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5 backdoor pilots that were successful (& 5 that missed the mark).

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The "backdoor pilot" is one of the more bizarre inventions of the television age. Essentially a backdoor pilot is a way of smuggling in a new spin-off show through an episode of its pre-existing parent show. Throughout the history of TV, this way of spinning off a new show has been attempted numerous times, though has very rarely been a fruitful venture .

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Despite the low rate of success, networks continue to try their hand at the method, which is at its core a kind of Trojan Horse type maneuver. Without further ado, these are five backdoor pilots that actually managed to land, alongside five that completely failed.

Missed The Mark: The Farm (The Office)

Love it or loathe it, NBC's  The Office  was a cultural phenomenon that revitalized the network's fledgling comedic roster and managed to launch the careers of numerous members in its cast, including Rainn Wilson who played lovable moron Dwight Schrute . It makes perfect sense that when the show was in its final year, the network would want to try and continue the success by launching a backdoor pilot for a proposed series entitled  The Farm , which would have been about Schrute and his oddball family. However, audiences and critics were not interested.

Stuck The Landing: Maude (All In The Family)

All in the Family  is one of the all-time great sitcoms . Headed up by Archie Bunker, a racist bigot, the series was able to lampoon almost everything and everyone during its legendary run in the 1970s.

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In the show's second season, the character of Edith Bunker's liberal feminist cousin Maude was introduced as a foil for Archie. The appearance was so lauded that the season two finale serves as a backdoor pilot for  Maude , the show's only truly successful spin-off that gave Bea Arthur her first mainstream lead role.

Missed The Mark: Kelly's Kids (The Brady Bunch)

Though it only ran for five seasons in the early 70s,  The Brady Bunch  still managed to firmly ingratiate itself into the pop culture lexicon. Of course, as the show was on its way out the front door, the producers were trying to sneak in a spin-off through the backdoor. Numerous attempts to continue the show or spin-off from it were made , but the worst was certainly the episode "Kelly's Kids," about the Bradys' neighbor Ken accidentally adopting more children than he meant to. It's not aged well as a premise and the pilot itself is a bit of an embarrassment for all involved parties.

Stuck The Landing: Mork and Mindy (Happy Days)

Neither  Mork and Mindy  nor  Happy Days  are the pinnacles of television. In fact, the former is something of a joke in the canon, but it remains a successful backdoor pilot that not only launched a relatively enduring series of its own but perhaps even more importantly, introduced the world at large to the enormous comedic wunderkind that was Robin Williams.

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The show's titular alien visitor was the first time Williams got to flex his chops in front of such a big audience, and he soon outgrew the show and began his own stratospheric film career. None of that would have happened without  Mork,  which itself only exists because of  Happy Days .

Missed The Mark: Supernatural: Bloodlines (Supernatural)

Fans of the long-running cult-classic television show about two brothers hunting down various things that go bump in the night really found themselves angry and confused when a 2014 episode of the show's ninth installment was structured as a backdoor pilot for a potential new show about another individual who...hunts various things that also go bump in the night. "Bloodlines" attempted to set up a bizarre mythology about mafia families that were monsters, which would serve as a backdrop for the central revenge story. It is a terrible concept with worse execution.

Stuck The Landing: The Facts of Life (Diff'rent Strokes)

One of the longest-running sitcoms of the era,  The Facts of Life  centered on the mischief and mayhem that occurred at an all-girls boarding school. The show was a spin-off of another immensely popular sitcom of the day,  Diff'rent Strokes , and utilized the final episode of that show's first season as a backdoor pilot for  The Facts of Life .

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When the eventual spin-off aired, there had been some minor updates to the premise presented in the previous series, though the core essence of the concept remains intact.

Missed The Mark: Assignment: Earth (Star Trek: The Original Series)

"Assignment: Earth" is by no means a terrible episode of the iconic sci-fi series. However, as a backdoor pilot showcasing a possible new concept for a new show, it doesn't really work at all. Originally not a  Star Trek  script at all, the piece was rewritten to function as both an episode of that show and as a showcase for a spin-off. Teri Garr stars in the episode, and she is fine, but her character would not have been able to provide enough fodder for a whole separate series. The episode also marks the first of several spin-off attempts in the franchise. 

 Stuck The Landing: NCIS (JAG)

It's hard to imagine the ratings and widely-referenced CBS procedural  NCIS , which has the feel of a show that has been running since the dawn of time, started as a backdoor pilot in the CBS legal drama  JAG . In  JAG 's eighth season, two episodes were used to introduce the world to Mark Harmon's Special Agent Gibbs and his crackerjack team of naval investigators. The episodes were successful and thus  NCIS  was born, a show that would go on to lead its own franchise of spin-offs.

Missed The Mark: Aquaman (Smallville)

Technically speaking, the  Smallville  episode "Aqua" was not originally intended as a backdoor pilot for what would become the proposed  Aquaman  series. However, it was used to gauge interest and present a general take on the character from those behind the successful show  Smallville . Both the original  Smallville  episode and the fully-produced separate pilot for the  Aquaman  show received some enthusiasm from fans and critics, though The WB network passed on the series, effectively killing its chances. That being said, the pilot remains a fun and widely-available vision of the beloved superhero.

Stuck The Landing: The Flash (Arrow)

On the opposite side of that coin is the successful  Arrow  spin-off  The Flash . Initially,  Arrow  was a bit of a risky endeavor for The CW. While it contains the network's signature blend of melodrama and supernatural-ish events,  Arrow  was in a league all its own for superhero shows. Eventually, the show would sire a whole television universe of shows, including  The Flash , which began as a backdoor pilot on  Arrow . Now in its eighth season,  The Flash is one of the more successful recent backdoor pilots.

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‘Star Trek’ Mystery Solved – Isis Actress From “Assignment: Earth” Identified

| March 12, 2019 | By: Anthony Pascale 50 comments so far

Once again our friends at Roddenberry Entertainment have unearthed a piece of Star Trek history. Today’s episode of Larry Nemecek’s The Trek Files solves a casting mystery that dates back to Star Trek: The Original Series .

A Star Trek mystery

One of the memorable performers from the second season finale of  Star Trek: The Original series had no lines and shared billing with a cat, but is still enduring to this day. That season finale, titled “Assignment: Earth,” was a sort of backdoor pilot from Gene Roddenberry as a backup plan in case  Star Trek didn’t get a third season. It was a time travel show, with the Enterprise traveling back to 1968, the year the second season was on the air. The focus of the episode was on the mysterious character Gary Seven, trained by aliens to save the Earth from itself. Gary’s constant companion was a shapeshifting pet cat named Isis. While Isis seemed to speak telepathically with Gary Seven, the actress who played Isis in her human form never spoke. As such, she was one of many extras who was never credited, leaving her identity a bit of a mystery.

Kirk, Gary Seven and his cat Isis in “Assignment: Earth”

For years Playboy pinup and actress Victoria Vetri was associated with the role, even garnering her a page on Memory Alpha, the Star Trek wiki. TrekMovie even did an article about Vetri back in 2010 when she ran into some legal trouble. However, in 2018 the actress and model revealed she was never part of Star Trek , and her credit was subsequently  removed from Memory Alpha , leaving the identity of the performer as “unknown.”  Star Trek history knew the name of one of the cats who played Isis (Sambo), but the name of the human actress remained a mystery. Until today.

Isis in her human form in “Assignment: Earth”

Isis Identified

Combing through Gene Roddenberry’s archive of documents from  Star Trek: The Original Series , the team from The Trek Files  came upon documents for “Assignment: Earth.” These documents regarding production details for the episode could finally solve this mystery of the Isis actress. The standard actors call sheet for  January 5th – the one day Isis was on set in her human form – includes a listing for a performer to be on set 10:00 AM, but only lists that performer as “1 Female (New)” under “Atmosphere and Standins.”

Actor call sheet for “Assignment: Earth” doesn’t give the name for the “new” actress due on set at 10:00 am

However, the “Extra Talent Call Sheet” for that day was the key. Along with other familiar “Standing” background extra actors such as Eddie Paskey , there is a listing for “1 Cat Girl” to be on set at 10:00 AM. Importantly, it includes the performer’s name as April Tatro. Tatro herself was contacted by The Trek Files and confirmed she played Isis in human form for “Assignment: Earth.” According to the sheet, Tatro was budgeted to be paid the standard rate for all the extras of $29.15 for the day, plus the cost for time for being fitted with her costume and body makeup. An additional production report unearthed by The Trek Files  shows her adjusted rate of $84.51.

Extra Call Sheet for “Assignment Earth” identifies actress who played Isis as April Tatro

April Tatro worked mostly as a contortionist , performing on stage and on television. Just months after her work on Star Trek she appeared again on NBC, on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson . Tatro also appeared on Laugh-In,   Fernwood Tonight and The Gong Show . Her career on television ran through to 2001, appearing again as a contortionist on an episode of  Malcolm in the Middle. 

April Tatro in a 1997 episode of the sitcom Ellen

Isis actress April Tatro interviewed by Trek Files

Larry Nemecek had a chance to speak to April Tatro about her time working on Star Trek’s  “Assignment: Earth” on the episode of The Trek Files released today. Nemecek tells TrekMovie: “This week’s episode is one of those  that makes the whole concept of The Trek Files worthwhile. We’re going to be solving a Star Trek mystery.”

Larry Nemecek with April Tatro (The Trek Files)

On the podcast, Tatro talked about her fitting for her rather skimpy costume, saying, “I’d never had so much attention in all my life.” Speaking of attention, Tatro also reveals that Star Trek star William Shatner asked her out. Even though she was engaged to be married in just two weeks, she accepted the offer and went out to lunch with Shatner.

Get all the details by listening to the podcast available on iTunes , or you can warp on over to podcasts.roddenberry.com .

You can download the “Assignment: Earth” production documents on Google Drive . For more on April Tatro in “Assignment: Earth” and other Trek Files head on over to the program’s hub on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/TheTrekFiles/posts/1160454300795482?__xts__[0]=68.ARCOlXil2QMrfyaDUduPfK_bOIGeEgtr2uOMjEkRnVUQGdNKOeJLJ4uJAEI274s9z-Id1wIHUG_QjP3q_koO392RjThcoBezZT3cXLSgbQo9Q9zzStM69KXlQFSNxN4KR6dtBPRsGjptIp9k5nKAiEEtBEX7qIVlgvuLTDCTXdcTVYgiBVFq1voodX47e9nM10_xXSyZbog3Xc1SeLxpN6SO3LgY-xyRGi6H90aA2yk_KerqmivkQo6f6ohIWfR_tHMavxCrGNRozXUksDRU6pQMLT5WZ6lSIKdHYv2SrUvS_xeYZTpUqf6M2xWZbLI7ikfUEcUkYOS9oS8cPTsfe7og5GdwaOebB6yW8-_4N2YVHA4TUQg4zeeYIGwfn6asii1EgHWU8dXVG2ELDn5gW1s2EkyUOYyOrrMLSjSny_H5EI0hPrqf53gx9wiXo392QXI66vYFIJgt_IXNn2dA&__tn__=-R

Keep up with all our coverage of Star Trek history at TrekMovie.com .

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“Tatro also reveals that Star Trek star William Shatner asked her out. Even though she was engaged to be married in just two weeks, she accepted the offer and went out to lunch with Shatner.”

Of course, Shatner was married as well. But lunch seems innocent.

His marriage was already over at that point; papers may not have been yet been signed, but it was done.

WOW WOW WOW! What an incredible find. Larry Nemecek is truly the Jeffrey Burton Russell of Trekdom.

That is really good.

Very neat trivia. Shatner, you Rascal! :)

Oh, cool! It’s so amazing that we’re still learning new things about TOS after all the time. I mean, it’s not as if there haven’t been innumerable books and articles published about the show already. :-)

Corylea TOS has a gold mine of information we don’t know yet.

That is a incredibly cool trivia! What a neat find! It’s stuff like this that makes me proud to be a Trek fan, that we love the show so much and want to know every possible bit of information about it. I should start to listen to Larry’s podcast!

What a cool bit of trivia. Good work Detective Nemecek.

So odd that this has taken this long to come out. For years I fought the notion that it was Victoria Vetri. I never understood that. Didn’t look like her to me.

Again, a really cool bit of trivia to know here.

And now that I’ve seen her contortionist video it seems they cast well….an actress as, or more, flexible than a cat.

What ever happened to starships time traveling to the past all willy nilly for “historical research” anyway?

So there was some inner Kirk in Shatner himself :))

He did this for a lot of the women. The bellydancer from Wolf in the Fold has an account in her book of her being shocked when he came to pick her up without his toupee. He was married as well.

What a great find. Great story!

Oh. Pondering if the aliens who sent Gary Seven could be the Red Angels in Discovery? Or if there’s some connection between those aliens and the ones behind the Red Angels.

Maybe Gary Seven is the Red Angel!

spock said the red angel was human and female

Larry, thanks for this Trek Files episode that reveals the true identity of Isis. I see the article mentions that in 2018 Victoria Vetri denied being Isis. I would like to point out that way back in 2012, I revealed that Vetri was not Isis in my self-published comic, 3-D Pete’s Star Babe Invasion Comics, issue 3. I corresponded with her while she was in prison! I tried to let the Trek world know, but no one would listen! Anyway, thanks for the scoop! Mike Fisher Instagram: galacticfishproductions

What a great discovery, especially since “Assignment: Earth” is one of my favorite episodes! Listening to the podcast, Miss Tatro sounds like such a kind person. :}

Any relation to the late Richard Tatro, who played Norman in “I, Mudd?”

The same question occurred to me. Can somebody call her back and ask her?

Or composer Duane Tatro, who scored episodes of Quinn Martin’s superb ’60s TV series, THE INVADERS?

This is a strange synchronicity. I was just thinking about Gary Seven yesterday. I had an image of the British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor playing him on the new Philippa georgiou section 31 series. Interesting coincidence.

His semblance to Robert Lansing is indeed quite uncanny. :P

This is amazing — what a find!

You know there are whole pages dedicated to the watch Gary Seven wore (evidently was a Rolex – I’d never even noticed or thought about it) http://www.rolexmagazine.com/2008/11/start-trek-rolex-gmt-master-at-nasa.html https://www.rolexforums.com/showthread.php?t=83222 http://rolexdiamond.blogspot.com/2011/07/ https://forums.watchuseek.com/f2/watches-star-trek-4674575-2.html

There’s even a crazy guy who wrote and recorded music and put together opening credits for what an Assignment: Earth show might have been like…. http://supervisor194.com/

All forms of minutia the internet and fandom feed into and off of, but I’m still very surprised this bit of information never came out.

Fascinating!

All those wasted years she could have been on the convention circuit! She’s a legit Star Trek legend!

I was thinking that. Hopefully she’ll get a lot of bookings now.

Did she not realize what a big deal this is? Who knows, maybe not. She has to have known what Star Trek became.

What a neat story. She looks good today.

Shatner took her to lunch? I wonder if that worked out to be an entry for his captain’s log!

What, nobody has a comment for my double entendre??

oooooh, nasty, man! How much you wanna bet he buttered her muffin at lunch?

Very cool. Nice detective work, Roddenberry Entertainment.

She really was perfect for that role…such supernatural feline grace ! Old Cat-Man .

You call that a skimpy outfit? Even with the stricter rules of the times, there were women on Star Trek who wore more revealing costumes than that.

What a great story! She looks wonderful today and as many said here, it’s nice to learn new things about TOS all these years later. The question that was never answered: Is she a woman, is she a cat, ot a shapeshifter? GREAT article, thanks :)

Interesting bit of Trek hisstory. I wonder why there was so much pussy-footing around this casting issue for years. Though, it was classy of Tatro not to pounce on the false attribution.

I see what you did there :)

Oh come on., She’s didn’t want to come off like a clawed.

Gary Seven is one of the intriguing corners of TOS that has never been explored on screen beyond the one episode. I wonder if the Discovery team is sniffing around story possibilities for ol’ Gary and Isis.

I hope not.

I would have felt that way too until I saw how elegantly they revisited The Cage. Probably they won’t touch Gary Seven as he would not have shown up in the Discovery timeline yet.

TOS, Fernwood tonight AND the Gong Show!

sorry that english not my first language.

my feeling are, as usual, mr shatner was a very naughty rascal!

Now identified, instant elevation to iconic role.

Yep….

https://www.vidoevo.com/video/MXlwbDVWcWuRpWVhlZEU/april-tatro-show My friend, Jim found this video on YouTube of April Tatro performing on the Gong Show. And as Chuck Barris notes, she’s from my home town of Astoria, Oregon.

dang she missed out on so many star trek conventions…

I’m surprised that Marc Cushman missed that detail when he researched his very thorough and complete ‘These Are The Voyages’ volumes.

Midnite Reviews

Detailed analysis of classic sci-fi movies and tv shows, star trek episode 55: assignment: earth.

Technical Specs

Director: Marc Daniels

Writer: Art Wallace

Cast: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Robert Lansing, Terri Garr, James Doohan, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, Don Keefer, Morgan Jones, Bruce Mars, Ted Gehring, and Paul Baxley

Composer: None (Stock Music)

Air Date: 3/29/1968

Stardate: Unknown

Production #: 60355

There are times when “Assignment: Earth” plays more like a comedy than a serious science fiction piece, thus undermining the somber nature of a potential nuclear holocaust.

Concluding Comments

Overall Quality: 8/10

If you enjoyed this post, please click the follow button or enter your email address in the subscription box to stay tuned for more updates.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Featured Image by CBS]

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Assignment: Earth (episode)

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

Summary [ ]

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

Act One [ ]

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

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

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

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

Act Two [ ]

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

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

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

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

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

Roberta 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 shimmer and vanish with Roberta looking on in awe once more, and the Enterprise leaves orbit to go back to its proper time.

Log entries [ ]

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

Memorable quotes [ ]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Background information [ ]

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

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

Star Trek version [ ]

• Story outline by Roddenberry and Art Wallace : 21 October 1967
• Revised story outline by Wallace: 13 November 1967
• First draft teleplay: 21 November 1967
• Revised first draft: 11 December 1967
• Second draft teleplay: 14 December 1967
• Revised second draft: 18 December 1967
• Revised draft by Roddenberry: 20 December 1967
• Final draft teleplay by Roddenberry: 1 January 1968
• Additional page revisions: 3 January 1968 , 5 January 1968 , 9 January 1968
• Day 1 – 2 January 1968 , Tuesday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Engineering , Sickbay , Bridge , Transporter room
• Day 2 – 3 January 1968 , Wednesday – Paramount Stage 5 : Int. Gary Seven's apartment , Hallway corridor
• Day 3 – 4 January 1968 , Thursday – Paramount Stage 5 : Int. Gary Seven's apartment
• Day 4 – 5 January 1968 , Friday – Paramount Stage 5 : Int. Gary Seven's apartment
• Day 5 – 8 January 1968 , Monday – Paramount Windsor Street backlot : Ext. New York City street , Paramount 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 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
• " Assignment: Earth " at the Internet Movie Database

• 1 Daniels (Crewman)

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Assignment: Earth

• Episode aired Mar 29, 1968

While back in time observing Earth in 1968, the Enterprise crew encounters the mysterious Gary Seven who has his own agenda on the planet. While back in time observing Earth in 1968, the Enterprise crew encounters the mysterious Gary Seven who has his own agenda on the planet. While back in time observing Earth in 1968, the Enterprise crew encounters the mysterious Gary Seven who has his own agenda on the planet.

• Marc Daniels
• Gene Roddenberry
• Art Wallace
• William Shatner
• Leonard Nimoy
• DeForest Kelley
• 40 User reviews
• 14 Critic reviews

Top cast 25

• Captain James Tiberius 'Jim' Kirk

• Mister Spock

• Mister Seven

• Roberta Lincoln
• (as Terri Garr)

• Col. Nesvig
• First Policeman

• Second Policeman
• Security Chief

• Beta 5 Computer
• (uncredited)
• Lieutenant Hadley
• Lt. Clifford Brent
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Did you know

• Trivia 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.
• Goofs When Spock is trying to subdue Roberta, he apparently forgets the Vulcan neck pinch.

Roberta Lincoln : [indicating Isis] Would you mind telling me who that is?

Mister Seven : That, Miss Lincoln, is simply my cat.

• Alternate versions Special Enhanced version Digitally Remastered with new exterior shots and remade opening theme song
• Connections Featured in The Best TV Shows That Never Were (2004)
• Soundtracks Theme Music credited to Alexander Courage Sung by Loulie Jean Norman

User reviews 40

• Jun 26, 2012
• March 29, 1968 (United States)
• United States
• Official Facebook
• Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA (Stock Footage)
• Paramount Television
• Norway Corporation
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 50 minutes

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Assignment: earth (backdoor pilot in star trek).

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Season 2 of the original series of Star Trek ended with the episode “Assignment: Earth” backdoor pilot for a spin-off series.

Gene Roddenberry with wife Majel

• In 1966, Gene Roddenberry worked on the idea for a new series called Assignment: Earth.

• Gary Seven is the first man to survive being sent back to 1960 from the 24th Century.  He teams up with 20 year old Roberta Hornblower against Omegan agents: Harth and Isis.
• In 1967, it was proposed as a series spinning-off from Star Trek .

Backdoor Pilot

DEVELOPMENT

• Art Wallace pitched a similar idea to Paramount who put him in touch with Roddenberry, leading to Wallace writing the episode “Assignment: Earth” as the season to final of Star Trek .

Roberta & Isis

• On a seemingly random mission to the 1960s, the Enterprise intercepts a ultra long distance teleport – longer than even their 24th Century can achieve.  The beam contains Gary Seven and his black cat, Isis.  Seven recognises them as being from Earth’s future and tells them that he is from the 60s, sent by aliens to save Earth from it’s impending destruction.  Seven saves the Earth and picks up sidekick Roberta Lincoln.

• In 1974 a pilot by Gene Roddenberry and Gene L Coon called “The Questor Tapes” was made, but never went to series.  In it Questor is one of a long line of androids created by the “Masters” to help mankind.
• Gary Seven appeared in the novel Star Trek: Assignment: Eternity , first two books of the Star Trek: The Eugenics Wars trilogy “The Rise and Fall of Kahn Noonien Signh” (volume 1 & 2) all by Greg Cox.
• Gary Seven appeared in 4 issues of DC Comic’s Star Trek comic books: Star Trek (vol 2) #49 & 50, Star Trek Annual #6   (Convergence #1 )  and Star Trek: The Next Generation Annual #6 (Convergence #2).  All four issues are collected in IDW’s  Star Trek: Archives, Vol. 3: The Gary Seven Collection.
• In … IDW released the six issue comic book mini-series “Assignment: Earth” created as a “what-if” as if the TV series had been made.

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Yes, there definitely needs to be something done with the Gary Seven property. Have long had a fascination with it. Here’s the result of my love affair with it. My thoughts on how this show might have looked and sounded.

or,…this version…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmynXHrR74w

Those were great, thanks.

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Star Trek: The Original Series

“Assignment: Earth”

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

Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan

Review Text

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

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

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

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

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Comment Section

73 comments on this post.

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

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

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

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

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

Simon Hawkin

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

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

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

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

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

DutchStudent82

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RandomThoughts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sarjenka's Brother

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

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

Sleeper Agent

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

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

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

Hotel bastardos

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Michael Miller

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

Truly horrendous episode. 0 stars.

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

Proud Capitalist Pig

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ah ok, enjoy the watchthrough!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eastwest101

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

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written by Gene Roddenberry FIRST DRAFT PILOT, dated November 14, 1966 report & analysis by David Eversole

At last, we have a copy of the rare pilot script written and pitched as a series by Gene Roddenberry while Star Trek 's first season was unfolding.

How do Gary and Roberta fare without the familiar Trek characters along to lend a hand? Is it better than the backdoor pilot we saw at the end of the second season? Is it worse?

The answers: Okay, no, and no.

Though the script is 47 pages in length, it is a pilot for a half hour program, as there are only three acts, and much of the page count is given to the necessary explaining and showing of the "Seven Universe" for the first time.

The teaser is only one page in length, and designed to be a part of a continuing format. Each episode would have opened with a shot of Gary Seven arriving at a new location via his wall safe transporter, followed by a rapid-fire TEASE montage of scenes from that week's episode (think of the scenes playing behind the burning fuse in Mission Impossible). These scenes would have emphasized Gary and Roberta in their fight against the evil Omegans, and would have played with the weekly narration:

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

We open on a close shot of a large richly bound book entitled "Earth History -– 1967 Through 2300 A.D." It opens and the pages are rapidly turned. Superimposed, as if on the pages themselves, we see moving photos of the future -– space vehicles, the starry heavens, the startling Satanic-looking Omegans. The narrator gives us a brief history -– man landed on the moon in 1967, then reached outward to the stars. In the year 2245, Humans encountered the warlike Omegans. When Earth sent peace envoys to meet with them, the Omegans planned a decisive death blow. As masters of time travel, they sent a group of agents to Earth's most critical time period, the 1960s. Their mission: change Earth's future. Eliminate the statesmen of tomorrow, corrupt the parents of a future educator, destroy a key scientist, corrupt, weaken, destroy. . . until Earth has no tomorrow!

New York City. A fashionable office building. Roberta "Bobbi" Hornblower--a 20-year-old "mod," a delightful mixture of wacky teenager and self-assured young lady who has had to make her own way for years--arrives at an office marked "THE -7- AGENCY." Beneath this title is "INVESTIGATIONS." There is no answer to her knock. When she discovers the office unlocked, she enters to wait for Mr. Seven.

She soon encounters Marley, the building superintendent. He stops by to drop off a nondescript package which was left for Gary Seven. Soon we learn that Mr. Seven has only recently rented this suite. Marley is a bit put off by Seven cutting a large hole in one wall for an oversized safe.

Much as in the aired pilot, we follow Roberta as she encounters the various odd items in Seven's office -– a small cube (which we will later discover controls a computer), a pen (servo unit) that doesn't write, a pair of glasses (X-Scope) which allows the wearer to see through solid objects, and a voice-activated typewriter. Roberta uses the typewriter to compose a note to Seven. She tells him that she has decided not to apply for a job as his secretary. In fact, she tells him she had never heard of his agency until just a little while ago.

She explains (via the note) that something weird happened to her earlier that day. While downtown, she met a woman who looked remarkably like her, a woman who was coming to apply for the job as Seven's secretary. As they talked on the sidewalk, a large slab of marble siding fell from the top of a building. Roberta froze, would have been killed, but the woman stumbled and pushed her out of the way, and was herself crushed. Roberta, out of curiosity, took the slip of paper with Seven's address, and came down to apply in her place.

As Roberta finishes her note, she sees a cat wearing a jeweled necklace sitting on a ledge outside the window. Roberta opens the window, tries to pick it up but it hisses and spits at her. She tells the cat it can climb back down the way it came up.

A SQUEAKING sound. The door of the large wall vault swings open, revealing a "shimmering nothingness," and then the faint outline of a man which grows more solid as he approaches the vault opening and the room.

Gary Seven, early thirties, strong features, but ones capable of humor, dressed in a modern suit, albeit one that seems to have interwoven metallic threads in it, steps into the room, immediately identifies himself as the fourteenth one who has tried to follow Roberta here. The others were killed. He knows that agent 3Y3 (referring to Roberta) knew some of them and offers her his condolences. He identifies himself as "7Y6006, codename: Gary Seven."

Roberta has no clue what he is talking about, but before she can speak, there is a knock at the door. Seven grabs the X-Scope glasses, looks through the wall to the hallway, sees a police officer.

Police Lieutenant Brunner is there to give Seven a hard time about his lack of a commission license permitting him to open a detective agency. Seven is puzzled -– Roberta was supposed to have taken care of that. When Roberta begins babbling about the strange items in the office and shows Brunner the voice-activated typewriter, Seven is sure something is not right with her.

When Brunner leaves, Seven questions Roberta, asks why she is playing her cover identity so completely. She babbles, tells him she just stopped by to apply for a job, and accepted a package for him from his building's super. Seven realizes that she is the real Roberta. But why is she alive? Historical records showed that Roberta Hornblower was crushed by the falling slab of marble. 3Y3, an agent from the future, was to have assumed her identity since the body was crushed beyond recognition.

Belatedly realizing that he has said too much, Gary Seven, lamely, tries to talk his way out of the mess, telling Roberta it was all a gag. As they talk, the black cat with the jeweled necklace returns to the window and sits eyeing Seven. Another cat joins the first.

Roberta finally seems to buy Seven's story, and he offers her the job. But she is dumbfounded when he knows too much about her life -- her lack of any living relatives, her being kicked out of her apartment, etc.

As she is about to respond, she looks toward the window ledge and SCREAMS. Instead of the two cats, she sees Harth and Isis, two shape-shifting Omegan agents. Harth is a sallow "Count Dracula" type, while Isis is an incredibly beautiful woman. Isis, in human form, continues to wear the necklace.

When Seven follows Roberta's line of sight, he sees two cats. He turns and for the first time seems to really notice the package delivered earlier. He realizes what is happening, grabs Roberta, shoves her into the hallway a split second before the package explodes. Gary dives on top of her, his metallic-laced suit absorbs the impact of the explosion and fire, protects them.

Marley, the superintendent, sprays them with a waterhose and calls the fire department and police. Gary drags Roberta back inside the demolished office, locks the door behind them with the servo, and uses the cube to activate his computer.

It has the ability to turn back time in approximately thirty minute intervals. Gary orders it to undo all the damage to the office only, then he grabs Roberta and tells her that he is taking her through his transporter to his apartment. There he has a room and clothes, etc., already set up for her replacement.

Roberta protests, but is amazed as, with a sudden PLINGGGGG sound, the damage to the office begins to revert. The burned walls resume their original freshly painted forms, a heap of burned ashes reverts to an undamaged chair.

Still staring at this amazing sight, Roberta finds herself scooped up into the arms of Gary Seven. He carries her into the wall safe, and the door clangs shut behind them.

In Seven's apartment they change clothes, establish this key set, as well as more backstory on Roberta. In order to prove that he is from the future, Seven says that Roberta's best friend Cynthia will marry one Eddie Norris later this year. Roberta snorts at this -- fat chance, they hate each other. Seven insists it will happen.

Freshly attired, they travel back through the transporter to the office, which has fully reverted to its former condition. There is pounding at the door, and a fireman's axe chops a hole in it. Lieutenant Brunner, a fire battalion chief, several firefighters and Marley rush into the room. Gary feigns ignorance, makes Brunner look bad in the eyes of the fire department. All leave except Brunner.

In the weirdly dark, Satanic Omegan headquarters, Harth and Isis observe the scene in Seven's office via a crystal sphere. They pay particular attention to the angry Lieutenant Brunner, and say that they might be able to use him.

At Seven's office, Roberta finally says that she will take the job as his "secretary." Seven is pleased, but the mood is shattered when Brunner arrests him -– the money he used to pay Marley for the lease of the office is counterfeit, all the bills have the same serial number. As he is taken away, Seven tells Roberta she can reach him by the telephone in his office. Brunner declares that Seven will be allowed no calls.

"Dial 7Y24490178J, write it down quickly," Seven yells at Roberta.

As Seven is dragged away by Brunner, he yells to Roberta, "And don't play with the cats!"

Harth and Isis have observed this via their crystal. We learn that Isis delights in the torment of Human males. Harth is aware that Isis will appear and torment Gary Seven "in the tomorrow."

Roberta discovers that Seven's telephone comes equipped with a small viewscreen which slides up out of the inner workings and shows the person she is calling. She calls her friend Cynthia, and discovers the ugly truth -- her boyfriend, Eddie Norris, is having an affair with Cynthia.

Shocked, Roberta slams down the phone after promising to kill that two-timing phony Eddie.

Behind her, Harth says, "I can destroy Eddie for you, Roberta. If you'd do something for me."

In Seven's office, Harth attempts to put Roberta under a spell. "What a lovely one of us you'll make," he tells her.

A few moments later, Marley returns to Seven's office, encounters a dazed Roberta. She explains that that evil man almost owned her, but she was able to shake off his influence. She is of course referring to Harth, but the sympathetic Marley thinks she is talking about Gary Seven.

Roberta knows she must help Seven. She knows the small crystal block works the computer, but she is not sure how. She tries asking it questions, to no avail.

In his jail cell, Seven is visited by Isis. She wants to help him escape, she says. They will kill Harth, and be together in any year they choose. "And which one of us would own the other, Isis?" Gary asks. She disappears.

Later, Lieutenant Brunner, under the spell of the Omegans, comes to the cell, takes Seven away at gunpoint.

Back in Seven's office, Roberta is being stalked by Harth. "Help me," she screams into the computer cube. Nothing happens. She hurls the cube at Harth, rushes to the vault, spins the combination. It opens! She dashes inside, closes the door. The transporter effect surrounds her.

Roberta, that wacky chick, materializes in a United States Senator's office, then is transported to a men's steamroom in Chicago. Hilarity as she tries to explain her way out of each mess before being caught back up in the transporter and sent on her way.

In an alley behind the police station, the entranced Lieutenant Brunner points his pistol at Gary Seven and orders him to attempt to escape. Seven will not. Brunner fires at Seven's chest. Nothing happens. He fires three more times before realizing that the bullets are being stopped by Seven's special metallic-laced coat. Seven knocks him unconscious, fights a couple officers who try to stop him, and then dashes away into the night.

Meanwhile, poor Roberta has materialized at the Kremlin. Hijinks ensue (don't they always?). After running wildly about, she finally makes her way back to the room in which she first materialized and steps into the shimmering nothingness of the transporter's beam.

Harth, Isis and two novice Omegans (transformed Humans) await Roberta. Her next jump through the portal will bring her to Omegan headquarters. There is a deep pit exactly where Roberta will materialize. One step forward, and she will tumble to her death.

Seven arrives at his office, questions the computer about what happened to Roberta.

Roberta materializes at Omegan headquarters, takes a step forward and screams...

Gary Seven, carrying Roberta, emerges from his transporter. He was able to grab her at the last instant and transport back to his office.

Is every day going to be like this, Roberta asks. First day on any new job is always the most unusual, Gary Seven says.

Marley comes in, tells them that Seven's private detective business permit application has been approved. He also says the police realize that, somehow, they were mistaken about the counterfeiting. When they checked the bills a second time, the serial numbers were all unique.

We wrap in Seven's apartment. Seven answers a knock at the door. It is Eddie Norris. He asks if Roberta is living here. Seven coldly eyes him, and Eddie backs down. "Oh, I see," Eddie says.

Seven archly replies, "I'm pleased," and closes the door in his face. Roberta enters from her bedroom suite, explains that she was expecting someone to drop by. "Was it someone for me?" she asks.

After a beat, Seven says, "It was no one for you."

Roberta goes back to her room, leaving Seven alone.

From the script:

ANGLE ON SEVEN Standing there, puzzled.

SEVEN (to himself) Well, I can't kill the girl simply because she was supposed to die. And since I do need a secretary, she doesn't contaminate history. . . (suddenly irritated) And it's totally ridiculous for a man to be talking to himself. Even in this century!

Seven whirls, exits into his bedroom suite, CAMERA FOLLOWING him as he exits.

Well, this was only a pilot script, and there was a lot of groundwork to be laid, but still, the story is very thin, just a skirmish between Seven and the Omegans, with little in the balance. On the plus side, I do like this script's "Bobbi" Hornblower better than the one we saw on Star Trek . And though the possibilities could have been endless, hampered only by the writers' imaginations, I still see the proposed series as quickly devolving into weekly clashes with Harth and Isis.

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Synthaholics

Episode 132: Assignment Earth?

Synthaholics Episode 132: Assignment Earth?

Do you remember that time Star Trek did a backdoor pilot back in the second season? David didn’t until Aaron suggested that we watch the original series episode Assignment Earth.

This episode centers around this cat named Isis and her human secret agent Gary Seven. The Enterprise some how intercepts their transporter beam while for some strange reason being on a mission to observe 1968. Assignment Earth is Star Trek the animated series level of strange! We are thankful there was a letter writing campaign to bring Star Trek back for a third season otherwise this could of been the series finale of the Original Series!

This episode has some very fascinating historical events happen close to the episodes release that were hinted at within the episode. Also is Gary Seven a Time Lord? If not then where did he get that Sonic Screwdriver? Pour yourself an extra strong drink it’s about to get weird on your weekly shot of Star Trek!

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Assignment: Earth

The Enterprise has used the "light speed breakaway" technique to travel to Earth in the year 1968, to study how humans survived the desperate problems of that era. Then, they intercept a man beaming back to Earth from at least a thousand light years away, a technical feat beyond even Federation science! Who is Gary Seven, how did he get access to such advanced technology, and why has he come to Earth? He has a story, but Kirk has trouble believing it. Worse, he has trouble knowing whether he should allow Seven to pursue his agenda, or try to stop him. One of those choices is certain to destroy the future... but which?

James Doohan

Nichelle Nichols

George Takei

Walter Koenig

Robert Lansing

Ted Gehring

Morgan Jones

Paul Baxley

Cast appearances.

William Shatner

Leonard Nimoy

DeForest Kelley

Episode discussion.

This episode was a "backdoor pilot" for a Roddenberry concept about interventionist aliens whose goal is to ensure the survival of less advanced races, including humans. The network passed.

Star Trek's First Spinoff Never Reached the Air

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Why Does Kathryn Janeway Outrank Jean-Luc Picard?

Why wasn't admiral janeway in star trek: picard, the canceled medical drama that rivals grey's anatomy and chicago med.

Star Trek’s exponential growth in the last few years has been amazing, even by the franchise’s prodigious standards. There are currently five shows in various stages of production  and a  fourth movie in the Kelvinverse . It's also a  more complex version of a similar expansion that took place in the wake of Star Trek: The Next Generation , with three additional Trek shows developing from the original's success. While  Star Trek: The Animated Series  constituted the first successful Star Trek spin-off, an attempted spin-off arrived in the middle of the original series, in an episode clearly intended as a pilot for a new show, but it never went any further.

Season 2, Episode 25, "Assignment: Earth" stands out precisely because it feels different from most other episodes of the original series. It found the Enterprise travelling back to 1968, where a mysterious figure named Gary Seven appears aboard. Claiming they must release him or risk changing the future, he initially finds himself at odds with Kirk and Spock before allying with them to prevent the United States from deploying an orbital nuclear weapons platform.

RELATED: Star Trek: Discovery Season 4, Episode 11, 'Rosetta,' Recap & Spoilers

Seven’s backstory was quite elaborate and had comparatively little to do with the rest of the Star Trek mythology. He was a human raised on a distant planet, and he was sent to Earth to perform unspecified but apparently benevolent "missions." In this case, the weapons platform would have triggered a nuclear holocaust, which he and the Enterprise were able to prevent. His operation included access to advanced technology to help him, along with civilian Roberta Lincoln and his cat Isis, who could change into a human woman.

The self-contained nature of the story was by design, as "Assignment: Earth" was intended as a stand-alone series, according to Captain’s Log: The Unauthorized Voyages. In the first draft of the pilot, the crew of the Enterprise wasn’t involved, and Gary Seven came from the 24th century, not an alien world.

RELATED: Star Trek: Picard Season 2 Effectively Leans Into Its Action & Introspection

When that didn’t work, it was repackaged for Star Trek,  airing at the end of the second season, when the original series’ prospects for renewal seemed bleak. The hope was that – if Star Trek were cancelled – an  Assignment: Earth series could continue in its stead. The episode thus seemed unduly focused on its guest stars, while providing Gary Seven with an ongoing mission and a supporting cast to help him out.

The practice wasn’t uncommon and is known as a backdoor pilot -- a filmed pilot that can be broadcast as an episode of an existing series. A famous successful example is Happy Days Season 5, Episode 22, "My Favorite Orkan," which introduced Robin Williams’ Mork from Ork and eventually led to the Mork and Mindy TV series. However, "Assignment: Earth" wasn’t picked up, leaving it an odd appendage of the series.

While it didn't happen,  Star Trek went on to spawn enough successful spin-offs to constitute a genre unto itself. Gary Seven and his friends never returned to canon Star Trek , but he made prominent appearances in a number of Trek novels – most notably the Eugenics Wars trilogy, which found him fighting the rise of Khan Noonien Singh – and a series of IDW comics where he was an antagonist. The proof of concept was clearly there; it just didn’t happen for "Assignment: Earth," leaving Star Trek’s first potential spin-off a case of what might have been.

KEEP READING:  Star Trek: Picard Season 2, Episode 1, 'The Star Gazer,' Recap & Spoilers

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• Star Trek Series | 2151 - 2270
• Star Trek - The Original & Animated Series

Assignment: Earth - Is it Really a Star Trek Episode?

• Thread starter Irishman
• Start date Sep 1, 2013

Fleet Captain

• Sep 1, 2013

Given that this episode was originally set to be a pilot for a Gary Seven show, and that it features odd cinematography (shooting around the fact that Kirk and our heroes rarely occupy the same space together), not to mention weird ideas that never get mentioned again (like time travel to the past as a thing that Starfleet ships just DO as a regular basis), should we regard this episode as a part of Star Trek canon? A couple other problems I noticed are: 1. Gary Seven, presumably a human, is immune to Spock's nerve pinch. Why is never explained. 2. At the end, Kirk says that he's sure that Seven and Roberta Lincoln will have "many interesting adventures together", a nod to the show that never came to be. Is this episode too full of in-jokes and nods for its own good? Is it too "meta"? Sometimes I think so.  

The King of Kings

Of course its a Star Trek episode.  

It does have ideas never raised again. Gary Seven could be human, but he's also a product of generations of humans raised by an advanced race on another world so maybe there was tinkering going on that makes Seven look mostly human while being something more. The transporting across vast distances idea is visited again in third season in "That Which Survives" when the Enterprise is transported across a thousand light years. The time travel to do historical research idea might have been the first time they had actually tried it, but it doesn't answer whether it would become a regular thing. Seems to me using a Class One starship for this kind of thing isn't the greatest idea. If you're going to do it I'd think a small dedicated team would be better. The episode itself is just okay. I think it's not something they would have done if GR hadn't wanted to do a backdoor pilot using Star Trek as a jumping off point.  

Christopher

Irishman said: Given that this episode was originally set to be a pilot for a Gary Seven show, and that it features odd cinematography (shooting around the fact that Kirk and our heroes rarely occupy the same space together), not to mention weird ideas that never get mentioned again (like time travel to the past as a thing that Starfleet ships just DO as a regular basis), should we regard this episode as a part of Star Trek canon? Click to expand...

A couple other problems I noticed are: 1. Gary Seven, presumably a human, is immune to Spock's nerve pinch. Why is never explained. Click to expand...

2. At the end, Kirk says that he's sure that Seven and Roberta Lincoln will have "many interesting adventures together", a nod to the show that never came to be. Is this episode too full of in-jokes and nods for its own good? Is it too "meta"? Sometimes I think so. Click to expand...

I don't include it in my personal continuity.  

JT Perfecthair

Lieutenant commander.

I wish there had been another series with Robert Lansing, a very cool actor.  

JT Perfecthair said: I wish there had been another series with Robert Lansing, a very cool actor. Click to expand...

I just read in the late '70s version of the concordance that the the spin off show Assignment Earth was never supposed to be involved in/part of the Star Trek timeline. The idea never sold so Roddenberry and Wallace decided to wrap it up in a Star Trek episode and see if it could then be sold. Still no takers. As for the OP's questions, It is cannon because it was on screen and poses no great conflict with story's both before and after. We are told Gary Seven is human, but this is never really proved. McCoy's examination could have been interfered with. As for the time travel stuff, I get the feeling that maybe Star Fleet thought that mucking around in the past was a bad idea. I seem to remember that an early version of the episode had the Enterprise going back in time to fight a race of time traveling aliens called Omegans bent on destroying Earth in the past.  

mach7 said: I just read in the late '70s version of the concordance that the the spin off show Assignment Earth was never supposed to be involved in/part of the Star Trek timeline. The idea never sold so Roddenberry and Wallace decided to wrap it up in a Star Trek episode and see if it could then be sold. Still no takers. Click to expand...

We are told Gary Seven is human, but this is never really proved. McCoy's examination could have been interfered with. Click to expand...

I seem to remember that an early version of the episode had the Enterprise going back in time to fight a race of time traveling aliens called Omegans bent on destroying Earth in the past. Click to expand...

Officially, it's obviously just as "canonical" as any other episode. And Lord knows some of us have gotten plenty of mileage out of it . . . . (Heck, Roberta popped up in a new Trek novel just a few months ago.)  

• Sep 2, 2013

For those interested, the Mission Log Podcast posted a bunch of archival documents related to this episode (and the potential spin-off) recently: http://www.missionlogpodcast.com/discovereddocuments/055/  

Harvey said: For those interested, the Mission Log Podcast posted a bunch of archival documents related to this episode (and the potential spin-off) recently: http://www.missionlogpodcast.com/discovereddocuments/055/ Click to expand...

Greg Cox said: Officially, it's obviously just as "canonical" as any other episode. And Lord knows some of us have gotten plenty of mileage out of it . . . . Click to expand...

(Heck, Roberta popped up in a new Trek novel just a few months ago.) Click to expand...

jpv2000 said: Greg Cox said: Officially, it's obviously just as "canonical" as any other episode. And Lord knows some of us have gotten plenty of mileage out of it . . . . Click to expand...

Commishsleer

All I know is I love a young Teri Garr. I actually missed that episode in reruns during the 70s and only saw it when I git the DVD. It does seem more like a different show than Star Trek. Because it was basically a pilot for a different series it does feel different. But I do enjoy it.  

Rear Admiral

Gojira said: All I know is I love a young Teri Garr. Click to expand...

Irishman said: should we regard this episode as a part of Star Trek canon? Click to expand...

Christopher, Thanks for filling in the blanks. Funny how time has a tendency to muddle facts.  

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What are some spin off shows that have almost nothing to do with their parent show.

Spin off TV shows usually have a strong connection to their parent show, most of the time having references, sharing actors or are quite obviously taking place in the same shared universe. What are some spin off shows that have barely any connection to the original show?

Some I can think of are:

JAG - NCIS You could be forgiven for forgetting that NCIS was originally a spin off JAG, it makes almost no references and the only real connection we get is a few actors from JAG make cameo appearances. It wasn't until NCIS Los Angeles that we got a more substantial connection.

Boston Legal - The Practice Two of the main characters from the final season of the practice in BL as well as a few side characters, in the first season. But really apart from that almost zero references are made to the original show.

Joey - Friends Really apart from Joey himself, it has almost nothing to do with friends.