star trek assignment earth plot

Assignment: Earth (episode)

• View history
• 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 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 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 beam back aboard, 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 officer 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.

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 StarTrek.com
• " Assignment: Earth " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• " Assignment: Earth " at Wikipedia
• " "Assignment: Earth" " at MissionLogPodcast.com , a Roddenberry Star Trek podcast
• "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
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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/StarTrekS2E26AssignmentEarth

Recap / Star Trek S2 E26 "Assignment: Earth"

Edit locked.

Original air date: March 29, 1968

The Enterprise goes back in time to visit the year 1968 to observe and report. Amazingly, they discover a transporter beam signal, something that didn't exist in 20th Century Earth. They intercept and beam aboard a humanoid called Gary Seven and his black cat, Isis. Mr. Seven soon escapes, sending a few Redshirts to la-la land. (No one dies in this episode. In fact, they all have blissful smiles on their faces as they're incapacitated.) As he beams down to Earth, Kirk and Spock follow to make sure he doesn't pollute the time stream since his excuse of being from a planet they never heard of and being there as an agent of protection seems far fetched.

Who is Gary Seven, and why is he so insistent on getting to McKinley Rocket Base?

Assignment: Tropes:

• And the Adventure Continues : Kirk and Spock refer to interesting experiences Roberta and Gary will have once NBC green lights their (never realized) series.
• As You Know : Gary Seven explains to his computer (and thereby the audience) what his mission is; the computer already knows, but insists on a demonstration that he knows, as proof that he's who he says he is.
• Cat Girl : In human form, Isis wears her hair to vaguely look like cat ears.
• Crapsack Only by Comparison : Gary Seven disgustedly describes the 20th century world of the episode's original audience as "primitive" and comments "It's incredible that people can exist like this."
• Curse Cut Short : Roberta stops a computer before it can say where her star shaped mark is located . (Granted, the computer probably would've used medically acceptable terminology for whatever part of the anatomy her mark was on.)
• Distant Sequel : The events of this episode go completely unremarked in canon for the next fifty-four real-life years (and fifty-six years in universe) before the presence of Supervisors on late-20th/early-21st century Earth becomes a major plot point in season two of Star Trek: Picard . Furthermore, the Supervisors are revealed to have been recruited by the Traveler's species.
• Early-Installment Weirdness : While time travel is possible in subsequent Star Trek works, it's never again done so easily by a Starfleet crew, and the Temporal Prime Directive would have made a mission like this unlikely.
• Exact Time to Failure : Gary says that it's necessary to detonate the platform while it's at least a hundred miles up (it ends up being detonated at 104 miles). Possibly justified in that the nation it was about to fall on could more easily go along with sweeping the incident under the rug if it happened "in space" rather than "in our airspace".
• Field Trip to the Past : It's a time travel story. Gary must convince the people of Earth to be excellent to each other by not blowing each other up.
• Forcefield Door : Gary is kept locked in by one, until he opens it with a pen that's remarkably like a sonic screwdriver .
• Good Versus Good : Kirk and Gary Seven spend the episode butting heads because, what with the risk of totally derailing the course of history, Kirk simply can't take Gary's alibi at face value.
• Hammer and Sickle Removed for Your Protection : The U.S. is putting a nuclear warhead into orbit in response to a similar act of aggression by another power. Which power is never specified, but we all know who they're talking about, don't we? Later on, the malfunctioning warhead is headed for "the heart of the Euro-Asian continent." Look at a map from 1968, and you'll see there's pretty much only one country in that vicinity.
• Impersonating an Officer : Gary creates a batch of fake ID cards with various police and intelligence credentials. When he realizes that he's let Roberta Lincoln see more than she should, he covers himself by claiming to be a CIA agent.
• Informed Ability : The computer reports that despite her erratic behavior, Roberta possesses high IQ but we never actually get to see that.
• Intelligible Unintelligible : Gary Seven responds to Isis's mewing as if it were intelligible speech.
• Gary Seven regularly holds and pets his cat Isis. He is on Earth to save it from nuclear arms race in space and saves Captain Kirk from being killed by Roberta.
• Spock is shown petting Isis, who seems to adore the attention. Spock has an even harder time hiding his affection for her than he did with the Tribbles! Spock is presented a positive character in the series.
• Mundanization : Again with the modern day Earth!
• No Communities Were Harmed : The fictional McKinley Rocket Base stands in for the real-life Kennedy Space Center.
• No Endor Holocaust : In two ways. Not only does the nuclear explosion have no consequences (compared to the crippling electromagnetic pulse and cloud of fallout that would happen in Real Life ) but somehow it defuses tensions in the Cold War instead of ramping them up.
• No-Sell : One of the first indications that Gary Seven is not a normal human is when Spock's nerve pinch has no effect on him.
• Orbital Bombardment : The U.S. puts a nuclear warhead platform in orbit. During the episode it falls out of orbit and drops toward an enemy country: it will go off on impact.
• Poorly Disguised Pilot : This was meant to be a half hour show conceptualized by Roddenberry. It was written way back when Star Trek 's first season was still in production. It never got off the ground, but why waste a good story? It's actually pretty obvious they barely rewrote an existing script to feature the Enterprise crew, since they only play a very limited role and have no effect on events whatsoever.
• Punk in the Trunk : Gary hides from security in the trunk of a car.
• Recurring Extra : Lieutenant Leslie (Eddie Paskey) wears simultaneously his usual red shirt, a yellow shirt and an engineering suit. Lieutenant Hadley (William Blackburn) is also a NASA technician.
• Right-Hand Cat : Isis seems a bit nicer than Sylvia from "Catspaw". She's a sweetheart as cats go, as long as you don't harm Gary.
• Scare 'Em Straight : Gary Seven's plan is to sabotage an orbital nuclear weapon platform so that it malfunctions and almost starts World War III in order to scare governments out of deploying such weapons.
• Secret History : Suggested by the closing scene, in which Kirk notes that the Enterprise's history records for the current date describe a "never generally revealed" detonation of a nuclear-armed warhead platform exactly 104 miles above the Earth.
• Self-Destruct Mechanism : The missile carrying the orbital nuclear warhead platform has a self destruct device to destroy it in case it goes off course. Gary Seven deactivates it as part of his plan to scare the Earth governments into not using such weapons.
• Shout-Out : East 68th Street is also the street that was home to the main characters from I Love Lucy . (Recall that Star Trek was produced by Desilu Studios .)
• The '60s : Like, man, can you dig Roberta's groovy threads? (Dig 'em? I wanna bury 'em!)
• Special Guest : Robert Lansing is the only actor in the entire run of the series to warrant a "Special Guest Star" credit in the first act.
• The establishing shot of downtown Manhattan used to open the second act is also seen in numerous episodes of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. throughout that series.
• A closeup of Scotty behind the transporter station is recycled from " The Enemy Within ". James Doohan looks noticeably thinner, and has a different hairstyle in this shot.
• Recycled footage of the Enterprise orbiting Earth (without clouds) is taken from " Miri ".
• A shot of crewmembers on a corridor, listening to Kirk's speech on the intercom is recycled footage from " The Corbomite Maneuver ". The same shot appears in " Balance of Terror " and " The Menagerie, Part I " as well.
• A large amount of NASA stock footage is used in the episode. The Saturn V stock footage is of the SA 500f dummy and of Apollos 4 and 6.
• The Stoic : Gary Seven is never anything less than brusque and completely focused.
• Swiss-Army Weapon : In addition to being able to stun or kill others, Gary's servo can also disable force fields.
• Sword of Damocles : The U.S. is about to launch an orbital nuclear warhead platform. Gary Seven's mission is to make it malfunction to scare other nations into not using them.
• Time Police : Gary Seven implies he works for them. He's explicitly trying to preserve history by saving the rocket launch and knows humans and Vulcans will meet at some point.
• Transplanted Humans : Gary Seven claims to come from Earth in the 20th century, but he's been on an advanced alien world for an unspecified amount of time and they've apparently done some work on him since he's physically completely flawless.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting : Is Isis a cat who can turn into a woman or a woman who can turn into a cat? Or something else ?!
• The Worf Effect : Gary Seven is shown to be resistant to the Vulcan neck pinch, something very few Trek characters can lay claim to.
• You Already Changed the Past : At the end of the episode, Kirk checks the Enterprise 's historical records and finds a mention of the orbital platform being destroyed exactly as it was, suggesting that not only Gary Seven's mission but also the delays caused by Kirk's interference were already part of history.
• Star Trek S2 E25 "Bread and Circuses"
• Recap/Star Trek: The Original Series
• Star Trek S3 E1 "Spock's Brain"

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Assignment: Earth

The year is 1968 and the U.S.S. Enterprise is on a mission to observe the development of Earth’s scientific and technological progress. Captain James T. Kirk and his crew have been sent to observe the planet from a distance, in order to investigate the possibility that humans had earlier contact with advanced extra-terrestrial civilizations.

However, the mission is unexpectedly interrupted when they detect a strange energy surge coming from Earth. They quickly discover that a mysterious human, Gary Seven, has emerged from the energy beam and he is on a mission to back to Earth.

Kirk is suspicious of Gary Seven’s mission, so he orders a security team to investigate. They soon discover that Gary Seven’s mission is to prevent a disaster from occurring on Earth. He believes that a powerful weapon created by a powerful alien race, the Beta 5, is about to be activated and will cause immense destruction.

Gary Seven is willing to do whatever it takes to prevent the disaster and he has enlisted the help of a brilliant scientist, Roberta Lincoln, who is working on a top secret project for the U.S. government. Kirk and his crew must now work together to prevent the destruction of Earth, and to help Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln complete their mission.

Meanwhile, the powerful alien race, the Beta 5, is determined to use the weapon on Earth and have set a trap for the Enterprise crew. The Beta 5’s plan is to use the Enterprise to draw the weapon out of hiding and activate it.

Kirk and his team quickly come up with a plan and enlist the help of Spock and Doctor McCoy to devise a way to deactivate the weapon. Spock is able to create a device which will disrupt the weapon’s power, while Doctor McCoy is able to use his medical expertise to devise a plan to confuse the Beta 5, allowing the Enterprise crew to escape.

With the help of Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln, the Enterprise crew is successful in their mission. They manage to prevent the destruction of Earth and foil the Beta 5’s plans. As a reward for their heroic efforts, the crew is allowed to return to the U.S.S. Enterprise and carry out their mission to observe Earth’s development.

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Assignment: Earth

by Angela Feb 25, 2023

"Assignment: Earth" is a fascinating episode of the renowned science-fiction television series, "Star Trek." It was broadcasted on 29th March 1968 and served as the finale of the second season of the show. The episode was directed by Marc Daniels and written by Art Wallace based on a story by Gene Roddenberry.

In the episode, the USS Enterprise travels back in time to Earth in 1968, where it encounters an interstellar agent, Gary Seven, who plans to intervene in events of the 20th century. James T. Kirk and Spock are uncertain of his motives and question his true intentions.

Interestingly, the episode was originally written as a standalone half-hour television series. However, when no network picked it up, the script was reworked to fit into the "Star Trek" universe as a backdoor pilot for the proposed "Assignment: Earth" series. Unfortunately, the spin-off series was never produced.

The episode offers a unique blend of science-fiction and time travel elements. The idea of traveling through time to alter events is not a new one, but the way it was presented in "Assignment: Earth" was impressive. The plot, coupled with the charisma of the characters, made for an engaging and entertaining episode.

One of the highlights of the episode is the character of Gary Seven, played by Robert Lansing. Gary is an interstellar agent tasked with preserving the timeline and preventing Earth's destruction. His character is mysterious and complex, and his motivations are not immediately clear. He keeps Kirk and Spock guessing, which adds to the tension and intrigue of the episode.

Another noteworthy aspect of the episode is the portrayal of 1968 Earth. The attention to detail is impressive, and the sets and costumes accurately depict the era. The episode serves as a time capsule, giving viewers a glimpse of what life was like in the late 1960s.

In conclusion, "Assignment: Earth" is an excellent episode of "Star Trek" that offers a unique take on time travel and science-fiction. Its blend of interesting characters, engaging plot, and attention to detail make it a must-watch for any science-fiction fan. Although the spin-off series was never produced, the episode remains a classic in the "Star Trek" canon.

In the Star Trek episode "Assignment: Earth," the USS Enterprise travels back in time to 1968 Earth for historical research. However, they soon intercept a powerful transporter beam originating from at least one thousand light-years away. Suddenly, a man named Gary Seven, dressed in a 20th-century business suit and accompanied by a black cat named Isis, materializes on board the ship.

Seven warns Captain Kirk that history will be changed if he is not released immediately, but Kirk has no proof of his claims and has him held in the brig. Spock searches the history database and finds that the United States will launch an orbital nuclear weapons platform in a few hours, leading Seven to escape and beam down to an office in Manhattan to complete the mission of two missing agents.

Roberta Lincoln, a secretary employed by the missing agents, mistakes Seven for a CIA agent and agrees to help him. Kirk and Spock track Seven to his office, but Roberta stalls them while Seven and his cat enter the vault and are teleported away. When Seven arrives at McKinley Rocket Base, he gains access to the gantry and begins rewiring the circuits of the rocket.

Meanwhile, Kirk and Spock pursue Seven to the base but are immediately detained by the police. Back on the Enterprise, Chief Engineer Scott locates Seven and initiates beaming him up. However, in Seven's office, Roberta experiments with the vault controls and inadvertently intercepts Scotty's transporter beam, bringing Seven to the office.

Seven takes control of the rocket remotely and sends it off course, arming its warhead. McKinley Base controllers frantically try to regain control, but fail, and send a self-destruct command to the missile. After a failed attempt to call the police, Roberta hits Seven with a cigar box and seizes the servo. Seven pleads with her to allow him to proceed, as World War III will begin in six minutes if he fails.

Kirk and Spock beam to Seven's office, where Seven pleads with Kirk to let him complete his plan, which is to destroy the missile at a low enough altitude to deter the use of such orbital platforms in the future. Kirk decides to trust Seven, who safely detonates the warhead at an altitude of 104 miles with only seconds to spare.

In the epilogue, Spock and Kirk explain to Seven that the Enterprise was meant to be part of the day's events, citing their historical records. Although Seven is curious to know more, they reveal only that he and Roberta will have an interesting future.

Overall, "Assignment: Earth" is an exciting episode of Star Trek that showcases the crew's ability to handle unexpected situations and make tough decisions under pressure. The episode's themes of trust, patriotism, and the potential consequences of nuclear weapons make it particularly relevant today, decades after its initial release.

Production and reception

Beam me up, Scotty! It's time to talk about "Assignment: Earth", one of the most unique episodes of the original Star Trek series. This episode is not only the only one to list the guest star before the writing credit, but it also features one of the most curious and beloved felines in science fiction: Isis the Cat.

The episode centers around a mysterious man named Gary Seven and his sidekick, the aforementioned Isis the Cat. Gary Seven is a human from the future who travels back in time to stop a nuclear warhead from being launched. While the concept of time travel and nuclear war is certainly intriguing, it is Isis the Cat who steals the show with her feline grace and mysterious powers. But who was the person behind the cat suit?

For years, fans had speculated that Victoria Vetri played the human form of Isis in the episode. However, in 2019, it was revealed that the true identity of the actress was April Tatro. Tatro was not only an actress, but also a dancer and contortionist, making her the perfect fit for the role of Isis. Her acrobatic skills and fluid movements helped bring the character to life in a way that would not have been possible otherwise.

But it wasn't just the casting of Isis that made "Assignment: Earth" unique. The episode also featured footage from NASA, including a Saturn V rocket and the Apollo 4 capsule. The fictional McKinley Rocket Base was used as a stand-in for Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, adding a level of authenticity to the episode that fans could appreciate.

Despite being one of the lesser-known episodes of the original series, "Assignment: Earth" has gained a cult following over the years. In fact, it was ranked as one of the best "second tier" episodes by Futurism, a testament to the episode's lasting appeal. With its blend of time travel, nuclear war, and a mysterious feline, it's not hard to see why "Assignment: Earth" has captured the imaginations of Star Trek fans for decades.

In conclusion, "Assignment: Earth" may not have been the most popular episode of the original series, but it certainly left an impression on those who watched it. From the casting of Isis the Cat to the use of NASA footage, this episode stands out as a unique and memorable addition to the Star Trek canon. So if you haven't watched it yet, what are you waiting for? Give it a go and discover the magic of "Assignment: Earth".

Other media

The Star Trek universe is vast and diverse, with an array of characters that have captured the hearts and imaginations of fans worldwide. Among these characters are Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln, who first appeared in the classic Star Trek episode "Assignment: Earth". Since then, these beloved characters have made appearances in various forms of media, including comic books, novels, and even music.

In 2008, IDW Publishing released a five-issue comic book series titled "Assignment: Earth," which delved deeper into the lives of Seven and Lincoln. Written and drawn by John Byrne, the comics followed the characters from 1968 to 1974, highlighting their peripheral involvement in the events of the episode "Tomorrow is Yesterday." The series also featured an epilogue set in 2008, which depicted an annual reunion between Roberta and Isis (in her humanoid guise) at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to honor a fallen friend.

Seven and Lincoln also appeared in issues #3 and #4 of "Star Trek: Leonard McCoy Frontier Doctor" in 2010, showcasing their dynamic personalities and unique perspectives on the Star Trek universe. Author Greg Cox has also included the characters in three of his Star Trek novels, including "Assignment: Eternity" and the two-part "The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh." In these novels, Seven and Roberta team up to stop Khan and his genetically engineered humans from taking over the planet.

In the Peter Clines novel "Fold," a character from an alternate universe has a cat named Isis, after the cat from her favorite TV series, "Assignment Earth." Interestingly, this character has no knowledge of Star Trek, and her version from this dimension has a cat named Spock instead.

Last but not least, the band Five Year Mission has a song based on the "Assignment: Earth" episode, which imagines a spin-off series featuring Seven and Lincoln. The song doubles as a theme song for the imagined show, and is a fun and catchy tribute to these beloved characters.

In conclusion, the legacy of Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln lives on in various forms of media, captivating fans both old and new. Whether it's through comics, novels, or music, these characters continue to inspire and entertain us with their wit, charm, and ingenuity. So if you're a fan of Star Trek, be sure to check out these various works and immerse yourself in the world of Seven and Lincoln.

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Star Trek – Assignment: Earth (Review)

The first Star Trek pilot, The Cage , was produced in 1964. To celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, this December we are reviewing the second season of the original Star Trek show. You can check out our first season reviews here . Check back daily for the latest review.

Assignment: Earth was almost the last episode of Star Trek ever produced.

It was also possibly (although nowhere near “almost” ) the pilot for a spin-off television show.

Seventh heaven?

At the last minute, following a very high-profile fan campaign, Star Trek was renewed for a third season.

Fans would have to wait decades to see an actual Star Trek finalé that reduced the main cast to guest stars.

“Wait, who just hijacked my show?”

On one level, Assignment: Earth feels like something of an insult to the cast and the crew who worked on the series, as well as the fans who had campaigned so hard to save the show. It was Gene Roddenberry very clearly and transparently fashioning a parachute for himself. This was an attempt by Roddenberry to line up his next job, to produce a piece of television that would secure him gainful employment for the next couple of years. It is a very cynical piece of television.

Despite the fact that Roddenberry would become inexorably linked with Star Trek for the rest of his career, there is some indication that the television producer had been plotting an escape for some time. Roddenberry’s attention had been focused away from  Star Trek for considerable stretches of the second season, affording producer Gene L. Coon more freedom than he might otherwise have enjoyed. During that time away, Roddenberry returned to the police procedural genre. Police Story was written as a pilot for a television show, but aired as a stand-alone movie on NBC in September 1967.

Hey! The opening credits of Enterprise!

Indeed, Assignment: Earth seems very consciously and very clearly designed as a showcase for Roddenberry and his proposed television show. The sets were built on the budget for Star Trek , and look surprisingly lavish. Might this money have been better spent on an adventure featuring the Enterprise? There is some suggestion that Assignment: Earth was the most expensive episode of Star Trek ever produced , and it feels very much like it is only a Star Trek episode as a matter of convenience, because that way it can be folded under the parent show’s expenses.

According to documentation that Marc Cushman dug up for These Are the Voyages , Roddenberry also fought viciously for the final “producer” credit on the episode, replacing John Meredyth Lucas. This possessive streak would later find expression in the mythology that Roddenberry would build up around himself, fanned by supporters like Richard Arnold. Over the years, Roddenberry would come to downplay the involvement of other people in defining Star Trek , dismissing and diminishing contributions by figures like Gene L. Coon or D.C. Fontana, who had overseen the series during his own absences.

In need of a lift…

It seems like Roddenberry had firmly taken control of Star Trek towards the end of its second season, despite his considerable absences during the middle stretch of the season. He seemed to be bringing Star Trek consciously backwards, even further than John Meredyth Lucas had done. The penultimate episode produced was The Omega Glory , a rejected pilot for series. With Assignment: Earth , Roddenberry pushed even further back; not only did he take Kirk and the Enterprise back to 1968, but he put them in a pilot for somebody else’s show.

To be entirely fair, this was not unheard of. Using pre-existing television shows to launch new television shows is a logical and sustainable business model. It helps with budgeting; it also provides audience-members with a gateway into this new world. The technique is still in common use, with shows like CSI frequently teasing spin-offs in the parent show before launching the new series itself. Even the Star Trek spin-offs would makes some effort to help launch the next iteration of the franchise, whether setting up the Cardassian withdrawal of the Maquis conflict.

Gary on, nothing to see here…

In fact, the idea of using the final episodes of an existing series to launch a potential spin-off was common enough. The Killin’ Cousin , the last episode of Barnaby Jones produced, was intended to spawn a new television series. The last episode of Quincy, M.E. , The Cutting Edge, was similarly conceived as a launchpad for a new television show. The final season of Happy Days spin-off Charles in Charles features no less than three would-be pilots that never took off – Fair Exchange , Almost Family , Lost Resort . So Assignment: Earth is not a freak occurrence.

Assignment: Earth began life as a half-hour television pilot without any reference to the Enterprise . The pitch was obviously heavily influenced by James Bond. Tall, dark and handsome, actor Robert Lansing makes a convincing stand-in for Sean Connery. The name “Gary Seven” seems designed to evoke the iconic “Double-Oh-Seven.” The servo resembles a device that Bond might receive from the Q Department – although it should be noted that Bond would not receive his first gimmick pen until Moonraker , a decade after Assignment: Earth aired.

A cool cat…

Nevertheless, the influence of the Bond films can be keenly felt on Assignment: Earth . Gary Seven is a secret agent in a sharp suit, paired with a beautiful young secretary. In particular, it seems like Gene Roddenberry and Art Wallace watched You Only Live Twice before plotting the episode. Not only does Assignment: Earth featured Gary Seven involving himself in the space race, it also gives him a cute cat that he can stroke as a way of suggesting moral ambiguity around the character.

In fact, watching Assignment: Earth , Gary Seven feels like a cross between James Bond and a James Bond villain. He is a sauve secret agent capable of infiltrating any secure location on the planet, but he also hijacks a rocket carrying nuclear missiles in order to send a message to the world’s governments. Steering the rocket through a fancy console in an otherwise fashionable office, Gary Seven seems like he might be ready to make some sort of ransom demand or calculated threat.

It’s not rocket science…

Assignment: Earth was a collaboration between Gene Roddenberry and Art Wallace. Wallace is perhaps best known for his work on the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows , but he also contributed the script for Obsession . According to Captain’s Logs , Wallace had pitched a similar idea independent of Roddenberry:

“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.”

Ultimately, Assignment: Earth never did manage to launch that spin-off show, but it has remained a focal point of fan interest over the years. Gary Seven still holds no small amount of interest for fans and writers alike, popping in various tie-in and spin-off media over the years.

“Nobody steals my show and gets away with it!”

However, the appeal of Gary Seven seems rather strange. Assignment: Earth is a very clunky piece of work. It feels like a half-hour pilot that has been padded out with the addition of the Enterprise. Kirk and Spock spend most of the episode’s runtime following Gary Seven around like lost puppies while he drives the plot; when he is not outwitting Kirk and Spock in order to show how clever he is. Inevitably, Assignment: Earth ends with Kirk and Spock endorsing Gary Seven – trusting him to save the day, rather than saving it themselves.

The viewer might be forgiven for wondering what exactly the Enterprise is doing in 1968 in the first place. “Using the lightspeed breakaway factor, the Enterprise has moved back through time to the twentieth century,” Kirk explains. “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.” That is all the explanation we receive.

And he’s toyetic, too!

Given how dangerous the temporal excursions in Tomorrow is Yesterday or The City on the Edge of Forever had been, it is strange to see Kirk and his crew behave so flippantly about time travel. Writing for the semi-official Inside Star Trek newsletter, Ruth Berman struggled to explain this story element as…

An experiment in duplicating the accidental time travel in Tomorrow is Yesterday — the experiment apparently worked, since the Enterprise made it to the 20th century and back to their own time. But, presumably, further experiments in time travel will only be made with great caution because of the danger of changing history.

It is not at all convincing, and Assignment: Earth stands out as the most nonchalant use of time travel in the history of the franchise. Of course, it was written at a point where Roddenberry likely suspected there would be no more Star Trek , so it probably did not seem to be too big a problem at the time.

“Captain, I believe he gets HBO…”

Looking at Assignment: Earth as an episode of Star Trek seems to miss the point. The Enterprise crew are really just spectators, existing to introduce the audience to the team of Gary Seven, Roberta Lincoln and Isis. Assignment: Earth is a stealth pilot with the budget and the cast from a cult science-fiction show to pass the torch. However, Assignment: Earth never went to series. Instead, the series was stillborn – becoming a quirky footnote in the history of Star Trek rather than the beginning of something more significant.

To be fair, it is easy to see why Assignment: Earth didn’t get picked up for series. Although the teleplay is credited to Art Wallace, it is packed with the sort of awkward exposition and stilted moralising that one expects from Gene Roddenberry. Pondering what Gary Seven might be doing, Kirk observes, “Weren’t orbital nuclear devices one of this era’s greatest problems?” Spock replies, “Most definitely. Once the sky was full of orbiting H-bombs, the slightest mistake could have brought one down by accident, setting off a nuclear holocaust.” The episode is not subtle.

Blowing a fuse…

There is something just a little bit uncomfortable about the basic premise of Assignment: Earth . A bunch of anonymous aliens have abducted children from Earth, and raised them to become covert “operatives” on the planet surface. These operatives then work – using advanced technology and no accountability – to “protect” mankind. The implication is that operatives like Gary Seven have been guiding mankind from the shadows for decades, at least – all at the behest of secretive alien taskmasters.

This is a rather problematic set up. After all, The Omega Glory featured Kirk getting very upset at Captain Ronald Tracey for violating the Prime Directive on Omega IV. Then again, Kirk had gone on to nudge the planet’s civilisations towards traditional American values. The original Star Trek was never entirely consistent in its attitude towards the Prime Directive. In effect, this the philosophy of The Apple reflected back upon twentieth-century America, with a more advanced culture imposing their own norms upon a civilisation they deem “primitive.”

“Oh, sorry, I seem to have arrived on the wrong sets.”

However, Assignment: Earth never seems too bothered by this. Indeed, it is interesting that these issues have never really been explored in many of the tie-in materials surrounding Gary Seven and his mission on Earth. It is a pretty sizable issue with the episode, and while the pilot might have been setting the idea up to subvert it later, Assignment: Earth seems to have inherited the worst imperialist tendencies of Star Trek . Kirk (and Starfleet) may have made some questionable decisions, but they have a general philosophy of non-interference. Gary Seven’s philosophy is explicitly one of interference.

This aspect of Assignment: Earth also seems at odds with Roddenberry’s own moral philosophy. Roddenberry was a vocal opponent of the popular ancient astronauts theory, arguing that aliens did not build the pyramids. Roddenberry’s argument – one grounded in the humanism that defines Star Trek – is that humanity did not need mystical alien creatures to help them accomplish wonders . However, Assignment: Earth is the story about how mankind does need alien guidance because they are not capable of assuring their own continued existence.

Cat attack!

Sure, Gary Seven is human. However, he is merely the puppet of an anonymous extraterrestrial power. Gary Seven is a cog in a well-oiled machine; he is a replacement part. The “operatives” are so interchangeable that Gary Seven can just step right into the shoes of his predecessors. As such, Assignment: Earth represents quite the departure from the humanism and optimism associated with Star Trek . The best we can hope for is that an alien race decides to meddle in human affairs to make things better.

Even aside from the troublesome subtext of the episode’s basic premise,  Assignment: Earth serves to illustrate that perhaps Star Trek (and Gene Roddenberry) were not quite as consistent in their philosophy as hindsight would suggest. Roddenberry did a great deal of myth-making in the years after Star Trek went off the air, and a lot of it has lodged in the popular consciousness. As any rewatch of the series will demonstrate, Star Trek was not always as progressive and utopian as many fans like to believe.

Beta testing…

Even aside from the problems with the premise of the show, Art Wallace’s script is decidedly clunky. To be fair, it has a lot of heavy-lifting to do as it integrates the Enterprise, but it has no real focus or levity. Instead, Assignment: Earth is stuffed with awkward exposition. When Gary Seven tries to convince the Beta V of his identity, it does not ask for a pass code or a DNA sample. Instead, it demands a plot dump. “Please confirm identity as supervisor by describing nature of agents and mission here.”

Of course, this seems like a rather arbitrary way of proving Gary Seven’s identity. After all, one assumes that any of his enemies would likely have a working knowledge of who he is and what he is doing. Certainly, if his adversaries know about the existence of the Beta V computer and can fake his voice pattern, it seems unlikely that a broad question about the nature of his assignment will slow them down. The question exists primarily to enable a long and cumbersome television show pitch from Gary Seven.

“Ay, I tried to pitch them ‘The Young Scotty Chronicles’, laddy, but they were having none of it.”

“Agents are male and female, descendants of human ancestors taken from Earth approximately six thousand years ago,” Gary Seven explains. “They’re the product of generations of training for this mission. Problem: Earth technology and science have progressed faster than political and social knowledge. Purpose of mission: To prevent Earth’s civilisation from destroying itself before it can mature into a peaceful society.” As pitches go, it is hardly “space, the final frontier…”

The rest of the episode is similarly clunky, with none of the central characters seeming particularly well-formed. Although clearly influenced by James Bond, Gary Seven has none of the wit and charm of the playboy spy. Instead, Gary Seven plays like a watered-down version of Spock. However, Lansing is not quite as comfortable with dry and emotionless as Leonard Nimoy, and Gary Seven comes off as rather stilted and awkward. To be fair, given that Gary Seven was raised without human contact, this makes some degree of sense. However, he lacks the sort of charisma needed from a series lead.

One of these days, Gary… right to the moon!

In an interview with Starlog , Robert Lansing confessed that he was originally reluctant to do genre television:

“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.”

Although he seems to have softened in the years following the episode, it is interesting that Roddenberry would recruit a lead actor so disinterested.

Card-carrying secret agent…

Terri Garr does a better job with Roberta Lincoln. Garr seems a lot more comfortable with the comedic banter than Lansing, and makes the most of some truly terrible lines. Indeed, Assignment: Earth is downright painful when it tries to be funny, putting awful gags into the mouths of its lead characters. “Where’s three four seven?” Gary Seven demands on Roberta’s arrival. “With three four eight?” Roberta quips, which is painful enough. However,  Assignment: Earth goes for the low-hanging fruit and has Gary Seven misunderstand. “Two oh one, code responses are not necessary.”

There is a similarly cringe-inducing scene with a dictation machine, which Assignment: Earth presents as the height of modernity. It is hilariously quaint. More awkward is the script’s patronising attitude towards sixties counter-culture. Asked if she wants to save the world, Roberta explains, “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.” It is horribly condescending, suggesting that counter-culture just needs an older and more authoritative hand to guide it.

Computer says, “Exposit!”

However, like Lansing, there is a sense that Terri Garr was not entirely ready to commit to a television series. In her own interview with Starlog , Garr confessed that she did not like to talk about her time on Star Trek , and was almost relieved that Assignment: Earth never went to series:

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.

Based on these conversations, it seems rather unlikely that Assignment: Earth would have been particularly happy behind the scenes. There is a sense that Roddenberry and Wallace really had no idea of what they would do with the show if it did get picked up.

It’s all rather forced…

Assignment: Earth was almost the last episode of Star Trek . It is interesting how many episodes of the second season came close to being the last episode of the series. None of those episodes were particularly good – none of them seemed to encapsulate the essence of what made Star Trek great; none of them seemed to speak to the heart of the show. Assignment: Earth is a woefully cynical piece of television; more than that, it is also a very poorly-constructed episode of television. As with The Omega Glory before it, it suggests that Roddenberry was a better inspirational figure than he was a storyteller.

Still, Star Trek managed to limp on into a (deeply troubled) third season. Gary Seven and his supporting cast faded into history, abandoned forever in 1968. Maybe there is a happy ending, after all.

You might be interested in our other reviews from the second season of the classic Star Trek :

• Supplemental: (Gold Key) #1 – The Planet of No Return!
• Supplemental: (Marvel Comics, 1980) #4-5 – The Haunting of Thallus!/The Haunting of the Enterprise!
• Metamorphosis
• Friday’s Child
• Who Mourns for Adonais?
• Supplemental: Spock’s World by Diane Duane
• Supplemental: New Visions #3 – Cry Vengeance
• Wolf in the Fold
• The Changeling
• Supplemental: (DC Comics, 1984) #43-45 – The Return of the Serpent!
• Supplemental: (IDW, 2009) #13 – The Red Shirt’s Tale
• Supplemental: Deep Space Nine – Crossover
• Supplemental: New Visions #1 – The Mirror, Cracked
• Supplemental: (DC Comics, 1984) #9-16 – New Frontiers (The Mirror Universe Saga)
• Supplemental: Mirror Images
• Supplemental: Mirror Universe – The Sorrows of Empire by David Mack
• Supplemental: (IDW, 2009) #15-16 – Mirrored
• The Deadly Years
• Supplemental: (Gold Key) #61 – Operation Con Game
• Supplemental: (DC Comics, 1984) #39-40 – The Return of Mudd
• Supplemental: The Galactic Whirlpool by David Gerrold
• Supplemental: Alien Spotlight – Tribbles
• Bread and Circuses
• Journey to Babel
• A Private Little War
• The Gamesters of Triskelion
• The Immunity Syndrome
• A Piece of the Action
• By Any Other Name
• Return to Tomorrow
• Patterns of Force
• The Ultimate Computer
• The Omega Glory
• Supplemental: Assignment: Eternity by Greg Cox
• Supplemental: (DC Comics, 1989) #49-50 – The Peacekeepers
• Supplemental: (IDW, 2008) Assignment: Earth

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: art wallace , assignment , assignment: earth , cancellation , Gary Seven , gene roddenberry , NBC , robert lansing , sixties , spin-off , star trek , Television , terri garr , the original series , time travel , tos |

19 Responses

“Based on these conversations, it seems rather unlikely that Assignment: Earth would have been particularly happy behind the scenes. There is a sense that Roddenberry and Wallace really had no idea of what they would do with the show if it did get picked up.”

I’ve never understood what they were planning to do with the series. Make it about Gary Seven attacking the problems of society, like he did with the arms race in A:E? That would be far more direct – and “preachy” than Star Trek’s “show us a future where these problems have been overcome.” I wouldn’t necessarily have minded, but I think the audiences and censors of the sixties would’ve been less than pleased.

Make it about Gary Seven fighting supervillains, like he does in Eugenics Wars and like most spies in the TV shows of the era did? That would just be boring, and a complete waste of the “alien operative with a socially conscious mission” hook.

A cool story might have been to have Gary Seven discover operatives from another alien power also on Earth, but for less benign missions, so the main plot would be about them struggling over control of the planet and their different visions for it – but that would take the kind of serialization and world building that they’d never have tried in the sixties, if it even occurred to them.

I just don’t see how the show would’ve worked.

(On the other hand – and now for something completely different – I DEMAND that someone, somewhere, write a Gary Seven/Men In Black crossover someday).

Yep. It is weird to imagine how the show would have worked without devolving into an inferior imitation of shows like I, Spy or Mission: Impossible.

Even I am wary of the preachy stuff, because there’s no telling what the writing staff might have looked like. I’m not sure I’d want twenty-odd weeks of Roddenberry preachiness, but from Gene L. Coon or D.C. Fontana, maybe.

Although, as Ben mentions below, John Byrne’s five-issue Assignment: Earth offers an example of how that writer would have handled it – a series of five done-in-one episodic adventures that feature cameos, crossovers, social commentary and world building. Vietnam, Cold War, Nixon. I like the idea, but the execution is so-so. However, Byrne’s style does feel quite like what a later sixties or early seventies television show might look like.

I remember thinking during the last MIB movie that Assignment: Earth could be done still. Would have to have been in this time period.

My take on what it might have looked like our homemade credits and homegrown theme music for the show that might have been….

and,…

I cannot help wondering how an Assignment: Earth ongoing television series might have worked out, if only because Robert Lansing was such a great actor. Also, there is a certain potential to the premise. But as you observe, given a closer examination, the set-up may not have been especially well thought out. It’s really difficult to tell how it could have turned out based solely on a backdoor pilot.

Even if Assignment: Earth had gotten the green light as an ongoing series I honestly could not imagine it lasting more than a couple of years at the most. There really was not much of a market for science fiction television back in the late 1960s. Star Trek’s difficulty in barely managing to last for three years is proof of that.

I did think that the Assignment: Earth miniseries that John Byrne did a few years ago was pretty decent, although it had it’s flaws. But I still see that potential to the concept, and I wouldn’t mind seeing it revisited again.

Yep. It is hard to judge from an episode of another show. Nevertheless, it’s always fun to speculate based on what we know! (And even what we don’t!)

Actually, there’s a review of that Byrne series a-comin’. Tomorrow morning I think. Gary Seven appeared in a lot of spin-off material!

Yeesh! Teri Garr is the greatest, but I’ve read her book and she strikes me as an Midwestern housewife who can never be pleased. (My aunt’s from Ohio, I know the sort.)

And what’s wrong with swap meets? 🙂

I did like of the image of a man in period dress neutralizing the Enterprise crew. That’s a moment that makes you sit up and take notice. Good thing they recycled it for Encounter At Farpoint.

Very nice observation.

I think Gary Seven is a cool idea, at least in theory. I’m less convinced that the version that appeared in the episode is workable. But, you’re right, the imagery is fun and striking in a way that the rest of the episode… isn’t.

Just occurred to me – if you do want to see how Robert Lansing would have done with his own spy show, he played Control in The Equalizer (TV show, not movie). Not the main character, but one of his oldest friends who remains in CIA and often appears when the CIA wants something from McCall, or vice-versa, or when their interests are clashing.

No science fiction element, but worth a look all the same.

Ah, cheers!

I hope you’ll go on to review the third season someday!

The plan is provisionally to review the third season the month that Star Trek III comes out – so May 2016?

In the meantime, 2015 has a lot of Star Trek reviews, if you are interested in the franchise outside of TOS? Planning do all of ENT as a “prequel” to the show’s fiftieth anniversary (January, April, August, December). Also hoping to do the fourth season of DS9 and the second season of VOY (across September and October). And then hoping to get through a significant portion of the rest of the franchise in 2016, if everything goes to plan.

I was a TOS fan from 1969 – 1986, then I moved into a TV-free household and lived with a man who thought that television was the root of all evil. So when TNG came out in 1987, I not only didn’t own a television, I didn’t even know it was on.

I have a lot of problems with what they’re doing in the reboot movies, but seeing them did remind me of how much I’d adored TOS as a child and a teen, and the first thing I did was to re-watch all 79 episodes of TOS, then insist that Mr. TV-Is-Bad watch them with me. 🙂

Then I started on the other Star Trek shows. I watched the first couple of episodes of TNG and persevered through an unexpectedly racist episode, an episode that tried to redo “The Naked Time” and failed miserably, and a couple of other bad episodes, but I balked at “Lonely Among Us.”

In “Lonely Among Us,” Picard ADMITS to the ship’s doctor that he’s been TAKEN OVER BY AN ALIEN CREATURE. The first officer and doctor try to do something about this, but Picard tells them to go away and stop bothering him, and they run away with their tails between their legs.

Say WHAT? If Kirk had admitted to Spock and McCoy that he was possessed by an alien creature, first they’d have tried to talk to it. But if that didn’t work, Spock would have neck-pinched him or McCoy would have hypoed him unconscious. I couldn’t believe that Riker and Crusher just kinda shrugged and told each other that there was nothing they could do. How the hell are these people going to SURVIVE in a dangerous galaxy?

Where’s my confident, in-charge captain? Where’s my knows-everything, ready-for-anything Vulcan? Where’s my crusty, fearless doctor? *sigh*

Friends tell me that TNG is going to get MUCH better. I’m amazed it survived long enough to do so. I really WAS trying not to expect the new guys to be like the old ones. But when the new ones are stupid and ineffectual, it’s a lot harder to maintain that position.

I’ll go back to TNG eventually, since people tell me that it eventually becomes wonderful, but I’ve stopped watching it and started working my way through Voyager. Hmm, a dynamic, take-charge captain, a Vulcan (even if he’s not as cool as Spock), and a snarky doctor … yeah, this show is a much easier transition for the TOS fan. 🙂 And watching a female captain geek out with a female chief engineer in one of the early episodes … be still my heart! I have waited for a moment like this for SO long!

Friends tell me that Voyager is eventually going to become awful, just as they tell me that TNG is eventually going to become wonderful. But for the first seasons of each, at least, I’m finding Voyager a lot easier to swallow.

Still, no matter which other Star Treks I end up liking, I don’t think anything will ever dislodge TOS from the place it has in my heart. I first saw it at the age of eleven, when I simply took it all in uncritically, and although my middle-aged self now sees the sexism, the heavy-handedness of the messages, the wrong-headeness of Kirk’s cultural imperialism, and all of that, some part of me is still that eleven-year-old who loved TOS unreservedly … and always will.

TNG starts hitting it out of the park in its third season. I think the third season of TNG is one of the best seasons of television every produced. (The first two are pretty terrible, with the occasional highlight. If you want to skip ahead to the good stuff in the first two seasons, I’d recommend “Home Soil”, “Heart of Glory”, “Conspiracy”, “Elementary, Dear Data”, “A Matter of Honour”, “Q Who?” and “The Emissary.”)

Voyager is much maligned among fans. Probably my least favourite Star Trek, even though I don’t think it is as bad as people make it out. It is very episodic – quite like TOS in that way. It has some highlights, but a lot of it is formulaic. But when it does hit it out of the park, it ranks up there with the best of the franchise. I remember being quite fond of the third through fifth seasons, and finding quite a few underrated gems in there.

However, given that it is largely using the formula defined from the third season of TNG onwards, I’m kinda curious what your reaction might be watching VOY first. Is it just over-familiarity that prompted fandom’s backlash to Voyager? Let me know your opinion if you do jump back to TNG after VOY, if it seems like TNG is perhaps more repetitive, if that makes sense?

I do notice you didn’t mention DS9. That is probably, from the fourth season onwards, my favourite Star Trek hands down. (Although it is interesting for the entirety of the run.) It is perhaps a little quirkier than the other spin-offs, but I think it has probably aged a little better than some of the nineties Star Trek.

This was one of my favorite Star Trek episodes. Lansing was brilloant. In my opinion, which counts for nothing, this review is garbage.

Well, you’re entitled to your opinion.

Would you care to elaborate upon it? Explain to me why it’s garbage? What precisely you disagreed with? What you like about Assignment: Earth and what I’ve missed about it?

I once thought it might be interesting to circle back to the “Gary Seven” types and their mysterious benefactors (not the novels we saw, but the TV shows). Their apparent benevolence could be a subtle source of conflict.

It might be interesting to see the Federation deal with the manipulation of Earth’s history by high-minded and mysterious extraterrestrial benefactors acting through almost-human agents (though I doubt we’d see the original, awkward eugenics angle reappear). There are a few themes that could be used to explore, a prominent one being the struggle between choice and fate, since Seven seemed to pinpoint the Enterprise in history as soon as he saw Vulcans and humans together, and he knew the “right” outcome of his own actions on Earth.

Nowadays, though, I wouldn’t really trust the franchise to handle that well. The two latest series have gotten a little too eager with their use of shades-of-gray secret societies as plot engines.

It’s a theme that Roddenberry would spin again in another attempt at piloting the series in “The Questor Tapes” which is mostly memorable for future “BJ” Robert Farell playing sidekick to an incompletely programmed Android who’s the last of his ancient line apparently sent here to influence the Human Race since prehistory.

This wasn’t the last seen of Agent 194. The now Senior Supervisor would make returns in several novels and comics, most notably the one that echoes the spirit of the intended series. Star Trek: Assignment Earth put out by IDW.

As I recall, the android was an inspiration for Data on The Next Generation .

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Star Trek Re-Watch: “Assignment: Earth”

“Assignment: Earth” Written by Art Wallace (story by Gene Roddenberry and Art Wallace) Directed by Marc Daniels

Season 2, Episode 26 Production episode: 2×26 Original air date: March 29, 1968 Star date: 1968

Mission summary

While on a frivolous time travel mission to research Earth’s history, circa 1968, Enterprise accidentally intercepts a transporter signal from an unknown source over a thousand light years away. A well-dressed man holding a black cat beams onto their transporter pad and looks at them dramatically.

The mysterious man in the sharp suit asks why they’ve intercepted him and demands they identify themselves. Kirk calls security to the transporter room before complying. The man is astonished to find a starship in the 20th century and when he notices Spock’s pointy ears he realizes Enterprise is from the future. He calls himself Mister Seven, claiming to be a contemporary Earth man sent by a secretive alien race to protect the planet. That’s a flimsy premise, especially from a guy who has conversations with his pet cat. Seven tries to convince them to beam him down immediately.

SEVEN: Captain Kirk, I am of this time period. You are not. You interfere with me, with what I have to do there, and you’ll change history. You’ll destroy the Earth and probably yourselves, too. SPOCK: If what he says is true, Captain, every second we delay him could be dangerous. KIRK: And if he’s lying? SEVEN: This is the most critical period in Earth’s history. The planet I’m from wants to help Earth survive. KIRK: What if it turns out you’re an invading alien from the future? SPOCK: A most difficult decision, Captain.

Kirk has a tough call to make, so he puts it off until he can gather more information about their fashionable passenger and his ominous feline companion, Isis. He orders confinement for Seven, but the man and his cat overpower the incompetent security officers. He shrugs off Spock’s patented neck pinch and works the transporter controls until Kirk stuns him with a phaser.

As Dr. McCoy examines the stylish stranger, Kirk calls a ship-wide briefing with all science, engineering, and supervisory personnel through the comm system. They don’t know much more than they did before, but Spock takes a break from cuddling Seven’s cat to highlight the historical significance of the 1960s:

SPOCK: 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: Weren’t orbital nuclear devices one of this era’s greatest problems? SPOCK: Most definitely. Once the sky was full of orbiting H-bombs, the slightest mistake could have brought one down by accident, setting off a nuclear holocaust.

In the brig, Seven tests the forcefield of his cell before shorting it out with his sonic screwdriver pen then using the device to hypnotize a red shirt into a dead sleep. He escapes to the transporter room while McCoy tells Kirk and Spock what a great body he has: “Human readings, yes, but not a single physical flaw. Totally perfect body.” Clean living or proof of alien origin?

Isis darts out of the room just before security reports Seven’s escape. She joins her master in the transporter room and they beam down before Kirk can stop him…

In a New York City office, a secret wall slides open to expose a hidden safe. The dials on the steel vault spin by themselves until the massive door swings aside to reveal a swirling blue energy field. Seven and his cat emerge from the transporter effect and calmly walk into the room as the vault and wall close behind them. He strides to the window and looks at the people below, marveling at how primitive it all is.

He calls out “Computer on.” A bookcase rotates and a large computer appears, a cross between Batman’s Batcomputer and Daystrom’s ill-fated M15. The Beta 5 analytical computer requests he identify himself by exposition:

SEVEN: All right. Agents are male and female, descendants of human ancestors taken from Earth approximately six thousand years ago. They’re the product of generations of training for this mission. Problem: Earth technology and science have progressed faster than political and social knowledge. Purpose of mission: to prevent Earth’s civilization from destroying itself before it can mature into a peaceful society.

It may sound like a bad pitch for a television show, but it satisfies Beta 5 and she accepts him as Supervisor 194, Gary Seven. She reports that agents 201 and 347 have been missing for three days and begins searching news feeds and government communications to locate them in time to complete their operation: to sabotage a rocket carrying a U.S. suborbital nuclear warhead, which launches in less than ninety minutes. Seven might have to get his own hands dirty on this one.

Meanwhile, back on Star Trek : Kirk and Spock beam down in period-appropriate business suits, with a cap covering Spock’s ears. They begin tracking Seven’s position with Scotty’s guidance from Enterprise .

A blonde woman enters Seven’s outer office while Beta 5 produces false IDs and a map of McKinley Rocket Base for him. Seven, still dressed to the nines in a new suit, mistakes her for agent 201, but after the psychic typewriter freaks her out by auto-magically typing everything she says, it becomes evident that she’s hired help who knew nothing of their identities—until Seven inadvertently made her aware of their advanced technology. She quits but he uses his sonic pen to lock her in and consults Beta 5 via a green cube on the desk.

SEVEN: Scan unidentified female present. COMPUTER: Roberta Lincoln. Human. Profession: secretary. Employed by 347 and 201. Description: age twenty, five feet seven inches, 120 pounds, hair presently tinted honey blonde. Although behavior appears erratic, possesses high IQ. Birthmarks— ROBERTA: Hey. COMPUTER: Small mole on left shoulder. Somewhat larger star-shaped mark on her— ROBERTA: Hey, watch it! Okay, I’ll bite. What is it? SEVEN: Miss Lincoln. Miss Lincoln, What kind of work did your employers say they were doing here? ROBERTA: Research for a new encyclopedia? No? No.

He shows her his fabricated CIA papers to convince her he’s a government agent. “Very groovy,” she says, suddenly trusting him. Seven decides to keep her around, because why not, and asks not to be disturbed while he consults his cat. But Kirk and Spock are closing in on his coordinates.

They arrive at his front door just as Beta 5 reports that agents 201 and 347 were killed in an automobile accident on their way to McKinley. He sneaks out through his secret transportal as Roberta runs interference on the Starfleet officers. They struggle and she uses her defensive training to pull Spock’s cap off, which admittedly does force him to let her go so she can get a better look at his Vulcan features, with the requisite shocked reaction. Kirk shoots the locked office door with his phaser and bursts in—too late, again. Seven walks safely out of a hangar at McKinley.

Cops arrive at the apartment in response to Roberta’s panicked call for help. The captain and science officer beam out with the startled policemen then return them as soon as they’ve had an eyeful of Enterprise ’s transporter room—giving Roberta another demonstration of advanced technology. So much for keeping a low profile. Seven isn’t much better at evading security personnel at the base. He’s stopped by a sergeant, who he allows to make a phone call before he zaps him asleep with his pen.

Meanwhile, on Star Trek , Scotty uses a weather satellite to get Google-like close-up images of the launch pad, performing a tedious visual scan for the stylish business man and his black cat. He misses Seven emerging from the trunk of the launch director’s car and his trip in the elevator to the top of the rocket, only thirty-five minutes before blastoff. Kirk and Spock beam down to the pad just as Seven’s sleepy sergeant wakes up to capture them. They really have the worst luck sneaking around 20th century military bases.

Kirk and Spock remain tight-lipped about their identities and the communicators and phasers the military confiscate from them. But Scotty’s finally found the needle in his haystack: he zooms in on Seven and Isis perched on the gantry crane, messing around in an open panel on the rocket. He attempts to beam them up, but Roberta inadvertently presses all the right buttons while playing with Seven’s toys and intercepts the transporter beam, bringing him back to his office before he can finish whatever he was trying to do.

Kirk’s “never felt so helpless” standing around watching the rocket take off. In Seven’s apartment, Roberta begins to get suspicious when her employer uses Beta 5 to sabotage the rocket. She tries to call for help but he cuts the phone cord with his pen. He takes the rocket off its flight path and arms the warhead, which alarms the military brass at the base, and most international governments. Seven has control of the rocket’s horizontal and vertical, and he sets it on a trajectory for Eurasia where it’s certain to ruin everyone’s day.

While the officers are distracted by their failed attempts to re-establish contact and activate the rocket’s destruct signal, Kirk and Spock nab a communicator and have Scotty transport them to Seven’s apartment. They find that Roberta has beaned Seven with a cigar box and taken his pen. He tries to convince Roberta that he’s trying to prevent World War III:

SEVEN: Roberta, you’ve got to believe me. Look, a truly advanced planet wouldn’t use force. They wouldn’t come here in strange alien forms. The best of all possible methods would be to take human beings to their world, train them for generations until they’re needed here. ROBERTA: Mr. 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.

Okay… Kirk and Spock bust into the office and the Vulcan immediately tries to figure out Beta 5’s controls so he can detonate the warhead. Seven insists he has the same goal: to destroy the rocket before it drops below 100 miles over the Earth, “just barely in time to frighten them out of this arms race.” Roberta points the pen at Kirk threateningly, but Seven takes it from her—it was set to kill. He hands the weapon to the captain and offers his help.

Kirk is indecisive, but Spock may not be able to master the controls in time. “Without facts, the decision cannot be made logically. You must rely on your human intuition,” he advises. With the rocket thirty seconds from impact, he makes up his mind. “Go,” he tells Seven.

Seven takes over the controls and after a tense countdown, he succeeds in destroying the rocket at an altitude of 104 miles. Later, he dictates his report to his typewriter, calling the mission a success despite Enterprise ’s accidental interference. The captain and Spock maintain that of course everything happened the way it was supposed to—they’ve just noticed that their historical tapes had a record that “a malfunctioning suborbital warhead was exploded exactly one hundred and four miles above the Earth” (how did Spock miss that?) and resulted in better international control of nuclear weapons. Oh, time travel.

Roberta is distressed when she sees Isis briefly turn into a Playboy Playmate, but Seven is coy about his cat’s true nature. He asks Kirk and Spock for some hints about the future, but they hold out on him.

KIRK: I’m afraid we can’t reveal everything we know, Mr. Seven. SPOCK: Captain, we could say that Mr. Seven and Miss Lincoln have some interesting experiences in store for them. KIRK: Yes, I think we could say that. Two to beam up, Scotty. SPOCK: Live long and prosper, Mr. Seven. KIRK: And the same to you, Miss Lincoln. Energize.

Analysis Seven, 104, 347, 1968… the numbers just don’t add up on this one. Most fans are aware that “Assignment: Earth” was intended as a backdoor pilot for a show starring Gary Seven, his quirky receptionist, a sexy shapeshifting cat, and a contrary computer. As such, it makes for a peculiar episode of Star Trek , and a dissatisfying season finale, relegating the crew to following Seven around trying to figure out what he’s up to. The conceit that time travel is so simple Starfleet can lead observational missions into Earth’s past was rightfully dropped after this anomalous plot, as was the planned TV series.

I don’t know if I ever watched this episode without the knowledge that it was an odd blend of two shows, but I think it left a better impression on me when I was younger. This time around the setup comes off as too farfetched, and the story structure is a mess. Too much focus is placed on Seven to the detriment of our regular cast, and aside from the scene where he meets Roberta, the script is uninspired. Add in the fact that we’ve seen a lot of this before, including a black cat who’s really a woman, and it doesn’t deliver much excitement.

But the show isn’t without its good points. I was curious about Seven’s true identity and mission right up to the end, having forgotten his purpose (or simply confused by his motives and unreliable explanations). The NASA stock footage is breathtaking even now, seamlessly integrated into the episode and making this episode look like it had an effects budget to rival a Hollywood film. I suppose in 1968 much of the public would have been familiar with those striking images, but I hadn’t seen them often enough to be a distraction. The shots of 1968’s streets, sets, and fashions are as much a window into the past as Star Trek itself often represents that tdecade’s culture and politics.

Seven calls that decade the “most critical period in Earth’s history,” and I’m not sure I would necessarily dispute the claim, even now. The episode tackles contemporary issues of the sixties more directly than usual, commenting and warning against the raging nuclear arms race with all the subtlety of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and about the same level of success. (Hint: none at all.) It’s interesting to see a 1960s interpretation of the 1960s, including Roberta’s explanation of her generation’s hippy culture. Most of all, I was intrigued that both Seven and Kirk are the good guys—they want the same thing, but they find it difficult to trust each other and the stakes are too high to risk making the wrong call, as good an analogy for the Cold War as any.

The biggest surprise in this episode: Kirk’s ship-wide briefing, which is unusual in any Star Trek series. I also noticed Scotty’s comment, “It’s impossible to hide a whole planet,” because in the TNG episode “When the Bough Breaks,” the planet Aldea manages it just fine with a cloaking device. Maybe the engineer hasn’t heard the legends about it.

Hey, do you think anyone went back for the communicator and phasers they left at McKinley Base?

Eugene’s Rating: Warp 3 (on a scale of 1-6)

Torie Atkinson: Did we get our wires crossed with some other re-watch?

The best that can be said about “Assignment: Earth” is that it was barely a Star Trek episode. The worst that can be said is that I probably should have painted my apartment before popping the disc in so I could’ve had something more interesting to watch. Its greatest sin wasn’t the hopeless plot, the uninspired dialogue, the heavy-handed moral messages, or even the lack of screentime for our heroes: it’s that it was about as exciting as watching someone’s vacation photo slideshow. If they had gone on vacation to the Get Smart studio set. That they made in their living room. To act out their spy thriller fan fiction. (Hints of Bashir’s holodeck program, anyone?)

First of all, the “we were just on the usual Tuesday time travel route” set-up was pathetic and lame, even compared to some of the handwaving we’ve put up with before. I never though I’d look back at “ A Piece of the Action ” and think it was clever, but there you have it. Can they not even try to come up with something plausible? It can be half-hearted! I’ll take it! Worse was the excruciating overuse of stock footage. Now I’m a space geek through and through and I yawned audibly at least three times during each of the ponderously long rocket check-me-out sequences. Rockets are cool! I get it! You know what’s not cool after watching this episode? Rockets! They made rockets boring. True fact.

Okay, so the computer was kind of cool when she gave Seven lip, and Spock with a kitty is SO CUTE (and random…) and I am surprised I haven’t seen that in the various clipshow YouTube videos that people always send me. But oh Teri Garr, what are you wearing and why would you agree to be so annoying? There’s one line I really liked, though, that I felt was quintessentially Star Trek . Kirk says that it’s impossible to hide a whole planet, and Seven responds: “Impossible for you. Not for them.” It seemed to imply both that technology can do more than we think it can, and that limitations (perceived or real) are ours alone, not necessarily universal. A nice touch.

I guess I should talk about the science-fictional “idea” behind this episode, such as it is. Aliens interfering with Earth history: could be interesting, is not here. Spy thrillers involved with this: also could be interesting I guess but probably not combined with camp. The idea of technology moving more quickly than social progress: plausible! Ding! But those ideas aren’t really worthy of this episode. The real question I was left with at the end wasn’t “Oh what will become of humanity?” but “Why do 1960s aliens have an orgasm raygun?”

But maybe I am just not evolved enough to understand.

Torie’s Rating: Warp 2

Best Line: ROBERTA: “Research for a new encyclopedia? No? No.”

Syndication Edits: Kirk tells McCoy to hurry with his report and bring it to the briefing room; Kirk and Spock approach Seven’s building; Seven’s reaction to the news that his agents are dead; after Roberta calls the cops, Seven opens his vault, Spock holds Roberta, and Kirk blasts open the door; Kirk sees the plans for McKinley Rocket Base; Seven prepares to hide in the director’s car; three segments of Scotty scanning the viewscreen; Seven’s line, “Meow? You are nervous, aren’t you, doll?”

Trivia: The first draft of a half-hour pilot script for a series titled “Assignment: Earth” was dated November 14, 1966, which pitted Gary Seven against a race of alien time travelers trying to sabotage Earth’s development. He was assisted by Roberta Hornblower against two Omegan operatives named Harth and Isis and a time-altering computer. The pilot didn’t sell and it was reworked as a Star Trek episode, with that first draft dated December 20, 1967, in which the Enterprise crew watches Bonanza on the Bridge viewscreen. Seven appeals to McCoy to “think like a doctor, not a mechanic” while imprisoned, and his female aide was now called Roberta London. Roddenberry revisited the concept in another failed television movie/series, The Questor Tapes in 1974.

The episode uses NASA stock footage of launched from Cape Kennedy (now Cape Canaveral) , cropped from the anamorphic 2.35 : 1 aspect ratio.

Roddenberry was credited as “Producer” instead of “Executive Producer” for this episode, the first he was listed as such since the first season.

The character Gary Seven returned only in a number of novels and comics, including John Byrne’s comic mini-series sequel to the episode, Star Trek: Assignment: Earth, which featured a story that also ties back to the episode “Tomorrow is Yesterday.”

Other notes: Coincidentally, there were two important assassinations in 1968: Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4 (six days after the episode was broadcast) and Robert F. Kennedy on June 6. The Apollo 6 rocket was also launched on April 4.

Robert Lansing (Gary Seven) received a unique guest star credit for this episode, which included his character’s name. Fans might recognize him from films The 4-D Man and Empire of the Ants , as well as starring and guest roles on television, including Twilight Zone (“The Long Morrow”).

Teri Garr (Roberta Lincoln) was reportedly upset over Roddenberry’s shortening of her skirt and has refused to talk about Star Trek . Genre fans would remember her from Young Frankenstein and Close Encounters of the Third Kind .

James Doohan voices a radio voice at the rocket base.

Previous Episode: Season 2, Episode 25 – “ Bread and Circuses .”

Next Episode: Season 3, Episode 1 – “ Spock’s Brain .” (Oh, boy.) US residents can watch it for free at the CBS website .

This post originally appeared on Tor.com .

About Eugene Myers & Torie Atkinson

Another problems with this episodes, besides the ones you’ve outlined, is that it’s completely – er – illogical for Kirk to take Spock with him when he beams down. Surely Scotty would be a better choice – he could handle the technological side of things just as well as Spock, and he doesn’t have any pointed ears to hide. But hey, where would be the fun in that?

Mr. Seven’s Computer is the M-5 all dressed up with a female voice substituted for the male voice in the Ultimate Computer.

It’s also Mr. Atoz’s Atovachron.

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Why Teri Garr walked off the Star Trek set

By rachel carrington | may 29, 2021.

Teri Garr wasn’t fond of her time on Star Trek

Teri Garr appeared in one episode of Star Trek: The Original Series , playing secretary Roberta Lincoln in Assignment: Earth which was meant to be a spin-off series for Robert Lansing. It didn’t get picked up, and in an interview she did with Starlog Magazine , she said she was glad the backdoor pilot didn’t go to series. The interview includes some unkind words Garr has about Star Trek fans as well, but she had an unpleasant experience on the set of Star Trek which probably shaped her opinion of the franchise.

According to a story Lance Parkin, the author of The Impossible Has Happened: The Life and Work of Gene Roddenberry, wrote, Teri Garr ended up walking off the set off Star Trek when Gene Roddenberry wanted her skirt to be even shorter than it already was. If you’ve seen the episode, you know there wasn’t a whole lot more material that could have been removed to shorten it even more.

Gene Roddenberry’s request had Teri Garr walking off the set

Roddenberry’s desire to have the skirt lose another inch or two led to the then 20-year-old Garr putting some distance between her and Roddenberry. Though she finished her role on that episode, she refused to have anything to do with Star Trek after her one-time appearance. In fact, Garr has said that she mostly denies she ever did it [the episode].

In the book about Gene Roddenberry, Parkin added that Garr “hated the experience so much that she continues to refuse to be involved with Star Trek in any capacity, including discussing it in interviews.” In fact, Bill Warren, who interviewed her in 1990 for Starlog, warned his editor that the interview with Garr was “akin to a bad date.”

Whether or not Garr’s opinion of Star Trek has changed in the 31 years since that interview, we don’t know, but she made it very clear that she did not want to be associated with Star Trek in the future.  Perhaps Roddenberry’s request was the straw that broke the camel’s back for her. Whatever the case, Garr got her wish and hasn’t been in a Star Trek production since.

Janice Rand was supposed to be a CEO on Enterprise. dark. Next

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Walter koenig points out a star trek trope that is “repeated again and again”.

Walter Koenig breaks down an issue with the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Changeling" he sees repeated throughout the franchise.

• Walter Koenig calls out Star Trek for recycled plotlines in "The Changeling" episode on The 7th Rule podcast.
• Koenig critiques the repetitive sci-fi trope of confusing a powerful force, seen in various Star Trek episodes.
• Koenig reveals his dislike for the recycled theme in the classic "The Changeling" episode.

Walter Koenig puts out a Star Trek trope that is "repeated again and again," especially by Star Trek: The Original Series . Koenig played Ensign Pavel Chekov in the original Star Trek , a role he reprised in 7 Star Trek movies. Although Chekov wasn't in Star Trek: The Original Series season 2, episode 3, "The Changeling", he reviewed the episode on The 7th Rule podcast with hosts Cirroc Lofton and Ryan T. Husk. None of them had seen "The Changeling" before reviewing it for their Star Trek podcast.

In Star Trek: The Original Series ' "The Changeling," the crew of the USS Enterprise encounters Nomad, an Earth space probe that was reprogrammed and has returned to find its "creator" and wipe out "biological infestations" , i.e. organic life forms. Walter Koenig is no fan of the episode, and he points out the plot is one that Star Trek has done multiple times . Read his quote and watch The 7th Rule video below:

It’s almost prototypically science fiction. The driving force is a premise that has been used again and again. And I can even name you Star Trek episodes, including even V’Ger in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. There was always that sense of some force behind the scenes that is organizing the world, and structuring it, in charge. One of the things that occurs is that if you want to get rid of it, you confuse it. We did that in “I, Mudd” when we all started dancing. We did it here, and [Nomad] goes a little nuts. So it’s an exercise that is repeated again and again in science fiction.

10 Best Star Trek: The Original Series Episodes To Hook New Fans

Star trek's repeated trope against a.i. explained, the recycled plot still appears but differently in new star trek shows.

As Walter Koenig pointed out, the plot of Star Trek: The Original Series ' "The Changeling" is similar to the story of V'Ger returning to find its creator in Star Trek: The Motion Picture . Both Star Trek tales centered on an Earth space probe that is rebuilt by aliens and travels back to Earth to find answers. Given the limited TV production budgets of the 1960s Star Trek , and the desire for a more profound science fiction story to build the first Star Trek movie around, recycling the plot of the USS Enterprise crew overcoming a superior technological threat by confusing it with their own humanity made sense for that era.

Star Trek does tend to repeat the same basic story again and again.

Modern Star Trek TV shows still depict dangerous A.I. threats, but the way to overcome them tends to lean more toward action. Star Trek: Discovery season 2's villain was a malevolent A.I. called Control that was defeated by an eye-popping outer space battle and the USS Discovery jumping 930 years into the future. Star Trek: Picard season 1 also introduced an inorganic species from another galaxy that was foiled by closing up a portal. Of course, Starfleet has always needed to be creative to defeat the overwhelming threat of the Borg . As Walter Keonig asserts, Star Trek does tend to repeat the same basic story again and again.

Source: The 7th Rule

Star Trek: The Original Series is streaming on Paramount+

Captain Picard's Best Story Is in a Surprising Star Trek Show

• Patrick Stewart's iconic performance as Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine is a career highlight.
• Picard's traumatic assimilation by the Borg in "The Best of Both Worlds" shaped his character and haunted him throughout the series.
• Deep Space Nine delves into Picard's guilt and trauma from the perspective of Benjamin Sisko, offering a new angle on forgiveness and healing.

Jean-Luc Picard made Patrick Stewart a household name, launching him from the comparative obscurity of the English stage thanks to the now-classic Star Trek: The Next Generation . Stewart's long association with the role let him deliver a number of performances as Picard that now stand as career highlights. That includes Season 5, Episode 24, "The Inner Light" in which he lived out the life of an ordinary man on an alien world, and Season 2, Episode 9, "The Measure of a Man," when he delivered a stunning courtroom argument in defense of Data's free will.

However, out of all of Stewart's Star Trek appearances, his best performance as Jean-Luc Picard might not have come in The Next Generation or even the de facto follow-up series Star Trek: Picard . Star Trek: Deep Space Nine features a cameo by Stewart in the series' premiere, in which Picard encounters one of the survivors of Wolf 359. Not only did it signal a key moment in the character's biggest ongoing plot thread, but it gave Stewart a moment to quietly shine in his signature role.

The Borg Will Always Haunt Jean-Luc Picard

Picard was famously abducted by the Borg in The Next Generation Season 3, Episode 26, "The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1." He spent six days as a member of the Collective, which referred to him as "Locutus" and intended to use him as a go-between for a presumably soon-to-be-assimilated humanity. Season 4, Episode 1, "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II" depicted the infamous Battle of Wolf 359, in which the vast bulk of Starfleet engaged a single Borg cube under Locutus's directive, and was utterly destroyed. 11,000 people lost their lives, and the cube continued unopposed to Earth, where it intended to assimilate the entire population.

They were thwarted by the Enterprise-D, now under Will Riker's command, who abducted Locutus and used his link to the Collective to put the Borg to sleep. The cube imploded, and Picard was freed from Borg control, though he remembered everything he did while he was assimilated. "The Best of Both Worlds" was a watershed moment for the franchise, bringing the Borg back for a triumphant curtain call after their celebrated introduction in Season 2, Episode 16, "Q Who." Besides introducing one of the greatest villains in the entire franchise, it marked Star Trek's first real departure from stand-alone episodes and towards more complex arcs.

That came part and parcel with growth and change for the protagonists -- something that never happened in Star Trek: The Original Series . The Next Generation even punctuated the severity of Picard's assimilation with the very next episode -- Season 4, Episode 2, "Family" -- which acknowledged the extent of his trauma and devoted the bulk of its running time to exploring it. That was unprecedented for a Star Trek series, which typically just warped off to the next planet once a given crisis was resolved. Picard's psychological wounds have never truly healed, and much of his character in the ensuing years has been defined by the way he grappled with that dark legacy.

Exploring the extent of Picard's trauma began during The Next Generation's run, most notably in Season 5, Episode 23, "I, Borg" when he learned to accept another ex-Borg in spite of his hatred for the Collective. His big moment of catharsis arrived in the feature film Star Trek: First Contact , where he must first halt another Collective attack on Earth, and then stop them from traveling back in time to assimilate the Earth of the past. Even then, however, his time as Locutus haunted him, which all three seasons of Picard developed in some detail.

Deep Space Nine Confronts Picard with His Victims

How star trek: deep space nine was created.

Picard feels unconscionable guilt for his role in Wolf 359 , but the fact remains that he had been assimilated and was a helpless puppet to their will. He's a victim of the Collective as well, and there's a fair amount of survivor's guilt that factors into his trauma. All of that, however, is centered around Picard himself, and not Locutus's victims. Most of the time, that process is largely internal. "Family" aside, The Next Generation rolled merrily along after "The Best of Both Worlds" without any indication of the devastation left behind, with Starfleet in shambles and tens of thousands of its personnel dead. The slow rebuilding took place almost entirely off-screen.

Deep Space Nine changed all of that with its own central protagonist, Benjamin Sisko, whose wife was killed at Wolf 359 and who has had to raise their son Jake by himself ever since. "Emissary" opens with the battle itself, which hadn't been depicted onscreen before. For example, the Enterprise-D arrives in the aftermath during "The Best of Both Worlds." Sisko is a lieutenant commander onboard the starship Saratoga during the battle, only to see his vessel and its crew taken apart in the space of moments. He's able to rescue Jake, but his wife Jennifer is killed, and he's forced to abandon her body as the survivors flee the ship in an escape pod. All the time, Locutus's passive, indifferent face seems to loom above it all.

"Emissary" officially begins three years later, as Sisko takes command of Deep Space 9 for the first time. He's consumed by feelings of reluctance for the job, and is considering resigning Starfleet to take Jake back to Earth. Picard arrives to give him the assignment: ensure Bajor's reconstruction and application to the Federation. In the course of their conversation, it becomes clear that Sisko blames Picard for the death of his wife, and hasn't begun to forgive him for the loss. That changes during the course of the series pilot, as Sisko has his encounter with the Bajoran Prophets (who are advanced alien beings who dwell within the wormhole), and finds closure for Jennifer's death. He and Picard meet again, and Sisko rescinds his desire to return to Earth, then shakes Picard's hand before the two return to their respective posts.

Picard's Journey to Forgiveness Will Never End

How star trek's vulcans evolved beyond gene roddenberry's creation.

The two scenes speak volumes about both men, as Sisko finds new purpose in his life and learns to forgive Picard for his part in his wife's death. That serves as the launching point for Sisko's journey, ending with him joining the Prophets at the end of Deep Space Nine's run. Picard faces a darker reality: for the first time onscreen, he's properly confronted with someone who lost a loved one at Wolf 359. While he earns Sisko's forgiveness, it's a task he'll need to do over and over again, sometimes for no one's sake but his own. That pays dividends in Star Trek: Picard Season 3, when Captain Liam Shaw reveals he too is a survivor of Wolf 359. Like Sisko, he's not inclined to forgive the once and former Locutus either, and unlike Sisko, he never really reconciles with the man.

All of that is set up with Stewart's performance in "Emissary." Though brief, it establishes a strong baseline for the trauma inflicted by the Borg, as well as Picard's somewhat halting ability to confront his complicity in Wolf 359. He masks it behind duty, pushing through Sisko's obvious anger and falling back on military protocol to complete the assigned task. Stewart conveys the oceans of emotional turmoil going on beneath the surface without overtly tipping his hand. The audience can see how much Picard's guilt weighs on him without diminishing Sisko's anger or pain in the process. There's no undoing what's been done, however, and no matter what steps he takes, forgiveness and reconciliation will always be slow in coming.

The actor reveals this vulnerability in the space of a few short minutes, in a story that isn't his. Yet the way he uses that time is quietly awe-inspiring. He doesn't overshadow Sisko in these scenes, and the attention remains firmly where it should be on Deep Space Nine's lead. At the same time, he lays the groundwork for what becomes Picard's central emotional wound as a character, and the ways he can't always heal the damage no matter how hard he tries. It's a reasonably quiet moment in a long career, both within the franchise and without. But amid a bumper crop of brilliant performances from the actor, its brevity and emotional resonance may have no peer.

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Published Apr 10, 2024

A Brief History of the Progenitors in Star Trek

They designed life itself!

SPOILER WARNING: This article contains story details and plot points for Star Trek: Discovery 's "Red Directive ."

StarTrek.com

Captain Burnham's top-secret mission in the final season of Star Trek: Discovery has finally been revealed. But this time, the Discovery crew isn’t stopping a future-destroying A.I., or a lethal, extra-galactic force. Instead, they’re investigating the basic mysteries of why most species in the Star Trek universe look vaguely human.

As revealed in " Red Directive ," the search for technology used by ancient "Progenitors" sets-up a massive treasure hunt for the season. But, who are the Progenitors? What did Jean-Luc Picard know about the secrets of inter-species alien DNA? And how does all of this fit in with Gene Roddenberry’s earliest ideas for Star Trek ?

Here’s a brief history of the Progenitors, from the early 1960s, to the 24th Century, all the way to 2024, and the 31st Century.

The Real World-Origins of the Progenitors

"The Cage"

When the U.S.S. Enterprise first set out to seek out "new life and new civilizations," a huge swath of those alien lifeforms turned out to look a lot like human beings. And the primary reason for that, at least behind-the-scenes, was two-fold.

First, human actors are more affordable, and second, Gene Roddenberry wanted the classic Star Trek to avoid the sci-fi trope of "Bug-Eyed Monsters." And so, in one of the original 1964 pitch documents for Star Trek , Roddenberry floated the idea of "The Parallel Worlds" concept . The idea was that the format of Star Trek — from a writing and production standpoint — would generally deal with "...plant and animal life, plus people, quite similar to Earth. Social evolution will also have interesting points of similarity with ours."

Unlike a huge swath of science fiction on TV at the time, the promise of strange, new worlds, that were, in fact, populated by people , is something that set Star Trek apart, and was the cornerstone of what gave the series its humanist angle. But, the side effect of course, was an in-universe question — why were so many aliens humanoid?

The Old Ones, Sargon, and The Preservers

"The Paradise Syndrome"

The first two seasons of The Original Series are sprinkled with hints that, in the distant past, the galaxy was visited by super-powered aliens with technology far more advanced than anything in the Federation.

In " What Are Little Girls Made Of? ," we meet Ruk, an android built by "The Old Ones," an alien race capable of creating humanoid androids that were basically immortal. In " Return to Tomorrow ," the disembodied soul of Sargon, refers to humanity as "my children." While Dr. Muhuall says this idea flies in the face of evolutionary theory, Spock mentions the idea that aliens seeded life would "explain certain elements of Vulcan pre-history."

Then in Season 3, in " The Paradise Syndrome ," Bones and Spock tackle the question head-on. When they realize an ancient race of "Preservers" helped various humanoid species throughout the galaxy, the idea of an ancient alien race guiding and "seeding" a ton of humanoid species became less of a myth and more of a working theory. "I’ve always wondered why there were so many humanoids scattered through the galaxy," Bones says. To which Spock replies, "So have I. Apparently, the Preservers account for a number of them."

And then, the questions about an ancient humanoid species went answered. At least, until The Next Generation . 

"The Chase"

Directed by Jonathan Frakes and written by Ronald D. Moore and Joe Menosky, " The Chase " was a sixth-season episode of The Next Generation , which, according to The Next Generation Companion , was considered in the writers' room the most "Roddenberryesque" episode of TNG at that time. The story itself took cues from Carl Sagan's novel Contact , and posited that yes, ancient aliens not only seeded most of the humanoid species, but also hid a message in the DNA of all those species.

Captain Picard's interest in archeology comes in handy during the quest to locate all the DNA strands and reveal the message, which was also represented metaphorically by the ancient artifact known as the Kurlan naiskos .

At the end of the episode, representatives from the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Empire, the Cardassian Union, and the Federation, all witness the truth — an ancient Progenitor (played by Salome Jens) makes it clear that all the humanoid species in the galaxy don’t exist out of pure hubris, but instead, out of a kind of desire for legacy. "You are a monument, not to our greatness, but to our existence…. Remember us."

Ronald D. Moore pointed out that there's no reason to believe that the Progenitors from "The Chase" and the Preservers from TOS aren't one in the same. Though not explicitly stated in the script, he said, "But this could be them, and be internally consistent."

Discovery Brings It All Home

"Red Directive"

While The Next Generation established a canonical fact that TOS only danced around, that only answered the question of why . With Discovery Season 5, a stranger, and more complex question is getting broached — how ?

"The Chase" told us why there are so many humanoid species in the galaxy, but we had no idea how the Progenitors specifically pushed life to evolve on various planets toward the exact form of life we’re all so familiar with. As the crew of Discovery — and other forces — are in pursuit of this ancient tech, Star Trek is boldly speculating on one of the biggest questions of all time.

If there was a supreme intelligence behind the creation of life, what was their method? While these kinds of questions are somewhat mind-boggling in real life, what Discovery is doing now is what Star Trek has done all along: Ask provocative questions that are beyond what we know now, so that maybe, in the future, we’ll be better prepared.

We don’t know that the Progenitors exist in real science, but the "panspermia hypothesis," is a very real scientific concept. A friendly alien may not have consciously sparked life on Earth eons ago, but, in reality, it is possible that some building blocks for life itself may have come from the stars.

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Ryan Britt is the author of the nonfiction books Phasers on Stun! How the Making and Remaking of Star Trek Changed the World (2022), The Spice Must Flow: The Journey of Dune from Cult Novels to Visionary Sci-Fi Movies (2023), and the essay collection Luke Skywalker Can’t Read (2015). He is a longtime contributor to Star Trek.com and his writing regularly appears with Inverse, Den of Geek!, Esquire and elsewhere. He lives in Portland, Maine with his family.

Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-4 are streaming exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., the UK, Canada, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia and Austria. Seasons 2 and 3 also are available on the Pluto TV “Star Trek” channel in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. The series streams on Super Drama in Japan, TVNZ in New Zealand, and SkyShowtime in Spain, Portugal, Poland, The Nordics, The Netherlands, and Central and Eastern Europe and also airs on Cosmote TV in Greece. The series is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.

• Star Trek 101

'Star Trek: Discovery' season 5 episode 3 'Jinaal' is a slow but steady affair

Humans have evidently evolved beyond the need for stairs in the 32nd century as teleportation has replaced the simple act of actually walking to places

Warning: Spoilers ahead for "Star Trek: Discovery" season 5, episode 3

The latest installment of "Star Trek: Discovery" season 5 on Paramount Plus adds a little water – and possibly some fertilizer – to the various different story seeds sewn last week. 

Entitled "Jinaal," the primary plot revolves around a revisit to the planet Trill and as you may recall, the last time we spent any length of time here was the episode " Forget Me Not " (S03, E04), which was not terrible. In fact, it was undeniable highlight of the third season, which itself had some of the best we've seen from "Discovery." Incidentally, that was first look at the Trill homeworld since " Star Trek: Deep Space Nine " episode "Equilibrium" (bizarrely, also S03, E04). (If you need a recap on how to watch Star Trek: Discovery, check out our Star Trek streaming guide for Paramount Plus .)

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Get all the Star Trek content you can possibly handle with this free trial of Paramount Plus. Watch new shows like Star Trek: Discovery and all the classic Trek movies and TV shows too. Plans start from $4.99/month after the trial ends.

Curiously, in that episode "Forget Me Not," Dr. Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz) was given a rare and welcome chance to shine and he does so once again in this episode as well. To briefly recap, Adira (Blu del Barrio) and her lover, a Trill named Gray (Ian Alexander), were aboard a generation ship way back when. They were both orphans, very much in love, and Gray had just received his symbiote when the ship was struck by an asteroid and everyone was ordered to evacuate. Unfortunately, Gray was fatally injured and the only way to save the symbiote was for Adira to join with it. And that's how it was for all of season three right up until the fourth season episode " Choose To Live " (S04, E03). 

Then, after all of that, Gray Tal has his consciousness transferred out of Adira and into an artificial synth golem before heading back to Trill to complete all that monk-style studying. And now you're all caught up. 

While a trip back to Trill is nice, you can't help but start to wonder if this fifth and final season will end up a 10-episode long epilogue as it ties up all its loose ends, almost like season five of " Babylon 5 ."  Commander Jett Reno (Tig Notaro) pops up in this episode at last, which more or less just leaves Commander Nhan (Rachael Ancheril), whom we last saw in the episode " Rubicon " S04, E09, to make an appearance. Although Ancheril's IMDb page does currently say, "Coming up in 2024, Rachael will be seen again in 'Chucky' season three [and] 'Star Trek Discovery' for its final season," so who knows. 

The big highlight this week was, as we alluded to above, Cruz's chance to stretch his acting chops just a little bit and he does not disappoint. The two biggest grumbles however, are the dialogue written by a writer who just saw "Lethal Weapon II" for the very first time and that the notion of teleporting around the place instead of just walking, has been taken to ludicrous extremes. 

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"Star Trek: Discovery" seems to be at peace with lifting from other IPs, sci-fi or otherwise. We've seen a nice " Close Encounters of the Third Kind " reference with mashed potato and we've even seen a fun nod to "Scooby-Doo," but these were all subtle. Then there was the extremely unsubtle " Die Hard " thing and then in " Scavengers " (S03, E06) the writers went  way  beyond homage and practically lifted a set piece directly from the 1987 movie "The Running Man." The premise was the same, the effect was the same and even the setting was practically identical.

This week's insight into what classic movie the Gen-Z writers of "Discovery" have recently discovered comes from a legendary scene with equally legendary dialogue between Sgt. Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Sgt. Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) during a rescue attempt after the latter learns that the toilet he's been sitting on has been rigged with a bomb in the first "Lethal Weapon" sequel. Lest we forget, this underrated action extravaganza also gave us Leo Getz and immortalized phrases like "diplomatik immunitee." and "but, but...you're blick."

Still, at least it was just a line or two of dialogue this time and not an entire set piece. My other main grumble with this episode as we mentioned above is the carefree abandon with which transporters are used. And I've touched upon this before. Despite beaming becoming a very common part of everyday life of the 32nd century, to the extent that folk use transporters instead of stairs and even to just change outfits, like we saw in the season four premiere episode — but the thing is, transporters kill you .

The creators of " Star Trek " have never officially confirmed that transporters kill you. However, solely based on the science, transporters do kill you. In simple terms, these teleportation devices scan every molecule in your body and briefly store them in the pattern buffer, while at the same time, the original body is to all intents and purposes, disintegrated. The transporter then converts the scanned copy into energy and beams the data stream to the desired location, where the body is rebuilt, from a sub-atomic level, using technology similar to a replicator. It's comparable in principle to a fax, except this fax machine destroys the original, to prevent duplication, although that has been known to happen.

The issue is essentially an existential one. Since our bodies are made up of identifiable matter, why won't transference of consciousness occur? What makes our consciousness so unique? What's the difference between an identical copy and you? If you were to put your copy into a different room that you hadn't been into, would you be able to see it? No. It's a perfect copy, but it's not you. There is a good article on Ars Technica that really goes into detail on this.

Still, all of this banter aside, this episode is not ... terrible. It is very evenly paced and that, despite the not-exactly edge-of-seat storyline, makes it bearable. Every sub-story seems to be given equal time and brief-but-enjoyable interplay between Lt. Tilly (Mary Wiseman) and Captain Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie) is fun. Plus, of course, we get to see the Trill homeworld again, which is nice. 

In other "Star Trek" news, " Strange New Worlds " has been renewed for a fourth season, while " Lower Decks " will end with its previously announced upcoming fifth season, expected to air sometime this year. Creator Mike McMahan and executive producer Alex Kurtzman posted a statement on the Star Trek website: “While five seasons of any series these days seems like a miracle, it’s no exaggeration to say that every second we've spent making this show has been a dream come true. Our incredible cast, crew and artists have given you everything they have because they love the characters they play, they love the world we've built, and more than anything we all love, love, love Star Trek."

Meanwhile, "Strange New Worlds" is currently in production on its third season, which is set to debut in 2025. It seems that all of this combined with the fact that "Section 31" ended up as a movie , casts doubt over the future of the Starfleet Academy spin-off and hopefully signals the end of the idiotic idea of "Star Trek: Legacy." Perhaps Paramount should look to cancel other ludicrous endeavors like the proposed Picard movie instead of cancelling decent shows in their efforts to tighten purse strings. 

The fifth and final season of "Star Trek: Discovery" and every episode of every "Star Trek" show — with the exception of "Star Trek: Prodigy" — currently streams exclusively on Paramount Plus in the US while "Prodigy" has found a new home o n Netflix.  

Internationally, the shows are available on  Paramount Plus  in Australia, Latin America, the UK and South Korea, as well as on Pluto TV in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland on the Pluto TV Sci-Fi channel. They also stream on  Paramount Plus  in Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. In Canada, they air on Bell Media's CTV Sci-Fi Channel and stream on Crave.

 —   Watch the bittersweet trailer for 'Star Trek: Discovery's final season (video)

 —  'Spaceman' sees Adam Sandler shine as a cosmonaut in crisis in Netflix's somber sci-fi film (review)

—  Star Trek's Seven of Nine returns in new novel 'Picard: Firewall' (exclusive)

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When Scott's application to the NASA astronaut training program was turned down, he was naturally upset...as any 6-year-old boy would be. He chose instead to write as much as he possibly could about science, technology and space exploration. He graduated from The University of Coventry and received his training on Fleet Street in London. He still hopes to be the first journalist in space.

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