Star Trek – Assignment Earth

★★★★1/2 March 22, 1968 Season 2 Episode 26

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog. 

This show was written by Gene Roddenberry and Art Wallace

We are now at the last episode of the 2nd season…I can’t believe we are this far already. One more season to go. This is a different kind of episode for Star Trek. It reminded me right away of Doctor Who or a Scifi James Bond. It was planned as a spin-off episode but didn’t end up that way. Robert Lansing played Mister Seven and he was great. I would have watched the show if they would have spun it off. He had magnetism and was perfect for that role. 

This was in reality a pilot episode about Gary Seven and his assistant played by future star Teri Garr when she was 20 years old. It is a show I wish would have been picked up. I could have been writing about that one today. 

The Enterprise travels back in time to observe Earth during a particularly tumultuous period in its history. However, upon arriving they intercept a mysterious alien transmission and end up beaming aboard a man wearing a 20th-century business suit and carrying a cat. Kirk doesn’t know if he is human, alien, good, or bad. Seven is not a fool though and knows enough to escape the Enterprise with the transporter. 

Seven is a human trained by an unnamed alien race to protect humanity against threats to world peace. In this story, his mission is to transport to Earth and prevent the US from shooting a military satellite into space that could set off a nuclear exchange between the US and the Soviet Union.

When the Enterprise captures Seven en route to Cape Canaveral, Kirk is reluctant to let him go, fearing Seven’s mission may not be as altruistic as he claims. Mr. Seven then escapes the ship, beaming down to the city of Manhattan with Kirk and Spock in hot pursuit.

Seven does get to finish his mission when Kirk finally realizes that Seven is telling the truth. 

From IMDB:

While at the launch base and showing his ID to the security person, Mr. Seven shows a National Security Agency credential card. The NSA was one of the worst kept government secrets, but was not publicly acknowledged until nearly 25 years after this episode originally aired.

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, least of all taken effect.

This is the only episode of Star Trek in which a guest star is listed after the opening credits rather than in the end credits: “Guest Star Robert Lansing as Mister Seven” is displayed when the character is first shown in the transporter chamber.

Gary Seven’s computer display is the same one used as Dr. Daystrom’s M-5 computer in Star Trek: The Original Series: The Ultimate Computer (1968), as well as being used by Mr. Atoz, the librarian, in Star Trek: The Original Series: All Our Yesterdays (1969).

This episode features one of the first uses of stock footage of the first test launch of the Saturn V moon rocket in November 1967.

Spock mentions all the events which are to occur on that date the Enterprise travelled back in time to the 20th century and met Gary Seven. Among the events mentioned was an important political assassination. As it turned out, there were ultimately two important political assassinations in 1968: just six days after this episode aired on March 29, 1968, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968, and two months later, on June 6, 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was killed in Los Angeles, California on the night that he won the California Democratic presidential primary.

The script called for Isis the cat to make various cat sounds on cue (meows, purrs, growls, etc.) Since finding appropriate real cat sounds for the soundtrack proved problematic, the director discovered that Barbara Babcock, who was hired to do the voice of the Beta 5 computer, could vocalize convincing cat sounds.

Teri Garr had such an unpleasant time filming this episode she refused to ever talk about Star Trek again, although she did do an interview with STARLOG magazine many years later in which she was very disparaging of both the show and its fans. One reason was Gene Roddenberry’s frequent clashes with the costume designers over the length of Roberta’s skirt; Roddenbury wanted it shortened to the extent that Ms Garr’s underwear is glimpsed on occasions. However, she clearly had no such inhibitions in her roles other productions, such as the sultry and provocatively dressed Inga in ‘Young Frankenstein’ (1974) or wearing even an even skimpier outfit (see-through baby-doll nightie) as a Pajama Girl in ‘Pajama Party’ (1964).

The main plotline of countries launching nuclear weapons into space had a real-world parallel at the time. The major world powers pledged to use outer space for peaceful purposes in the “Outer Space Treaty” that became official on October 10, 1967.

Three black cats were used for the role of Isis.

No scenes for this episode were actually shot at Cape Kennedy itself. The illusion of being in Florida was achieved by using a combination of stock footage and Paramount studio locations.

This is the only episode where a Federation transporter system is used to intercept and re-direct another transporter beam.

Star Trek: Voyager: Prime Factors (1995) was originally going to be based on “Assignment: Earth”. David R. George III and Eric A. Stillwell’s original story involved the crew of Voyager encountering the race that had dispatched Gary Seven. However, this was declined as the Aegis’ technology could transport individuals over thousands of light-years, thereby providing an easy “out” for the USS Voyager and precluding the series.

Gene Roddenberry would later rework key elements of this story – an agent to Earth by aliens to shepherd humanity out of its “childhood”, with help from a human – into another unsuccessful pilot titled The Questor Tapes (1974), with the agent being an android..

Gary Seven’s “servo” is used in ways not unlike Doctor Who (1963)’s “sonic screwdriver”, which had been ‘invented’ for the now-famous BBC series just a couple of years earlier. Seven also has a young, naive, attractive human companion, much as the Doctor often has. Whether this is coincidence or the writers had some awareness of Doctor Who’s now-iconic tool is unknown.

This episode takes place in 1968. Along with Star Trek: Enterprise: Storm Front (2004) (which takes place in 1944), this is one of only two “Star Trek” episodes to take place entirely in the 20th Century. Furthermore, both episodes take place mostly in and around New York City.

The sound when Scotty was zooming in on Gary Seven’s position is the same as the one used for the poison dart flower in Star Trek: The Original Series: The Apple (1967).

The art on the wall in the office is from Reginald Pollack.

Gary Seven’s cohort Isis, is established as being a shape-changer, but it is unclear whether Isis is a cat who can appear as a woman, a woman that can appear as a cat, or some creature that can assume both and other appearances at will.

The name “Roberta Lincoln” is a feminine version of Robert Lincoln. Robert Todd Lincoln was a lawyer, politician, and businessman who had a long career and was present at or near the violent deaths of three USA Presidents: Abraham Lincoln (his father), James A. Garfield, and William McKinley. In the “Assignment: Earth” spin-off series, Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln would have been in the business of rescuing people from assassination.

James Doohan was one of the Mission Control voices.

The aliens which Gary Seven represents call themselves “The Aegis” – another word for “shield”. Gary’s tool/weapon is known as a “servo”. The Marvel Comics fictional agency S.H.I.E.L.D. (Strategic Hazard Intervention, Espionage & Logistics Directorate) was depicted as S.E.R.V.O., which sounds like “brain” (cerveau) in French.

Gary Seven and/or Roberta Lincoln appear in Star Trek novels such as “Assignment: Eternity” (1997) by Greg Cox, “Star Trek: The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh” (2001), also by Cox, and “From History’s Shadow” (2013) by Dayton Ward. In the short story “Seven & Seven” by Kevin Hosey in “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”, Volume VI, (2003), Gary Seven teams up with Seven of Nine from Star Trek: Voyager (1995).

The final use of Sol Kaplan’s “Planet Killer” theme (in the climactic scene).

Roberta Lincoln was born in 1948.

During the street scene, a woman passes by wearing a two-piece fur suit, the top of which had been worn as a dress by Barbara Anderson as Lenore Karidian in the Star Trek episode, “The Conscience of the King”.

Roberta tells Gary Seven that she understood the work of her previous employers (his predecessors in that office) to be “research for a new encyclopedia”. This is most likely a hat tip to Isaac Asimov’s seminal Foundation novel, where the Foundation is working under the guise of producing an encyclopedia.

47 Reference: While scanning Kirk’s and Spock’s location on earth from the Enterprise, Scotty tells them to proceed 5 meters, 247 degrees true.

The sticker on the windshield of the car that Gary Seven uses says Mission Director Cromwell. An actor named James Cromwell later played several roles in the Trek Universe, most famously as Zefram Cochrane in Star Trek: First Contact (1996).

The first episode to use the new phaser stun effect.

The second time to star a black cat: The first was Star Trek: The Original Series: Catspaw (1967)(#2.7).

Gary Seven’s computer said Roberta Lincoln (Teri Garr) was 20 years old. Teri Garr was born December 11, 1947 which would have made her 20 when this episode was filmed.

Cameo
Bruce Mars: Finnegan from Star Trek: The Original Series: Shore Leave (1966) can be briefly seen as a New York Police Department officer.

Summary

Having traveled back in time to visit Earth on a historical information-gathering exercise, the Enterprise intercepts a space traveler being beamed to Earth. Gary Seven is human but clearly comes from an advanced civilization that claims to have been specially trained for a mission to save mankind from itself. Captain Kirk isn’t at all sure that Seven isn’t there for malicious purposes and puts him in the brig. Seven does manage to escape however and with Kirk and Spock in pursuit, tries to complete the mission that two missing agents were unable to finalize. For Kirk, the decision he has to make is very real: does he stop Seven or let him finish – a wrong decision may mean altering Earth’s history altogether.

A later Star Trek referencing Gary Seven

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
Robert Lansing … Mister Seven
Teri Garr … Roberta Lincoln (as Terri Garr)
James Doohan … Scott
George Takei … Sulu
Nichelle Nichols … Uhura
Walter Koenig … Chekov
Don Keefer … Cromwell
Lincoln Demyan … Sergeant
Morgan Jones … Col. Nesvig
Bruce Mars … First Policeman
Ted Gehring … Second Policeman
Paul Baxley … Security Chief
Barbara Babcock … Beta 5 Computer / Isis (voice) (uncredited)
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley / Rocket Base Technician (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Lt. Clifford Brent (uncredited)
Rudy Doucette … Staff Member (uncredited)
Bob Johnson … Ground Control (voice) (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie (uncredited)
Edwin Rochelle … Man With Newspaper (uncredited)
April Tatro … Cat Girl (uncredited)