Series: Star Trek (The Original Series)
Episode: 2.26 Assignment: Earth (03-29-68)
Rating: 4/5
Redshirt Status: 0/21/44
Notable Guest Stars:
Robert Lansing – Gary Seven. He is most known for his role in 12 O’Clock High (1964)
Teri Garr – Roberta Lincoln. I know her from Young Frankenstein.
Don Keefer – Cromwell. He appeared in 10 episodes of Gunsmoke, my step-Aunt’s favorite Tv show.
Barbara Babcock – Beta 5. She was on a previous episode.
Review:
We have time travel. This episode is neutral on my scale. It did not particularly impress me but I didn’t quite hate it either. Plus I liked seeing a guest star I could actually recognize (Teri Garr).
Our bold aventures take us time traveling today to 1968, where the US is about to launch a nuclear bomb into outer space to ‘balance the power’ of the cold war. Gary Seven a special agent from a planet no one has heard of or can actually find has come to earth (where apparently he *is* from) to denote the bomb close enough to the planet to scare everyone without causing nuclear winter and general nastiness. His problem is he fails to communicate why this is important to Kirk and Spock, who frankly don’t know if he’s telling the truth or not.
Meanwhile Roberta just wants to know if she really wants this job anymore because they have men sparkling out of no where, cats that change into people and back again, nuclear bombs. Who knows what tomorrow will hold?
Scotty gets to spend the episode pretty much either squinting while trying to tune the TV on the launch or wondering WTF is happening in front of him. There are some police officers with the same look back in Florida.
I do like that they got actual photos and video from NASA for some of this episode. Its always nice when you get to see something that is actual footage.
Interesting Notes:
- · Directed by Marc Daniels
- · Written by Art Wallace, Gene Roddenberry
- · This was an attempt at a pilot for a spin off series involving Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln.
Pros:
- · Kitty!!
Cons:
- · Its pretty obvious this was a script for another show, because the enterprise is hardly in it. I feel they could have altered it a little more to balance it
Sokorra Lewis 