " on the one hand...on the other hand "; orbit ; orbital nuclear warhead platform ; oxygen ; phaser ; plan ; Plymouth Belvedere ; Plymouth Satellite ; Plymouth Savoy ; phone ; planet ; police ; pound ; Precinct 19 ; Precinct 81 ; President of the United States ; prisoner ; problem ; product ; profession ; programming ; progress ; proof ; pound ; question ; range safety ; rebel ; recording circuit ; record tape ; research ; retaliatory strike ; report ; risk ; rocket ; rocket stage ; rule ; Ryan, John ; safety group ; Saturn V ; science ; science personnel ; search ; search procedure ; second ; secretary ; security alert ; security confinement ; sensor ; sensor scan ; sergeant ; servo ; ship's store ; shoulder ; sleep ; smoking ; society ; South Africa ; " stand by "; star ; star map ; status board ; sub-orbit ; suborbital platform (aka orbital platform ); subway ; Supervisor 194 ; supervisory personnel ; tape bank ; Tau Alpha C ; technology ; telemetry control transmitter system ; telephone ; thing ; time ; time period ; time travel ; tracking station ; transporter ; transporter beam ; transporter circuit ; transporter room ; training ; truth ; typewriter ; typing ; United States of America ; USS ; verification ; visual scan ; voice pattern ; Volkswagen Beetle ; Vulcan ; Vulcan nerve pinch ; Vulcan salute ; warhead ; weapon ; weather satellite ; World War III ; worry ; year ; " your lucky day "

External links [ ]

  • " Assignment: Earth " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
  • " Assignment: Earth " at Wikipedia
  • " Assignment: Earth " at MissionLogPodcast.com
  • "Assignment: Earth" • Gary Seven, Isis, & Roberta Lincoln at AssignmentEarth.ca – includes the series' proposal, and first script along with its first and final Star Trek scripts
  • " Assignment: Earth " at the Internet Movie Database
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Assignment: Earth

I was up late last night and came across ST-TOS Assignment:Earth.

I missed the first few minutes of it and online googles have fallen short on what I want to know.

How did the Enterprise get thrown back in time to 1968? I thought the whole time travel thing was usually a mistake of some sort but it seemed totally natural that they were back in 1968 in this episode. They didn't even have a clip of how they get back to their normal time. It was like another day at the office.

What gives?!

  • star-trek-tos

Gallifreyan's user avatar

3 Answers 3

This was in the opening teaser for the episode (bolding mine):

"Captain's log. Using the light-speed breakaway factor , the Enterprise has moved back through time to the 20th century. We are now in extended orbit around Earth, using our ship's deflector shields to remain unobserved. Our mission – historical research . We are monitoring Earth communications to find out how our planet survived desperate problems in the year 1968."

So yes, they intentionally went back in time. In TOS 1x21, Tomorrow is Yesterday , (the episode that they discovered the light-speed breakaway version of time travel), they also figured out how to reverse it.

Presumably, they assumed that viewers would know they used the same method to return to their own time, and didn't bother putting it in the episode. Assignment Earth is episode 2x26, over a season later.

Izkata's user avatar

  • Good thing they stayed away from those pesky Apollo flights! –  user Commented May 15, 2012 at 14:14
  • They accidentally discovered the time warp in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" (Season 1, Episode 19, aired 1967-01-26). "Assignment Earth was Season 2, Episode 26, last episode of the season, aired 1968-03-29. –  Keith Thompson Commented May 15, 2012 at 17:53
  • @KeithThompson Yeah, I said they were different episodes, but I see it wasn't very clear. Updated the answer to include links and season/episode numbers. –  Izkata Commented May 15, 2012 at 18:06

The last episode of the second season: Assignment Earth was doing double duty as an episode of Star Trek and the pilot of another series spin off called Assignment Earth.

The show would have featured actor Robert Lansing as Gary Seven, a futuristic "James Bond," as the lead character. The episode stars Teri Garr as Roberta Lincoln, who would have been a co-star in the series, had it continued on its own. -- Wikipedia

The strange part of this episode was the fact the ship was doing "historical research" by traveling back in time! They talk about it in a matter of fact fashion as if it were something they did every day.

The slingshot effect was not even SHOWN. The show opens with them in the past intercepting Gary Seven's solar system ranged transporter beam!

They also gave a shout out to the sonic screwdriver. It's how Gary 7 escapes from the brig.

enter image description here

  • 2 Did some research and both devices were introduced within days of each other. An awesome coincidence. First appearance of the sonic screwdriver in Doctor Who: Fury from the Deep - Part 1 first aired on 16 March 1968, first airing of the Assignment Earth episode: March 29, 1968. –  Thaddeus Howze Commented May 6, 2012 at 5:21

I think this is likely to get closed as general reference, since the answer is readily available on Wikipedia.

This episode was done as the lead-in to an intended spin-off series. Gary 7, his cat, and Teri Garr's character were supposed to go on to their own show, so the emphasis was on setting that up, not on Kirk/Spock/etc. having adventures.

In Kirk's log dictation, he just says something like "we used a gravitational slingshot maneuver to go back in time to investigate..." and, as you say, they didn't even bother showing them going back to their correct time.

Ward - Trying Codidact's user avatar

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Star Trek: The Original Series

“Assignment: Earth”

2.5 stars.

Air date: 3/29/1968 Teleplay by Art Wallace Story by Gene Roddenberry and Art Wallace Directed by Marc Daniels

Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan

Review Text

The Enterprise travels back in time to Earth, 1968, to witness a historic nuclear crisis unfold. But once there, they encounter the mysterious Gary Seven (Robert Lansing) beaming in from another planet, and Kirk must decide whether his presence is a proper aspect of history or an alien threat. Meanwhile, Mr. Seven escapes his holding cell and begins conducting his undercover operation on Earth, centering on the scheduled launch of a nuclear device into orbit.

The time-travel motivation is dubious (why in the world would Starfleet risk timeline contamination to research history?), but the story has some good ideas. Unfortunately, the execution is off-kilter, with so much cross-cutting and off-pacing that the show turns choppy. Also, the episode comes across like the spin-off pilot show that it was intended as; at times it's more interested in providing a backdrop to a series that would never come to be than it is in making its story the priority.

Robert Lansing is on target as Mr. Seven, but Teri Garr is too annoying and unfunny as his secretary. The plot is reasonably good, but the bottom line is that I felt more like I was watching a good marketing ploy than I was watching good science fiction.

Previous episode: Bread and Circuses Next episode: Spock's Brain

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Comment Section

76 comments on this post.

Yours is the first source that I have ever read (seen) that speaks of Assignment: Earth as being a Pilot for a spin-off. Where in Trekdom is this substantiated? I actually liked the episode - and Ms. Garr's quirky playing of her out-of-sorts character I thought proved effective in showing her total confusion with all the high-tech stuff that was flashing in front of her. PLUS - shes was supposedly just filling in for a friend at that job - wasn't she?

^ Re: "Assignment: Earth" as a pilot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assignment_Earth

I remember watching Assignment:Earth when it first aired; I was 7 years old. It was all anyone could talk about in school the next day. Gary Seven seemed like the coolest guy ever. So maybe my love of the episode is tinted by some boyish nostalgia.

1. Assignment: Earth is listed as a potential pilot in David Gerrold's "The World Of Star Trek", from 1973. I'm pretty sure it's received wisdom. 2. Since we're listing 'favorite middle-tier episodes', I want to put my two cents in for "Metamorphosis". While justly not considered among the series' very best, I have always been deeply moved by 1) the Companion's indelible passion for Cochrane, 2) the analysis of love provided by Kirk/Spock/McCoy, and 3) Cochrane's surprisingly parochial response to the Companion's affection for him. Is it because he's centuries old? Regardless of the reason, it adds the perfect left-field touch to what I consider the most achingly romantic episode TOS ever did.

Personally, I thought this episode was godawful. The Enterprise just intentionally flies back in time to 1968 just to observe stuff? Seriously? They're serious with that? And best of all, it all happens off camera, before the episode even starts. Not even Voyager at its worst would do this. Stargate might. But the worst is that Kirk and Spock stand around a room waiting for permission to grab a communicator to beam over to Seven's secret base, so they can stop him, but in the end just let him do what he wants, because "it's for a good reason." Yeah I'm sure detonating a nuclear weapon over another country can only have POSITIVE consequences for history, and sure enough the episode insults the viewer enough to pretend that's indeed what happens as a result, and they all smile and wink at the camera as they drop this incredibly morally questionable act and end the second season (and almost the entire show) with it.

Simon Hawkin

I have just watched the episode for the first time. And the last time. What utter BS on all levels, from the awful acting to the pompous idiotism of the script. If the second season ended with this I am not surprised the original series was cancelled prematurely -- I am just glad it did not do the whole Star Trek in.

Oh, this episode isn't that bad. Clearly, the creators were trying to set up "Assignment: Earth" as its own show, but if you get past that conceit, this episode works OK, not great. There are FAR worse episodes of TOS. This middle-of-the=pack fair.

Absolute bottom-of-the-barrel, the nadir of TOS. It's the worst episode of the original Star Trek because it ISN'T an episode of Star Trek at all; Gary Seven is the prime mover of events from beginning to end, while Kirk and Spock are reduced to standing around like idiots who can do little more than hope everything works out. As for the real stars of this ep, Seven's a smug prick and Roberta's an insufferable airhead. And all of this happens under the "Star Trek" title because "oh hey, by the way, we time-traveled back to 1968." From this, through the idea that there were orbital nuke platforms in '68 (which would have been a surprise to everyone in the viewing audience) and that Seven's purposefully detonating one in the lower atmosphere would save the Earth rather than trigger World War III, right up to the Enterprise's history tapes spoiling the entire spin-off series before it can even get started with the revelation that everything that just happened was supposed to happen all along and Seven and Roberta are destined to succeed in all of their missions, the episode treats its audience like complete morons. The worst the third season had to offer still beats "Assignment: Earth", and the third season featured a whinny-ing Kirk being ridden around the room by a midget.

Actually, orbiting nuclear platforms were indeed a concern of the mid-1960s. Check out the beginning of the space sequence of "2001: A Space Odyssey" (released Summer 1968) - it looks like everyone has militarized space!

The episode was intended as a pilot for a spin off series (Assignment:Earth). The most interesting thing for me is that Gary Seven is like an American Doctor Who! He travels in time, has a companion, and even a sonic screwdriver! Maybe Gene Roddenberry was inspired by the famous British sci fi series. Who knows?

DutchStudent82

While in general an enjoyable episode, I HAVE to point out : -There WAS no time travel possible in kirk's era.. time travel was only possible in the 27th century, and only became mainstream in the 29th. -the technolony kirk supposingly uses to time travel, is not even remotely fitting technobabble, even in 1970's fysics had improved way beyong this kind of unfitting crap. So I may be a critic looking back on a show that was aired over a decade before I was born.. but still I am glad they became more professional (though not enough) in later star trek series.

-I THOUGHT this episode seemed like an attempt at a spinoff. Jammer mentioning it in his review made it all makes sense. Would have been a silly but probably entertaining show if it had actually gotten picked up by the network. -Roberta came to work like she'd done it many times. . . so why is she surprised to meet her boss? They didn't explain that at all. . . was she just . . . like. . .a temp showing up to work somewhere she'd never been before? Weird. -The cat clearly had a human making the "meow" sounds for it the entire episode. This made me laugh more times than it probably was meant to. When the cat attacked a red shirt in the transporter room I started cracking up. "RREEEEEEOOOOWWWWW!" Those poor redshirts always get the short end of the stick. -The time travel: It was indeed silly to have the enterprise travel back in time for historical research. That said, I must disagree with DutchStudent here: Time travel in the 23rd century was "nearly routine.The Enterprise had traveled in time before using a "slingshot around the sun" technique, back in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" (season 1). And they did the same thing again in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. I'd say two TOS episodes and a movie make it canon: Starfleet personnel could travel in time if they wanted to. There was some "temporal prime directive" background on this in later episodes of Deep Space 9 and Voyager.

It's that time again. Ratings for the season, where my ratings are distinct from Jammer's (with the difference in parentheses). Amok Time: 4 (+1) The Apple: 1 (-1) Catspaw: 1.5 (-1) I, Mudd: 2.5 (-.5) (a little distance made this drop a little) Journey to Babel: 3.5 (+.5) Friday's Child: 1.5 (-.5) Wolf in the Fold: 2.5 (-.5) The Gamesters of Triskelion: 1.5 (+.5) Return to Tomorrow: 3 (+.5) Patterns of Force: 2 (-.5) The Omega Glory: 0.5 (-.5) Bread and Circuses: 2 (-.5) Assignment: Earth: 2 (-.5) Season overall: Season two is definitely a step down from season one; the first season was bursting with invention, running in many directions at once, occasionally stumbling but almost always in an interesting way. There is a shagginess to this season, especially as it gets closer to the end. It's nothing compared to what season three will bring, and season two, unlike season three, has a number of remarkable highlights, breaking new ground: Amok Time, Mirror Mirror, The Doomsday Machine, Journey to Babel, and The Trouble with Tribbles are very obviously *essential* TOS, in terms of both quality and in terms of what people think of when they think of the show and in terms of laying the groundwork for these characters' histories (and the movies and spinoffs), with Obsession, A Piece of the Action, and The Ultimate Computer not far behind. There are other fine episodes, as well as some episodes with some successful elements in an overall story that doesn't gel. There is also a real sense of repetition. I actually liked both Return to Tomorrow and By Any Other Name -- but they are very similar to each other, and I feel as if combining the best episodes of each into one could have led to one classic rather than two good episodes with a lot of Venn overlaps. There was no reason to have A Piece of the Action, Patterns of Force, The Omega Glory, and Bread and Circuses so close to each other -- especially when only one of them (A Piece of the Action) was actually successful, and there successful as a lighthearted romp with serious subtext. The Deadly Years' moving moments about the nature of aging and obsolescence ultimately fail to buoy the episode from its various significant problems -- so I feel as if a little more time spent on that fear of obsolescence in The Ultimate Computer could have "covered" those themes admirably. Obsession and The Immunity Syndrome are both very good episodes, but they suffer a bit from being so close to The Doomsday Machine (for different reasons). The Ultimate Computer is a somewhat new take on the evil computer regular theme of TOS, but it's still a little familiar, and The Changeling and I, Mudd feel redundant in the wake of season one's various man vs. machine plots. There are only so many stories to tell, and I don't begrudge a certain amount of repetition of themes -- that is to be expected, and even encouraged to a degree, if the series is going to establish and reestablish a firm POV. In the case of something like Obsession, I think it's worth being glad the series returned to familiar themes and plot elements from The Doomsday Machine, since the result was so successful. But the problem comes when so many of the episodes feel halfhearted and lazily or incompetently put together, and I get the impression that the reason for this is a lack of anything new to say in these episodes. And this is to say nothing of the cynicism of "Assignment: Earth" as the season finale. I don't think it's a bad episode exactly, and as just a random episode of TOS it's...well, below average, I think, but okay. As a season finale and possible *series* finale, it's really disappointing. Roddenberry didn't particularly think that Trek would be renewed, so he used the last chance to spend with these characters to do a backdoor pilot? Classy! I wouldn't really have minded this earlier in the season, or even as second-last episode, but really. It adds to the feeling that even in season two, the creative forces were losing things to say. Which, again, makes it weird that there are so many absolute gems this season! This season seems to me like a good argument for the cable channel model of shorter seasons. It's possible that if they were given 13 eps instead of 26, they would have just produced a season of The Apple, Catspaw, Friday's Child, The Gamesters of Triskelion, The Omega Glory etc. But I prefer to think that they would have given a season of Amok Time, Mirror Mirror, The Doomsday Machine, Journey to Babel, The Trouble with Tribbles, etc. Combining the ideas from Return to Tomorrow and By Any Other Name into one mega-classic instead of two decent episodes. That type of thing. All that said, I'm very glad to have season two of TOS. It's rough and rocky, and especially toward the end there is a pervasive sameness, but its highs are very high and essential, and its middling episodes still have a lot to offer.

Along those lines, my ideal lineup for a shorter, tighter season two: 1. Amok Time 2. Mirror, Mirror 3. The Doomsday Machine 4. Metamorphosis 5. Journey to Babel 6. Obsession 7. The Trouble with Tribbles 8. A Piece of the Action 9. The Immunity Syndrome 10. A Private Little War - with heavy rewrites 11. Return to Tomorrow with some ideas from By Any Other Name 12. one other "parallel Earth society" episode -- maybe mostly based on Patterns of Force but with some heavy rewrites. The Spock/McCoy material from Bread and Circuses can go here. 13. The Ultimate Computer Obviously any season of standalone episodes can be improved by just chucking out the worst episodes, but I think the big gap between the best and the worst of season two makes it an ideal candidate for some rejiggering.

As it happens, William B, I've been pondering a similar experiment for all of ST:Voyager. Throwing out all the episodes that don't advance the overall plot, theme, or characters, the entire series can be boiled down to approx. 26 episodes of essential material (though some are two-parters), plus an equal number of runners-up. The "essential episodes" experiment could also be done for DS9, though it had a lot more ongoing threads. However, I never contemplated the "cable channel model" for TOS because of its minimal continuity. It was always an anthology, not a novel.

@Grumpy, agreed on the anthology format of TOS. With an anthology, then, the big qualities you're looking for are consistency of quality and novelty over the course of the different episodes, making sure the "important themes" the series returns to (which form the bedrock of the...I'm going to say "thematic continuity" between episodes) as well as the character development that does occur, to the extent that TOS does explore characters, particularly with the Big Three. A cable channel model for an anthology brings the advantage that the anthology can just be less meandering and more forceful in the episodes that remain. I think a similar case can be made for trimming down, say, The Twilight Zone, which I watched all the way through a few years ago whose hit to miss ratio is probably around that of TOS -- it's a true anthology series. All that said, it's hard for writers, producers, actors etc. to know which episodes are going to be hits and which misses while making them. So, it's not as if reducing the number of episodes will mean that the episodes that get tossed are going to be the bad ones. With DS9 and Voyager (and TNG), there's actually a similar problem, if you want to emphasize continuity and character/plot development: it is not obvious, on a first pass, which elements of a story are going to be important and which are going to be dropped. To take TNG as an example, if you want to be a strict adherent to continuity as the guideline, then "Lonely Among Us" can't be discarded because it's the start of Data's Sherlock Holmes fascination; this could easily have been a recurring subplot that was binned, but instead it became a pretty essential facet of Data's character. I'm not sure what point I'm making, except that it's much easier to do this type of thing with the benefit of hindsight and the whole series before us than it would have been for the writers at the time. To elaborate on my choices, I do enjoy "The Changeling," "I, Mudd," and "Wolf in the Fold" enough that I probably would keep them on if I were really limiting myself just to "episodes I think are worth rewatching," rather than picking a (somewhat arbitrary) 13, which is chosen as half of 26 (and is a standard, though by no means the only, choice for cable shows, i.e. Mad Men mostly did 13-episode seasons before the split final season). I'd be curious which episodes you peg as essential and runner-up for Voyager. Maybe on one of the Voyager pages (Endgame?).

Whatever point you're making, William B, I get it. Even anthologies can center on a theme, though obviously in the case of TOS (and Twilight Zone, which I've recently watched, as well) the theme emerged without conscious design. Roddenberry didn't set out, as far as I know, to make a show that consistently illustrated how, for instance, humans are not ready for paradise (or, in Rod Serling's case, how you can't go home again). But toss out stories that don't service that through-line, you've got a coherent package of episodes. With Voyager, though, the premise was clear from the get-go (though Elliott might still disagree about what constitutes a "premise"). Therefore, it's immediately obvious which episodes are germane and which are time-fillers, put into production because there were no other ideas for scripts that week. It's not a matter of retroactively recognizing quality or serendipity of execution, or capitalizing on unforeseen potential. Voyager (more so than DS9) had a story from the beginning, which becomes more evident when 5/7 of its episodes are stripped away. I'm tempted to post my list, but I don't know where. It would be lengthy and deserves much debate (as I am not uniquely qualified as curator). I considered "Eye of the Needle," since that's what inspired the list, but I dunno.

This episode was just awful, a preposterous and silly plot from beginning to end. The cavalier attitude towards time travel to do historical research was beyond ridiculous.

I enjoyed season two, but one thing that hurt it was that they had to many parallel earth. Not only that, but these parallel earth episodes were aired to close together. Ironically this is what Gene Roddenberry wanted to do with Trek is time parallel earth stories that mirrored problem of the present or past. I love that fact that Scotty and Uhura got a lot more to do this season. Chekov was a great addition to the cast and I'm glad he didn't turn into boy wonder the wiz kid. I feel bad for George Takei who lost out on a lot of great moment for his Sulu character due to filming the Green Beret. It's pretty obvious a lot of great moments that he could have had went to Scotty and Chekov. Takei likes to blame Shatner for his shortcoming on Trek, but he obviously lost out on a chunk of good material because of Green Beret. Top 5 episodes. Amok Time Doomsday Machine Mirror, Mirror, The Trouble With Tribbles. Journey to Babel Honorable mention goes out to Obsession.

Not sure there's much sense in criticising this episode for breaking Time Travel continuity rules, when they weren't established yet... It's not the best episode of TOS but still fun in its way, I thought.

Good episode, although Gary Seven telling his office computer in the first act that he's on a mission to prevent earth's nuclear holocaust lets the cat out of the bag (pun intended) a bit too early, robbing the episode of some tension. To give us more investment in the Enterprise crew's pursuit, it might have been better to let us keep guessing up to the end whether he was friend or foe. Nevertheless, this show is still a tightly-paced time travel yarn with contemporary overtones in classic Trek fashion, setting the tone for this type of episode on future Trek series -- I would give it 3 out of 4 stars. The young Teri Garr, a delightful actress with great comic timing, adds a sassy and fresh voice to the male-dominated cast that makes the show a bit more fun to follow than usual. Her body language even in simple scenes, as when she tries to get around a pedestrian on the sidewalk, is pretty amusing. And although she's not always integral to the main plot, her charismatic screen presence allows us a sympathetic then-contemporary viewpoint on the proceedings which makes them a bit more accessible. Robert Lansing's Gary Seven oozes 1960s cool, adding to the Cold War espionage vibe of the story, and I liked his gadgets. The cat Isis (phrasing?) is pretty cool too. Overall, lots of interesting stuff here, including the orbiting nuclear weapons plot point that still feels somewhat relevant today. Unfortunately, once Mr. Seven starts crawling around the nuclear warhead and our heroes follow him, the pace of the episode stalls out. Considering that Gary Seven might have explained his mission to Roberta (Garr) and our heroes sooner, all the double-crosses between the lot of them in the last act felt a bit frustrating, as one had the impression it might have been avoided. Having said that, the pro-disarmament plot of Mister Seven traveling back in time to destroy US warheads in the interest of preventing earth's self-destruction is a nice idea, fitting with Star Trek's idealism. The time paradox dialogue at the end doesn't really make sense, but I do appreciate the humanitarian optimism of this one. Not really sure why some people here dislike it so much; "Assignment: Earth" is not great or perfect by any means, but it's an entertaining hour with some nice ideas, and that's pretty much all I ask from an episode of Trek.

Now it makes sense to me that "Assignment: Earth" was some kind of pilot for another show - Kirk/Spock aren't close to being the main character(s) and as a TOS episode it comes across as kind of odd. I was getting a bit bored with all the footage of the rocket launch/control center. Have to also say that the plot is a bit ridiculous - like the Enterprise can just go back in time to whenever no problem. And then the final resolution, Kirk/Spock just have to trust Gary Seven that he intends to detonate the nuclear warhead at the right altitude - since they cannot in time. Not much to it. It is noteworthy for a young Teri Garr (Tootsie) - her character was sort of ok but makes sense that it's part of a pilot. I want to know: was the black cat the same as the one in "Catspaw"? Not a really strong episode but not awful as some other commenters have said. I'd give it 2 stars out of 4.

@Stubb, Wholeheartedly agree with you re. "Metamorphosis" - nobody will consider this episode one of the TOS classics or among its very best, but it is one of my favorites. It is the best sci-fi love story I've ever seen. George Duning's terrific soundtrack is perfect for making it a very moving story.

RandomThoughts

Hello Everyone! @Rahul Yep, it was a pilot for another show. And what you wrote got me to thinking... I read recently that the original series never broke the top 50 in ratings, and of course we know NBC tried to cancel it after each of its first two years. Now, taking all of that into consideration, why in the world were they using it as step-stone for a new show? If they did not believe many people were watching, how was this going to help the new one get off the ground? That just seems weird to me... Have a Great Day Everyone... RT

Anyone have an idea why the lady was disguised as a cat?

When Roddenberry has big input, the result is usually a terrible script. Here he realizes that Star Trek is about to be cancelled and so turns an episode into a secret (and awful) pilot for another show. Real classy Gene. I think we can basically pretend that this is not really a Star Trek episode.

Good idea for a series. Poor storytelling. If AE had been on the air and lasted into the early 70s it could have been really good. Oh well.

Shakespeare's "The Comedy of Errors" had nothing on this one!

Am going to watch this episode in the coming days but must point something out: this is now the fourth episode in which the crew visit 20th Century earth (or recreation thereof), and the fifth of which the crew visit Earth's history if you count the Adonias episode, THIS SEASON. And these are the pre-Braga days! My overriding impression of TOS from my youth was the lack of creativity in the setting. They were on the edge of the Final Frontier and yet it seems like even the crew of DS9 did more exploring! The precedent for repetition was set by TOS. Brannon Braga is a one-trick pony (I heard there is no explanation of "one-trick pony" in the dictionary, it simply says "See Braga, Brannon"). But to be honest, the more I revisit TOS, the more I realise the man revered by generations, Gene Roddenberry, was like a 60s version of Braga. It's all redshirts dying, a single female character introduced who happens to be a major babe, close-ups on Shatner's face with light across his eyes and trips to old Earth. It's ironic that the ones which avoid these cliches happen to be the absolute shining stars of the series. For example, the mind-f*** episode with Scotty being possessed. Fair enough, this also borrowed straight from Earth's past, but it took the Ripper idea and brought it forward to other worlds and other species. TOS created a living, breathing universe that we rarely see in TNG, VOY or ENT, which all focus on one ship and one crew with no consequences for 99% of their actions. It's easy to see why TOS was so popular/influential. But it's also easy to see why it was canned after the shortest run of any live action Trek. If it had shown more creativity in its storylines and explored that optimistic future more, it might have run for longer.

I remember watching the rerun of this episode as a kid and I felt at the time that it was the most memorable episode of Star Trek. I watch it today and still think it is a really cool episode just from the idea of a person that they don't know is a human or an alien, the tech he uses, his cat, etc etc. Also the time travel is great. I don't see why this is not one of the best episodes of Star Trek (though I'm just throwing that out there... I'm not exactly that well versed as you guys about all the episodes).

Even if Kirk and Spock play second-fiddle to some new characters, chasing after them and generally watching what's going on, I think this episode manages some suspense, originality and fun. It's a wonky, entertaining ride. I mean, c'mon, Seven (Seven?) can speak cat and his cat is actually a very attractive woman (alien?) and some people don't find that at all fun? I revisited this one to prepare a bit for reading Assignment: Eternity.

Aside from the pilot for a spinoff series stuff, it seems pretty obvious to me that the goal of this episode was to use Apollo launch footage to profit. This was 1968. That was a big deal. I'm surprised nobody mentioned that.

Love this episode and as usual am surprised at the bad reviews, I grew up with star trek so I guess my opinion is biased by the sweet memories I have.Gary seven was so cool and Im guessing the cat was some type of bond reference.Of course there is plenty of goofs, ,seven can fight of a whole group of people and is even immune to spocks neck pinch but is knocked out by a metal cigarette case that roberta clunks him with, but then again they got somethings right, spock said there will be an important assassination and there were two, MLK and RFK.My only real complaint is the going back in time to witness something, I guess they didnt have any books or video on past events, a much better idea IMHO is that the enterprise is near earth and when they accidentally intercept gary sevens beam it drags the enterprise back in time with him.

Good episode. The story held my interest and I liked both our guest stars - their characters and performances. The cat was intriguing. One of my favorites for the series. Didn't really care for the fact that the Enterprise is shown as easily traveling through time, at will and for no compelling purpose, but it's won't be the first, and definitely not the last, time we'll see the franchise play fast and loose with this sort of thing. I especially liked that our "alien of the week" was refreshingly honest and non-hostile.

Sarjenka's Brother

M5 computer from "Ultimate Computer" is put back into use for Gary Seven. OK episode.

Goodness, I had no idea what I was getting into when I watched this. So, I agree with all the criticisms (shoehorned pilot for other show, etc., etc.) but it wasn't all bad. I think the one thing they got right was the dramatic tension for the episode. The show framed Gary Seven as the villain of the episode with an obviously nefarious agenda, although it mentioned the possibility he could be doing his assignment for the greater good. I think the direction worked in a way that made us forget he was possibly doing "the right thing" - which, in turn, made for an interesting reversal in the end. I suppose the problem with all this is, it's hard to relate to Gary Seven when you're being told by all the scripting, visual, and music cues that he's a bad guy. it would be like if they were using DS9 as a pilot for Edington and a Maquis show (who's rooting for that guy?). Anyway, I'm still trying to figure out what that cat that turns into a woman was all about. It looks like a template for a Sailor Moon character. :3

Sleeper Agent

Great guest appearances, nice props and an interesting intrigue; but as many have mentioned, it drops the ball half way in and has a hard time recovering from what turns into a boring mess. On another note: from what I can remember NSA's existence wasn't officially admitted until the 80s (?), thus making this episode (one of) the first soft disclosure of the organisation? And yeah, what was that woman/cat all about? Her name being Isis certainly is interesting.

I'm a sucker for anything in the orbit of TOS. I would have been all in for a season 4 even if it was twice as bad as season 3. So it pains me to speak ill of an episode of which there are only 79. But try as I might, I can't bring myself to say anything positive about Assignment: Earth. In my mind, this should not even be viewed as a ST episode, but rather a pilot for another show that guest-starred the crew of the Enterprise. That's exactly the vibe I get whenever I watch it, which is why I can't even bring myself to review it. (Even though I kinda just did.) Shame on Gene for unofficially concluding season 2 at episode 25.

There's a website dedicated to the stillborn series: https://www.assignmentearth.ca

Hotel bastardos

Execrable pisspoor backdoor pilot. Christ, imagine if the show had gotten cancelled on that wretched note... Thank fuck that utterly charmless twat Gary seven and that pathetic dizzy bint were mercifully left stillborn in the miserable graveyard of failed pilot shows. Dangleberry should've been ashamed of himself for trying to chance it with that wet fart of a concept.... Oh, and I ain't a cat person which made matters worse...0 stars.

Assignment: Earth is the culmination of the central theme of Season 2, the exploration of late-1960’s society. Star Trek finally shows its hand, what it has been building up to all year, starting with Mirror, Mirror, and through all the alternate Earth episodes, and now this: an examination of the central pressing issue for real life 1960’s Earth. https://youtu.be/-DhkY6d9uqQ Season 1 had a more personal touch because the theme of the season was Man. Or rather man with increasing powers, up to and including the power of the gods. Whether we had gods as teenagers (Charlie X) or men and women as gods (Where no Man has Gone Before) or man & paradise (This Side of Paradise) or enhanced man (Space Seed), the point of Season 1 was to explore man, especially how man would react to being placed at all levels of power and pleasure up to and including ultimate power and total bliss. Season 2 was more impersonal by design. So many episodes were thought-experiments that put a slight spin on society - an alternate Earth almost like our own planet, but just different enough to accentuate a particular aspect of society - some aspect the show wanted to explore or highlight for the audience (like public manipulation through television in Bread and Circuses, or the cruelty of a purely intellectual elite in Triskelion). Assignment: Earth also gives us vivid insight into the mindframe of the 1960’s audience. In that way, it is a model for Star Trek: Voyager episodes like "11:59" and "Future’s End," both of which did a good job exploring the mindset of the 1990’s. Assignment: Earth's 1960’s audience was obviously a nervous lot - neurotic about all sorts of events transpiring around them. If we have Climate Change today, they had nuclear holocaust to worry about back then. And in all that upheaval, who was there to protect them? Not God. Maybe it gave the audience comfort to think that Kirk and Spock - or Gary Seven - was up there looking down at us - looking out for them, like an Angel. ROBERTA: Mister Seven, I want to believe you. I do. I know this world needs help. That's why some of my generation are kind of crazy and rebels, you know. We wonder if we're going to be alive when we're thirty. What were they so worried about? SPOCK: Current Earth crises would fill a tape bank, Captain. There will be an important assassination today… 5 days after this episode aired, Martin Luther King was killed. He was 39. I wonder what the theme of Season 3 will be? https://youtu.be/8A_3jqiix0Q

A very uneven episode that is redeemed by Teri Garr’s portrayal of Roberta Lincoln, a refreshingly different female role in TOS. I agree with Jammer - not only is it questionable WHY Starfleet would be interfering with history, it’s barely explained HOW they were able to time travel. There were many good moments, most of them supplied by Miss Garr’s ability to convey naivety, kooky disbelief, and resourceful intelligence, all at the same time. The cat was also an interesting addition, especially when briefly adopting human form at the end. But the geopolitical angle of the 60s was heavy handed and obvious, and not something that escapist sci-fi should have been involved with except in a ‘parallel’ type of story, e.g. a similar scenario set on a different world, as a metaphorical parable. But I recognise that setting it on Earth was a budget-saving exercise. Not a bad way to end Series 2, entertaining to watch. But “could have done better “. I’d give it 3 stars... just about. I just wish they’d found a role for Roberta Lincoln on the Enterprise.

It's on TV right now... and it's pretty damn awful. The regular cast are reduced to guests in their own show! I suppose the story involving Gary 7 could be interesting except for the crucial fact that I DON'T CARE.

Alhough I reemember seeing it I had completely forgotten the plot. Not fantastic but thanks to the reference in Picard I gota reason. The slightly outdated potrait of a secretary was amusing and entertaining.

A couple of commentators seem to think Seven was also a time traveller but he made it very clear at the beginning of the episode when he argues that he is a Twentieth Century man and the Enterprise crew have no right to interfere with his mission. He and others, such as the couple who were supposed to have got on with destroying the rocket but died in a car crash, were descendants of human beings taken from Earth six thousand years before and specially bred and trained to carry out missions on Earth to help ensure its survival. That is all in Seven's dialogue with Roberta. To answer the point about why didn't the secretary know Seven, her employers were the couple who died. She'd never met him before. This is one of my least favourite episodes. The ditsy secretary is just irritating to me. The normal cast are reduced to hanging around, at a loss what to do or prisoners in the case of Kirk and Spock. It is fairly boring. I did wonder when I rewatched it recently if the same cat was used for Catspaw. I imagine the cat/woman mystery would have continued in the projected series and that Isis was one of the aliens despite having the name of an Ancient Egyptian goddess. Anyway for me, this really is a pilot for a show that wasn't picked up that the ST crew were unfortunate enough to be forced to appear in.

Something I forgot to mention is I think the woman provided the voice for the computer also did the Companion's voice in Metamorphosis

This particular episode was a little far out for me. Below average rating. Barbara Babcock did the voice work of the computer. She had an active role in a couple of the other shows. And, April Tatro was the cat girl at the end of the show.

This is indeed a pilot to potentially introduce another series that never blasted off (a small pun there..very small...I digress) However, it s also the most insidious idea for a Star Trek episode ever in the history of all mankind! (besides Spock's Brain)...but still the idea aside - it is still very watchable and likable. Any time travel episode is a good one when it comes to Trek. I dig it! Besides, I like the kitty... by that I mean Teri Garr, of course.

Assignment: Earth is, well, adequate. It’s inoffensive and fairly well executed, has some ok moments and some good tension. It’s also a cynical exercise in television marketing, made brutally ironic given that it follows right on the heels of Bread and Circuses, a show that lambasts such cynicism in TV. The fact that this back-door pilot also doubles as the season 2 finale really calls into question Gene Roddenberry’s creative ethics. Other than this not *really* being a Star Trek episode, its main failure is the initial setup. Time travel is already problematic enough without it being treated like a lark, engaged in for seemingly low stakes research. That premise feels so half baked that it compounds the sense that this whole outing is just a callous failure of integrity. 2/4 inexplicable, shapeshifting catwomen. As far as season 2 goes, overall it’s a pretty good grouping of episodes, although I’d say season 1 had a steadier hand. Season 2 has some dizzying highs such as Amok Time, Doomsday Machine, or Journey to Babel, but also had some ‘yikes’ moments such as The Apple, Catspaw, or The Omega Glory. It’s a bit more of a rollercoaster than season 1 in my opinion. My top 5: 1- Doomsday Machine 2- Amok Time 3- Mirror, Mirror 4- Journey to Babel 5- Obsession Bottom 5: 5- Gamesters of Treskelion 4- The Apple 3- Wolf in the Fold 2- Catspaw 1- The Omega Glory Note: in this situation Assignment: Earth is not measured as it’s not really a Star Trek episode and thus is both the worst and best episode of the unpicked up show: Assignment: Whatever. Or whatever.

Michael Miller

Fun and edge of your seat thrilling episode, but the plot was very weird and could have been better. 1st of all, what is this casual crap that the enterprise used "Light speed break away factor" to move back in time? Did they do another cold anti-matter implosion engine start from the Naked Time or something, or one of those stupid slingshot around the sun?? The 1st one was barely tested and the 2nd made no sense as if you are already going at warp speed how does the tiny bit of extra speed from whipping around a star going to slingshot you anywhere? That's not how general relativity works anyway even if the concept was remotely valid, and it isn't. 2nd, what was the purpose of the cat-woman alien? She served no purpose in the entire episode, other than attacking and distracting security guards by acting like a mean cat LOL. 3rd, The 1000 light year transport thing. Since when can transporter beams travel faster than light. If it's energy of some kind how does it exceed the speed of light? I know you're gonna say that the aliens were way more advanced, but even in normal star trek episodes they sometimes make it seem like transporters can beam people faster than light, such as a few million kilometers being in "transporter range", to keep it somewhat in normal physics range they should have kept it to 100,000 miles or half a million miles to be more believable, even if transports had to take a few more seconds to be realistic. It isn't through subspace obviously as subspace transporting was addressed and rejected in TNG. 4th, the ridiculous advanced alien technology 1920s style controls! Like why is there a steering wheel on the secret transporter room that opens automatically anyway? How the fuck is that operated by a grand total of 8 BUTTONS??? You're seriously telling me the secretary who had no clue what any of this was, just happened to exactly lock on to the guy's position and beam him back by randomly fiddling with a few dials, yeah...RIGHT. So a 9 year old could have disrupted his mission. Or the "survo" that could perform dozens of random functions by hitting 3 buttons. How does it lock a purely mechanical door btw? 5. The secretary herself. Was she an agent as well or just a random earthling hired by one of the agents? They kept bouncing back and forth on this. First it seemed like they knew each other, then she seemed clueless, then she knows how to operate the transporter but is shocked seeing people beamed in and out, which is it?? Huge plot question that was never resolved. 6. The whole thing with the guy crawling on the rocket gantry. How was he planning to get out of there in time if he wasn't accidentally beamed out? By jumping off? The launch was seconds later and he would have been incinerated or knocked clear off the thing. 7. I don't know much about nuclear physics, but wouldn't the detonation ultimately release lethal radiation over the countries it blew up over? Does the atmosphere need to transmit it, or would that not matter anyway as 104 miles is above the space line, serious question.

Truly horrendous episode. 0 stars.

I don't hate this episode at all, even though it's insultingly not the show we've been watching all this time (I always thought the backdoor pilot thing was obvious, as the device was used in a lot of shows back then). The premise was interesting. Gary Seven is cool, Isis is cool, Teri Garr was appealing. The whole thing felt more like Irwin Allen than Roddenberry. Had it gone to series, I would have watched it. It probably would have been kind of Austin Powers-ish. The most annoying thing about this episode is the ridiculous (if understandable given the era) use of a Saturn V with the full Apollo lunar payload to represent fairly modest nuclear delivery system. Even as a kid ten years later I always thought that was weird as Walter Cronkite etc had explained the whole thing to everyone by then. Use of stock footage was a poor excuse.

Proud Capitalist Pig

1968 turned out to be such an eventful and important year that there’s a whole book written about it (by Mark Kurlansky -- you should read it). We were neck-deep into the Cold War. The Space Program was in full operation. There were two different assassinations on American soil. It was one of the most significant presidential election years in history for the United States. And television, while still technically in relative infancy, was quickly becoming the loudest soapbox commentator on our cultural life (and also the opiate of the masses, but that’s another discussion). Obviously, we’re all here on this discussion board because one of those key shows was Star Trek. In “Assignment: Earth,” Spock delivers the key line, “There will be an important assassination today, an equally dangerous government coup in Asia, and, this could be highly critical, the launching of an orbital nuclear warhead platform by the United States countering a similar launch by other powers.” (That describes Star Trek’s times pretty accurately, I’d say.) Now, they know the year is 1968. But the episode conveniently (and smartly) leaves the exact date unrevealed. But here’s the thing. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, and Bobby Kennedy on June 6. The “dangerous government coup in Asia” that Spock mentions could be interpreted as the Iraqi coup on July 17. “Assignment: Earth” was broadcast on--get this--March 29. Yikes. Star Trek may have been a hammy science fiction show, but it had its finger on the zeitgeist pulse so presciently that its episode “Assignment: Earth” predicted a horrible assassination, a government overthrow, and international nuclear tensions in the very year it was written (as a matter of fact, Jesus H. God, they were off by less than a week in terms of the King assassination). I concede that if that’s not relevant television, I don’t know what is. So I’ll say this for Star Trek: It may only show us paper moons sailing over cardboard seas, and mere canvas skies hanging over muslin trees… but it created legions of fans who subscribe to that refrain, “It wouldn’t be make-believe if you believed in me.” This particular episode “Assignment: Earth,” a fitting close-out to a very eclectic and interesting season of television, captures the essence of what has made this allegorical space opera endure for so long. “Assignment: Earth” as an episode of Star Trek deals heavily with time travel. That’s a smart move, because such stories are tricky. We’re invested in seeing Kirk and Seven succeed in stopping an existential crisis on Earth, but there’s the added concern about just how much they’re able to do, or even supposed to, in terms of interfering in the first place. Yes, Seven could be telling the truth about being a benevolent time traveler looking out for history, but he could also be a lying charlatan. For those complaining about Kirk and Spock being “powerless” and watching things happen, I’d advise that you go back and rewatch the episode, paying attention this time. Kirk is simply *unsure* about whether or not he really should be committing any actions at all, because that’s the caveat about time travel. For a while there’s really nothing he *can* do except to watch things unfold and then step in if it turns out Seven is an interloper. I liked Robert Lansing’s portrayal as Seven very much, but Teri Garr (!) was no slouch here either. She gave Lincoln a winning sense of humor, and I fell right in love with her klutzy but patriotic foundation. Garr would have nicely matched Lansing in her own right. And plus, yeah, she looked great. Lansing and Garr can absolutely carry an episode. Speaking of which, some of you above don’t like that the Enterprise crew is “barely in” this episode. I didn’t think that at all. The balance here is actually fine. Seven appears on the Enterprise in the teaser. The stakes of what we’re about to see are explained pretty effectively in the first act. So rather than The Seven Show, it’s more of a back-and-forth between Seven’s efforts and the efforts of Our Usual Heroes. The two threads have to have an equal value of importance in this case because this episode is a backdoor pilot, granted, but since the story is so engaging and the performances are pitch-perfect, so what?! Isis the Cat was such a hoot. I too cracked up at the obviously voice-overed “meows” emanating from her (one of the meows is even designed to sound like “uh-oh!”) Sambo delivered a fine performance. But really, Star Trek--as @Rahul points out, there are other cat colors besides black (but I kid). And as a cat dad myself, I can appreciate how Seven dotes on Isis. About that “backdoor pilot” thing… One of the best such pilots was the All in the Family episode “Maude,” which Norman Lear created so that Bea Arthur could get her own series. Archie Bunker is only seen in the very beginning and then at the very end, but it’s still one of the best episodes they did because *it’s so entertaining.* Backdoor pilots can be damn engaging and turn out to be absolute gems. The Simpsons, after all, started as a backdoor pilot--so there you go. Not for nothing, but I’d watch “Assignment: Earth,” the series. It’s too bad that it wasn’t picked up, as it seems to me that they would have had a pretty engaging, versatile hit on their hands. Maybe the U.S. government stepped in and refused to let it be picked up as a series, for they feared that it hit too close to home and would end up almost revealing a lot of true dirty secrets about this country and what its leaders actually know (but I kid). "Assignment: Earth" may have been a bit of a different spin on Star Trek, but I'd say it captured the spirit of it pretty well. Speak Freely: Lincoln -- “Not even the CIA could do all this.” My Grade: A

SEASON 2 TOP FIVE: 5th Place -- The Doomsday Machine 4th Place --. The Ultimate Computer 3rd Place -- Assignment: Earth 2nd Place -- Mirror, Mirror 1st Place -- The Immunity Syndrome SEASON 2 BOTTOM FIVE: 22. Return to Tomorrow 23. The Apple 24. Friday’s Child 25. The Gamesters of Triskelion 26. The Omega Glory

I don't think anything could keep Journey to Babel from being on my top 5 list of S2, but I kinda like that you had to guts to put Assignment: Earth on yours.

@Peter G. A LOT of folks seem to hate this one, yes. But I loved it. I'm clamoring for "Assignment: Earth," The Series. Hell, it can easily be updated / rebooted for modern television. A guy from the distant future getting into all kinds of international shenanigans while trying to make sure that he both succeeds in saving the planet and protects his cover -- maybe fighting a shadowy cabal that wants to create a new timeline for their own nefarious ends (with plants in each of Earth's most powerful governments), and accompanied by a hot sidekick and shapeshifting cat? I'd watch that! "Journey to Babel" was a competent outing, but it didn't impress me. The best part of that episode, for sure, was the Spock-Sarek struggle and the corresponding Kirk-Spock friendship showcase. It also had some good dialogue. High marks for that. But Jane Wyatt's performance got in the way, the murder mystery was woefully half-baked, and too much emphasis was placed on the Convening of Funny Foreheads. It got a B- from me.

The fact that this episode's premise was appropriated for Picard Season 2 forever taints its memory. To quote Martok in similar circumstances, "it is a grave dishonor" (to the episode)

@ PCP, "A guy from the distant future getting into all kinds of international shenanigans while trying to make sure that he both succeeds in saving the planet and protects his cover" Yes, if only we had been treated to a Star Trek series involving time travel agents from the future working with people from the past, and maybe even a temporal cold war. That would have been GREAT.

Wait was Gary 7 even from the future? I didn't think so...

@Jason R Maybe I misinterpreted a line or two? He seemed to have foreknowledge that the imminent rocket launch would have apocalyptic repercussions for Earth unless he stopped it. I inferred from this that he's a time traveler.

@Peter G - "Yes, if only we had been treated to a Star Trek series involving time travel agents from the future working with people from the past, and maybe even a temporal cold war." You sure have a way with words, my friend. "Temporal Cold War." Love it! What are the chances that something like that is going on *right now*? (We, of course, wouldn't know about it).

@ PCP, At the risk of committing the sacrilege of explaining a joke, you have seen ST:ENT, right?

"Maybe I misinterpreted a line or two? He seemed to have foreknowledge that the imminent rocket launch would have apocalyptic repercussions for Earth unless he stopped it. I inferred from this that he's a time traveler." It's unclear as I recall but my impression was Gary 7 and other humans were removed from Earth by some group (maybe the cat woman's people?) and trained from childhood as "agents" to effect changes on their home planet. It may be the aliens have foreknowledge of the future (which is heavily implied I guess) but I don't think Gary 7 or the other agents are actual time travellers.

@Jason R I thought about it some more and read the episode transcript, and yes, your take is correct. It's the foreknowledge Seven has that's most beguiling about this. But for alien influences, all possibilities apply! Thanks. Still a great concept. @Peter G I am working my way through all of Star Trek by airdate order, so no, I have not seen anything past Assingment: Earth except for the flowing exceptions, which I will address more fully when each comes up in my list: STAR TREK II -- Saw bits of it as a kid, but not the complete movie. STAR TREK IV -- Same as II STAR TREK GENERATIONS -- Saw on opening night with the Trekkie girl I was dating at the time. STAR TREK FIRST CONTACT -- Saw in the theater because "lets destroy some cyborg AI zombies" spoke to my inner spirit lord. STAR TREK the 2009 reboot STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS STAR TREK BEYOND Saw in all the theater with my family 1-2 sporadic Next Generation episodes, which I will review when they come up in my list Saw a scene or two of STAR TREK DISCOVERY and/or PRODIGY when my sons were watching but left the room so as not to be spoiled. So no... I wouldn't get a STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE joke, hahaha. (If indeed that's what you mean by ST:ENT). Always good to hear from you!

Ah ok, enjoy the watchthrough!!

@Peter G. Thanks! So far I'm enjoying the journey. I wouldn't call myself a fan yet but I'm open to all possibilities, and @Jammer, I'm *already* a fan of this site and thank you so much for it! This weekend I'll be pulling the family together to watch "Spock's Brain." My sons can't wait. Apparently, it's so bad that it's a hilarious hoot. But I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.

"This weekend I'll be pulling the family together to watch "Spock's Brain." My sons can't wait. Apparently, it's so bad that it's a hilarious hoot. But I'll give it the benefit of the doubt." Seriously, try to forget its reputation when you watch it. I don't think it's justified.

Just watching this episode and Gary 7 confirms he is a human from the 20th century, so he is not a time traveller. But he recognizes Spock and clearly knows something about the 23rd century so as to state that his alien benefactors are unknown even in the future. So his alien benefactors are clearly time travellers or have some kind of awareness outside of time similar to the Organians who seemed to know the future or possibly the Traveller who also claimed to be from another time (sort of).

Yesterday, Feb. 16, 2024, the New York Times reported that Russia is developing an orbital nuclear warhead that , when deployed, will be able to destroy weather and communication satellites that are currently in orbit around the Earth. It will be the first nuclear weapon in space. Talk about life imitating art! I hope there is a Gary Seven on the way to save us from ourselves.

Yeah, not that I would ever question the New York Times but https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/russia-seen-highly-unlikely-put-nuclear-warhead-space-2024-02-15/ It is somewhat self explanatory. Putting an actual nuclear warhead outside of the borders of Russian Federation is a bad idea. Putting a nuclear warhead into space would be so extremely risky because of radiation alone. How would one even hit more than a very low number of strategically important satellites? I would assume that for example the US spreads out it's vital communication satellites as to make hitting enough to limit their counterstrike capabilities near impossible. They also certainly have backup systems. Most importantly, if you want to use a nuclear weapon to destroy satellites, then Russia could just use a ballistic missile, or a regular missile. Oh and then there is this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prlIhY3e04k

@Booming: Appreciate the information you provided about space and current weapons - thank you. I was more just pointing out how amazing it is that a science fiction series in the late 1960’s could envision equipment and issues that actually materialize (no pun intended) over 50 years later. Kind of like “The Ultimate Computer” and our current AI debates. I will turn age 70 later this year. Star Trek, in all its many adaptations, has accompanied me on my life journey since I was 13 and I still enjoy its relevance.

@Lorene That sounds nice. I'm happy that it inspired you in a joyful way for so many years. :)

Eastwest101

Views very much like Roddenberry smoked a few cones and watched a bit of James Bond and Dr Who for inspiration to do a back-door pilot. As Jammer says the premise is beyond stupid, the script risible, the pacing choppy, the stock footage lazy and boring etc and yet despite all its obvious flaws this is the most cold war/disaster movie and eerily prescient attempt at addressing the issues of militarization of space & mutually assured destruction/nuclear armageddon, computerization and even some counter-culture and hippie themes thrown in. Some of the early stuff in the episode was pretty good and entertaining once I had picked myself up off the floor about the utterly stupid premise but as Jammer says - once Seven was on the gantry the entire episode derailed itself so much that all it needed was the Fonz to literally jump the shark and it would have been perfect.... Did anyone else get a giggle out of Colonel Seven's exposition dump recalcitrant and snippy computer? The line about having the planet around for us to live on was a highlight for me. Its difficult to believe that this came out the same year as Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Oddessey, that film immediately made Roddenberry and his crew of whacky juvenile writers pretty much demoralized, dated, stale and redundant overnight and looking like Gunsmoke with a couple of lizard suits/model spaceships and mini-skirts, they must have been so close to giving up even starting Season 3..... This had so much potential, and failed so spectacularly in logic/execution and a too convenient poorly signaled resolution, that its almost impossible to judge, I don't even know if it is an episode of Star Trek or not, but I can see why the episode has so many varied opinions. I bet this is a regular feature in many screenwriting courses as an example on what not to do.

Although I have been watching Star Trek off and on since I was 4 years old (my first experiences while sitting in my father's lap), I don't think I ever saw this episode till recently in 2024. I knew a tiny bit about it because at some point I had read that Teri Garr had a horrible experience with it as a job, having fought with the powers that be (Roddenberry, costume people) over the length of her skirt. She was not proud of the work she did and didn't include it when talking about her accomplishments. I didn't like the episode. Although I had not read that it was a pilot for a different show, that fact immediately became obvious on viewing. It's like a different TV show with different characters suddenly invade Star Trek, and the regulars we all love are demoted to bit players on the side. You find yourself asking, what is this? Well, whatever it was, I was annoyed and bored, and I think that must have been the consensus back in 1967 or whatever it was, because it looks like it didn't go anywhere. The world already had James Bond and Dr. Who. Maybe they should have tried a "Get Smart"-type episode where somebody had a phone in his shoe. I would like to add here, that though I love Star Trek (TOS), and have no problem at all with the cheesy plastic and paper mâché sets and somewhat campy acting, the extreme sexism is sometimes hard to take. The indignities some of the female actors are put through is painful. The dopey-dumb, wide-eyed characters they sometimes must portray are unlike virtually anybody I've ever known in real life. Of course, their clothes often cling to their bodies precariously, held in place by tape. (There must have been some mortifying wardrobe malfunctions on the set.) Roddenberry recognized that sex sells, but the assumption of the era was that only the men needed to be catered to, and clearly they wanted very young, very scantily clad, noticeably stupid or naive females to fantasize about, regardless of what planet they hailed from. The actress playing Janice Rand was raped by a producer, and it is not overly surprising as sexual assault is alluded to number of times over the course of the series, I guess because it was titillating. Into this comes Teri Garr, who did a poor job playing a too-cute-by-half nitwit--and she hated it. That is to her credit. Granted, Star Trek also broke ground for women simply insofar as women at times appear as officers, scientists, fellow adventurers. Nichelle Nichols alone helped raise Star Trek from exploitative dreck to something actually important. This was huge. I think though the sexists of the universe (all the little people out there is TVLand) had to be placated with a plethora of bimbos. I guess that was the trade-off. In the midst of all that, Star Trek at times soars to actual poetry. However, not in this episode.

I find it a bit ironic to blast the show for displaying women in tight clothing, when the men are also in tight clothing, and in particular they found every excuse to get the male star of the show to have his shirt torn or removed completely.

Peter: True. I am not claiming this aspect (the sexism) cannot meet a counter-argument. But I don't think the men associated with the show went through the same degree of exposure and humiliation. In that era, skin was the way to get ahead, and the show was always looking to insert some cheesecake. It was the era of the Playboy bunny. There might have been some desperation involved as the show never really did well at the time. Some of the costumes are positively absurd, especially when the alien women are supposedly warriors and they are wearing barely-there backless bikinis and high heels and the most airy expressions on their faces that they could manage. But I am constantly advising young friends to keep in mind, it was a different time, and it was actually PROGRESS at that point! Everything builds on the thing that came before, at least we hope so.

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Assignment: Earth

Assignment: Earth

  • While back in time observing Earth in 1968, the Enterprise crew encounters the mysterious Gary Seven who has his own agenda on the planet.
  • When the Enterprise is assigned to observe Earth's history in 1968, suddenly it intercepts a transporter beam which originates at least a thousand light-years from Earth, bringing aboard a humanoid alien 'agent Gary Seven' holding a black cat called Isis, who warns them to step back and let him go to accomplish his mission to save Earth; initially phaser-struck down, he manages to beam himself away, actually on a mission to prevent a nuclear rocket being launched at McKinley base because earth is socio-politically not ready for its technological progress. He assumes a classified identity to override a powerful computer, and mistakes the wrong girl, Miss Lincoln, for another agent; the computer reports both other agents he seeks are deceased in an accident. Meanwhile Kirk and Spock beam down to investigate if the alien isn't hostile, realizing the risk of changing their own past. When they get on his trail, the girl sees Spock's ears, calls the police and Seven gets away; they must first beam back aboard, then down to the base looking for Seven who overpowers security and sabotages the missile; however they get caught before Scotty locates Seven and beams him up, but he beams himself back grumbling he wasn't finished... — KGF Vissers
  • While assigned to observe Earth's history in 1968, the Enterprise intercepts a transporter beam originating over a thousand light-years away, bringing aboard a seemingly trustworthy humanoid named Gary Seven and his black house cat, Isis. When it's apparent he's no ordinary human, Kirk holds him for questioning - but would doing so alter the past, or would releasing him be the wrong move? While Kirk debates, Gary escapes, beaming to Earth to accomplish his mission, the sabotage of a nuclear rocket about to be launched at McKinley Rocket Base. With Kirk and Spock on his heels, Gary must also deal with ditzy secretary Roberta Lincoln, whom he mistakes for one of two missing colleagues already on Earth, and an alien computer with a slight attitude. — statmanjeff
  • The Enterprise is assigned to visit the 20th century to study critical political tensions. After arriving, they intercept a transporter beam that originates at least a thousand light-years from Earth. Who is the 20th century human who seems to command technology superior to that of the 23rd century Federation? Is he here to preserve humankind as he claims or has he arrived on this critical day to start World War III? — CommanderBalok
  • Having traveled back in time to visit Earth on a historical information-gathering exercise, the Enterpise intercepts a space traveler being beamed to Earth. Gary Seven is human but clearly comes from an advanced civilization who claims to have been specially trained for a mission to save mankind from itself. Captain Kirk isn't at all sure that Seven isn't there for malicious purposes and puts him in the brig. Seven does manage to escape however and with Kirk and Spock in pursuit, tries to complete the mission that two missing agents were unable to finalize. For Kirk, the decision he has to make is very real: does he stop Seven or let him finish - a wrong decision may mean altering Earth history altogether. — garykmcd
  • The ENTERPRISE, on a historical research mission to observe earth in 1968 (they traveled back in time using the light-speed breakaway factor). It intercepts a powerful transporter beam from a distant part of the galaxy (from at least a 1000 light yrs away). A human male dressed in 20th century business suit and carrying a black cat materializes on the pad. Calling himself Gary Seven (Robert Lansing) informs Capt Kirk that he is on a vital mission to help Earth survive (he claims he is from the 20th century and has been living on a hidden planet with far advanced tech, which wants to remain hidden). Kirk unsure of his identity and motives orders him to be taken to brig. Seven and his cat, Isis, attack the ENTERPRISE crew in attempt to escape and overpower Kirk and his men. Even Spocks "Vulcan Neck Pinch" is ineffective against him. Kirk finally stuns him with phaser and orders "Bones" Mccoy to examine him and determine if human. In the briefing room Kirk and Spock receive McCoy's report. Seven is human, in fact is a perfect human specimen with no scars or imperfections. Spock reports that on this day in 1968 US was to launch an orbital nuclear platform to match similar deployment by other powers. In the brig Seven removes what appears to be pen from his pocket which uses to disable the force field and stun the security officer. Heading to the transporter room is joined by Isis and beams down to an office suite in New York City. Seven attempts to access the Beta-5 computer, hidden behind a sliding bookcase, but the computer refuses to recognize him. Declarng himself to the computer as Supervisor 194 attempts to access it. He describes his mission, humans taken from earth 6,000 years in the past have been selectively bred and trained by a superior alien civilization to ensure that the fast progress is science on the planet doesn't lead to its destruction before it can mature into a peaceful society. Seven asks the computer for status of Agents 201 and 347. The computer informs that the US plans to launch orbital nuclear devices from McKinley Rocket base, in 1.5 hrs. At this time a young woman enters the office. Seven mistakes her for Agent 201 and ask where she had been for past 3 days and to write a report using voice activated typewriter When the woman reacts with confusion to Seven's request, Seven has computer to scan her. The computer reveals she is Roberta Lincoln (Teri Garr), a 20 yr secretary hired by 201 & 347 to supposedly do research for an encyclopedia. Realizing his mistake has the computer scan all communications to locate the missing agents. The Beta-5 reveals that 201 and 347 were killed in a car crash near McKinley Rocket base. Their mission was to arrange for a failure in an upcoming launch of an orbital nuclear platform by the United States. Meanwhile Spock and Kirk disguised in 20th century clothing track Seven to the suite (through the location of his beam down). Rushing in they demand that Roberta tell them where Seven is. Roberta calls the police while Spock and Kirk try to break into the inner office. Seven uses a transporter device hidden in large walk-in safe to transport to McKinley Rocket base. Kirk and Spock beam back to the Enterprise after seeing plans of the McKinley Rocket base on Seven's desk. Seven in meantime has materialized at McKinley Rocket Base where he is captured by a security officer. Seven warns Isis to be careful and not get stepped on. Isis emits an cry and Seven uses the distraction to stun the security officer. He then conceals himself in the trunk of the launch director's car when he inspects the launch pad. Seven then rides up the gantry to the top of the rocket where he opens an access panel and begins to rewire the rocket's guidance system. Kirk and Spock having discovered Seven's target have the ENTERPRISE transport them to McKinley Rocket Base. Materializing outside a hanger they are captured by the security officer who has regained consciousness. Mr Scott, who has been keeping McKinley Rocket Base under observation spots Seven and attempts to beam him aboard the ENTERPRISE. But before Seven was beamed off, he managed to get into the rocket and fiddle with the control wires of its payload. Roberta has discovered Seven's secret transporter portal by moving a pen on a desk set. She then accidentally activates the transporter which beams him from the ENTERPRISE back to the office suite. The rocket blasts off, Seven asks the Beta- 5 computer if his tampering with the rocket's guidance system was sufficient to take over. The Beta-5 answers affirmative if done on manual. Roberta watches as Seven takes over control sending the rocket off course and arming the warhead, becomes concerned. She takes a metal cigarette case and strikes him on the head. She then takes his Servo device and holds him prisoner. Seven attempts to get Roberta to let him finish what he started, otherwise the warhead will detonate on impact triggering a thermo-nuclear war. Spock and Kirk have been taken to the launch control center and held at gunpoint by security. Mr Scott attempts to contact Kirk to inform him of the rocket launch and malfunction. Spock uses the Vulcan Neck Pinch to disable the security officer when he picks up Kirk's communicator in response to Mr Scott's call. Kirk and Spock are beamed to Seven's suite. Seven disarms Roberta, handing his servo to Kirk and informing her that it was set to kill. Kirk asks Spock if he can take over the rocket and detonate the warhead. Spock said he does not have sufficient time to study the Beta-5 to safely detonate the warhead. Kirk is forced to trust Seven and tells him to complete the job and detonate the warhead. Seven has the Beta-5 detonate the warhead at 104 miles above earth, sufficient to convince governments of need to ban such devices. Roberta looking at Isis on the couch sees a beautiful exotic woman instead. Questioning Seven as to who the woman is she is told by Seven that is merely his cat. Isis having transformed back to a cat. As Kirk and Spock bid Seven and Roberta farewell inform them that will have some interesting experiences in store.

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Picard's Final Season Makes Way for a Star Trek TOS Spinoff

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Batman: caped crusader's future beyond season 2 addressed by matt reeves, who narrates bad monkey everything we know about the mysterious voice.

Star Trek: Picard is inching closer to its series finale on Paramount+. When the final episode drops on the streamer on April 20, there will undoubtedly be demand for more Star Trek content. Instead of exploring new worlds in the far-flung future, Paramount could go back to the franchise's past to create an adventure right here on Earth.

Star Trek has enjoyed a loyal fan following since its original series debut in 1966. Fifty-seven years later, the franchise can lay claim to eight total series, 13 feature films and a fan base that keeps growing and demanding more. Now that Picard and his crew from the Enterprise-D are taking their final bows, the demand for more Trek adventures will only grow. With the popularity of Strange New Worlds , it seems clear that audiences want to see more of the late Gene Roddenberry's original vision on their screens, making this an excellent time to revisit another one of his unrealized dreams.

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Assignment: Earth Debuted Gary Seven as a Secret Agent with Star Trek Values

The Enterprise from Star Trek The Original Series

On March 29, 1968, NBC aired the Star Trek TOS episode "Assignment: Earth" as the Season 2 finale. The episode, intended to be a backdoor pilot for a series of the same name, introduced Gary Seven, a human being who'd been raised, trained and modified by an alien race to serve as a covert protector of human history. Seven accidentally crossed paths with Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the USS Enterprise on a mission to study the past while he was teleporting to Earth to begin his mission. As a backdoor pilot, the episode also introduced two supporting characters, Roberta Lincoln, a human woman who was meant to be Seven's assistant, and Isis the cat, who was implied to be a shape-shifter with a sexy human form.

To accomplish his mission, Gary Seven was equipped with a long-range teleporter and a multipurpose tool called a servo, which looked like a pen and could do just about anything, much like a certain Time Lord's sonic screwdriver. Despite Kirk and Spock's interference, Gary Seven, also known as "Supervisor 194," was able to complete his first mission, and in the episode's dénouement, Spock revealed that Seven and Roberta had many adventures ahead of them. Sadly, the proposed series was never picked up, but Gary Seven's place in Star Trek lore would be highlighted decades later.

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Picard Season 2 Substantiated Gary Seven’s Place in Star Trek’s History

Tallinn in Picard and Gary Seven in Star Trek

In Season 2 of Picard , Jean-Luc met a woman in 2024 named Tallinn. Tallinn identified herself as a "Supervisor" who'd been tasked with overseeing the life of Picard's ancestor. Jean-Luc recognized the designation and Tallinn's technology from Starfleet's records of Kirk's encounter with Gary Seven in 1968, and knowing that he could trust her, he enlisted her help to restore a corrupted timeline. Unfortunately, to fulfill her mission, Tallinn had to sacrifice herself so that Picard's ancestor could live to fulfill her destiny.

Tallinn's death left a void that needed to be filled. The Season 2 finale, "Farewell," showed her replacement being recruited by Wesley Crusher. Wesley, who became a Traveler in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 7 episode, "Journey's End," reveals that the Travelers created the Supervisors. Since Travelers are capable of traveling through space and time, it makes sense that they would have an interest in the preservation of history. Being the only human among them, Wesley would likely have been responsible for the recruitment of human Supervisors and could have even been the one who sent Gary Seven on his mission in the first place.

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A Gary Seven Series Can Continue Star Trek’s Greatest Mission Here on Earth

Star Trek's Gary Seven and his secretary

While Star Trek has always been about the exploration of new worlds and civilizations, its larger purpose has always been one of social commentary. This was most often achieved through allegory, with some alien civilization standing in for humanity at a time in the future when we will have overcome many of our issues and created a paradise. But sometimes Star Trek presented complex issues more bluntly. "Assignment: Earth," with its story of nuclear proliferation, was a prime example of such overt messaging. If a Gary Seven series were to be made today it would still need to be set in the time the episode was originally produced, and that would work perfectly. Presenting issues that remain relevant today in the context of over fifty years ago would be an effective way of showing the progress that's been made while making the point that there's still a long way to go.

Star Trek , in all its forms, has left an indelible mark on popular culture and will continue to for years to come. Picard reintroduced one of Roddenberry's unique characters into Trek lore. With Picard on its way out , and Strange New Worlds demonstrating fans' desire to take "what might have been" into ambitious new directions, the time is ripe to fulfill the promise of "Assignment: Earth." After all, Spock pointed out that Gary Seven and Roberta had "some interesting experiences in store for them." Wouldn't it be great to find out just what those experiences were?

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assignment earth spin off

Assignment: Earth was a terrible Star Trek spinoff idea that could’ve killed the franchise

By chad porto | dec 29, 2020.

Nov. 2, 2015 – CBS Television Studios announced today it will launch a totally new “Star Trek” television series in January 2017. The brand-new “Star Trek” will introduce new characters seeking imaginative new worlds and new civilizations, while exploring the dramatic contemporary themes that have been a signature of the franchise since its inception in 1966. The new series will blast off with a special preview broadcast on the CBS Television Network. The premiere episode and all subsequent first-run episodes will then be available exclusively in the United States on CBS All Access, the Network’s digital subscription video on demand and live streaming service.Pictured: William Shatner as Capt. James T. Kirk in STAR TREK (The Original Series)Photo: ©1966 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved

Star Trek had a spinoff idea in the works with Assignment: Earth, a spy-drama that centered around a mysterious agent that could’ve killed the brand.

There was an episode of Star Trek: The Original Series that saw the USS Enterprise go back in time to meet a man named Gary Seven, who was basically Superman but from the ’60s. Seven was a genetically enhanced human from an advanced alien planet that was sent to Earth to save humanity. He had a pretty secretary and a shape-shifting cat. The only difference between him and say, any other superhero of the 60s, is that Seven didn’t wear spandex. He was a spy.

The Trek episode was called Assignment: Earth and saw the crew of the Enterprise dealing with Seven and his motley companions. It was designed to be sold as its own series to spin out of the original Star Trek series. Had anyone picked it up as a show, it’s very likely that the Star Trek brand as we know it may have been damaged beyond repair.

The fans of Star Trek were fans of it for a given reason. It was a socio-political drama that featured fantastical aliens and even more fantastical ideas. It was the great escape of an era that was looking for something new to engage with. Assignment: Earth was simply another spy-drama that would’ve given fans something completely different from what they had grown to love.

Seeing as spy-dramas were in-vogue in the ’60s, it’s entirely possible that this, and not Star Trek, would’ve caught on, meaning that any late ’70s revival could’ve been about Assignment: Earth and not the adventures of James Kirk and his swashbuckling boys and girls. Which would have affected the renaissance of science fiction as well. Maybe instead of Star Trek: The Next Generation , it was Assignment: Earth: The new hairball.

It would’ve been awful. Though the idea of Patrick Stewart having to play a shape-shifting cat is rather hilarious.

The problem lies in Hollywood never really changing and not so much the gimmick of a time-traveling, alien-humans. Though that is a silly idea. Had the spin-off been a success, there’s every chance in the world that the Star Trek brand would’ve been buried to a point of non-existence. There was no way to buy the show or rent the show back in the ’60s. So the series survived in reruns through syndication. That may not have happened if Assignment: Earth was able to catch on with viewers.

This was also in an era where spy thrillers were massive. Jame Bond dominated the theaters, while The Avengers, Mission: Impossible, The Man from U.N.C.LE., Get Smart and other iconic spy=series were gaining mainstream appeal. Spinning off Trek into a spy-space thriller could’ve been the final nail in what would’ve been the two-season coffin for Star Trek.

Thankfully, it never came to pass. The third season of Star Trek was made, and eventually became a smash hit in syndication during the early ’70s, prompting the revisiting of the series in film form. Those films inspired The Next Generation, which in turn inspired Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, and so on.

Who knows what science fiction as a whole would have looked like had Assignment: Earth ever gotten made into a series.

Next. Star Trek: Voyager: Delta Flyer’s podcast creates Christmas episode on the fly. dark

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Assignment Earth: series spin-off

  • Thread starter Gary7
  • Start date Feb 18, 2009

Gary7

Vice Admiral

  • Feb 18, 2009

Snagglepussed

Gary7 said: I remember reading somewhere that at some point, Gene Roddenberry wanted to start a series spin-off based on the Gary 7 character from "Assignment Earth". Of course, it never happened... but I wonder if there was ever a back story or script written for it, aside from the "double duty" of the Star Trek episode being used as a surrogate pilot episode. Also, was it ever determined as to who the aliens were that trained Gary 7 for the mission he was on? They were never revealed in the episode... but I'm curious to know if Gene had ever come up with an idea about it. One of these days I'll have to track down a book on the Star Trek universe that tries to tie everything together... I'm sure a few have been written. Click to expand...

Christopher

Christopher

Gary7 said: I remember reading somewhere that at some point, Gene Roddenberry wanted to start a series spin-off based on the Gary 7 character from "Assignment Earth". Of course, it never happened... but I wonder if there was ever a back story or script written for it, aside from the "double duty" of the Star Trek episode being used as a surrogate pilot episode. Click to expand...
Also, was it ever determined as to who the aliens were that trained Gary 7 for the mission he was on? They were never revealed in the episode... but I'm curious to know if Gene had ever come up with an idea about it. Click to expand...
DS9Sega said: You can use the SEARCH function here to find threads and posts on the subject, but here are a couple from the past year: "Assignment Earth" might've been a cool show Operation Earth? Click to expand...

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  1. Assignment Earth the Star Trek spin off series that never happened

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  2. Assignment: Earth, the Star Trek spin-off that never happened

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  3. Assignment: Earth Spin-Off Pilot Teaser « Mission Log Podcast

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  4. Assignment: Earth Spin-Off Pitch « Mission Log Podcast

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  5. Assignment: Earth Spin-Off Pilot Teaser « Mission Log Podcast

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  6. Assignment: Earth Spin-Off Pilot Teaser « Mission Log Podcast

    assignment earth spin off

VIDEO

  1. What if the Earth stopped spinning?

  2. Star Trek Review: Assignment: Earth, & Our Thoughts on the End of Season 2 Going into 3, ILIC #79

  3. Home Assignment 4

  4. What if the earth stop spinning ? 😱

  5. Assignment Earth Main Title

  6. Star Trek TOS Assignment Earth review

COMMENTS

  1. The 'Star Trek' Spin-Off That Never Was

    The Star Trek episode "Assignment: Earth" tries to balance screentime for the regular crew against the needs of promoting the new show idea. Kirk and crew inadvertently intercept Gary Seven beaming to Earth. Seven and Kirk tussle throughout the episode, as Kirk attempts to learn of Seven's true nature, and Seven attempts to accomplish his ...

  2. Assignment: Earth

    "Assignment: Earth" is the twenty-sixth and final episode of the second season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek. ... the script was reworked to fit into Star Trek as a backdoor pilot for the proposed Assignment: Earth series. [2] The spin-off series was never produced. This was Teri Garr's first significant TV role. [3]

  3. "Star Trek" Assignment: Earth (TV Episode 1968)

    Assignment: Earth: Directed by Marc Daniels. With William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Robert Lansing. While back in time observing Earth in 1968, the Enterprise crew encounters the mysterious Gary Seven who has his own agenda on the planet.

  4. Assignment: Earth

    While developing the script, they also generated a 13-page series proposal. Now conceived of as a Star Trek spin-off pilot, the new Æ had Roddenberry and Wallace selling themselves as individuals respected in the business who were teaming up for the series. They made the clear distinction that while futuristic like Trek, Æ would be set against modern-day 1968.

  5. Assignment: Earth, the Star Trek spin-off that never happened

    In this Channel 73 video, Eddie discusses Assignment: Earth, the Star Trek spin-off that never happened. You might remember "Assignment: Earth" as the March 29, 1968 final episode of season 2 ...

  6. The First Star Trek Spinoff Would Have Explored a Very Different Kind

    Yet, they still reacted with shock when, during a trip back to 1968, a mysterious person interferes with the ship's transporters, and even more so when the person reveals himself as a serious ...

  7. "Assignment: Earth" Remastered Review with Video & Screenshots

    I mean, c'mon if Andromeda and Earth: Final Conflict can be scraped off the bottom of the frying pan, certainly a series "Assignment: Earth" starring Jamie Bamber as Gary Nine, Nicki Clyne ...

  8. A Fresh, New Way To Expand the Franchise: Finally Spin Off 'Assignment

    "'Assignment: Earth' is the Star Trek spin-off pilot of a new show, 'Assignment: Earth,' a totally new today concept which can be described as 'Science Fiction 1968!' Laid against 1968 backgrounds and stories, but without losing the excitement and imagineering which identified futuristic Star Trek."

  9. Star Trek: Assignment: Earth

    Star Trek: Assignment: Earth is a five-issue limited series, written and drawn by John Byrne, based on the events in the Star Trek second-season finale, "Assignment: Earth".The series was published by IDW Publishing.. One notable story shows Gary Seven's and Roberta Lincoln's peripheral involvement in the events of a prior Star Trek episode, "Tomorrow Is Yesterday"—which, due to ...

  10. Star Trek: Assignment Earth (5 book series) Kindle Edition

    The first-ever Star Trek series from comic book legend John Byrne continues! Telling the story of the Assignment: Earth Trek spin-off from Gene Roddenberry that never came to pass, a time-traveling U.S.S. Enterprise intersects with Gary Seven's efforts to save the future from a 1969 crisis that only he and his assistant Roberta can avert!

  11. Assignment: Earth (episode)

    The series never made it into production but Gary Seven has subsequently been featured in numerous stories in other spin-off media. Assignment: Earth finally became a series of sorts in 2008 when IDW Publishing produced a comics miniseries inspired by the original idea of a TV series: Star Trek: Assignment: Earth, detailing the adventures of ...

  12. Star Trek

    The original TV episode "Assignment Earth" had been the Season Two finale for the Star Trek series. It introduced the cryptic character Gary Seven and was intended by Gene Roddenberry as the pilot for a spin-off series that never came to pass. Now, however, Byrne will bring Roddenberry's dream to life, delivering the spin-off 40 years after ...

  13. Assignment: Earth (episode)

    The Enterprise travels back in time to 1968, where the crew encounters the mysterious Gary Seven who claims to be sent by advanced beings trying to help Earth. (Season finale) "Captain's log. Using the light-speed breakaway factor, the Enterprise has moved back through time to the 20th century. We are now in extended orbit around Earth, using our ship's deflector shields to remain unobserved ...

  14. Assignment: Earth

    The last episode of the second season: Assignment Earth was doing double duty as an episode of Star Trek and the pilot of another series spin off called Assignment Earth. The show would have featured actor Robert Lansing as Gary Seven, a futuristic "James Bond," as the lead character.

  15. "Assignment: Earth"

    The episode was intended as a pilot for a spin off series (Assignment:Earth). The most interesting thing for me is that Gary Seven is like an American Doctor Who! He travels in time, has a companion, and even a sonic screwdriver! Maybe Gene Roddenberry was inspired by the famous British sci fi series. Who knows?

  16. "Star Trek" Assignment: Earth (TV Episode 1968)

    Well, it turns out that the motivations for all of the above are explainable by this being effectively a pilot episode for a spin off series, tentatively called "Assignment Earth", about Gary Seven (and presumably other agents if the series were bought). Presumably, the spin off show would have been set in a sci-fi present, on Earth.

  17. "Star Trek" Assignment: Earth (TV Episode 1968)

    Synopsis. The ENTERPRISE, on a historical research mission to observe earth in 1968 (they traveled back in time using the light-speed breakaway factor). It intercepts a powerful transporter beam from a distant part of the galaxy (from at least a 1000 light yrs away). A human male dressed in 20th century business suit and carrying a black cat ...

  18. Picard's Final Season Makes Way for a Star Trek TOS Spinoff

    Assignment: Earth Debuted Gary Seven as a Secret Agent with Star Trek Values On March 29, 1968, NBC aired the Star Trek TOS episode "Assignment: Earth" as the Season 2 finale. The episode, intended to be a backdoor pilot for a series of the same name, introduced Gary Seven, a human being who'd been raised, trained and modified by an alien race ...

  19. Assignment: Earth was a terrible Star Trek spin off idea

    Read More. Star Trek had a spinoff idea in the works with Assignment: Earth, a spy-drama that centered around a mysterious agent that could've killed the brand. There was an episode of Star Trek: The Original Series that saw the USS Enterprise go back in time to meet a man named Gary Seven, who was basically Superman but from the '60s.

  20. The Lost Star Trek Spin-Off

    Eddie Lucas uncovers the lost Star Trek spin-off - Assignment: Earth!Assignment: Earth | Vintage Commercial (Fan-Made) https://youtu.be/SeHFApaMU74Facebook...

  21. Assignment Earth (TOS) : r/startrek

    Assignment Earth was the final episode of season II. It was intended to be a pilot for a spin-off of the same name, but was never created. It starred Robert Lansing as Gary Seven, and Teri Garr as Roberta Lincoln. If the series was produced today, what current actors would be best suited for these roles?

  22. Assignment Earth: series spin-off

    After the networks rejected this premise, GR reworked it into the ST episode "Assignment: Earth," using the episode as a backdoor pilot for a spinoff series -- presumably hoping that an actual pilot film would win someone over where the script alone had failed. Also, was it ever determined as to who the aliens were that trained Gary 7 for the ...