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Episode
055
Assignment: Earth
The Enterprise goes back in time to 1968 to find out how the Earth avoided a particular disaster. But will Gary Seven – the futuristic man they meet – cause the disaster or stop it? And what part will the crew of the Enterprise play? Find out as we put Assignment: Earth in the Mission Log.
Home Video Trivia: 1991 – Columbia House VHS Cassette#4499- Stardate Unknowns – This was the ONLY TOS VHS to be released with 3 episodes recorded ( all the others had only two ) onto a T-160 tape.
Another good commentary guys – and an interesting backdoor pilot for what could have been an earthbound Star Trek (they could even have had elements of its parent show involved, like Klingons landing to start trouble). Perhaps in some quantum reality, there’s shelves filled with DVD sets of Assignt Earth: The Next Generation?
You talked about the contrivances in having the Enterprise take the risky venture of going back in time just to do some historical research. I always thought that someone in Starfleet *knew* about the Enterprise being part of the events in the past, perhaps due to some archived information left by Gary Seven himself, but they kept it quiet until the right time to prevent a temporal paradox or something…
As for the supposed similarities between Gary Seven and Doctor Who: although both of them use similar-looking devices, the Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver had only just been introduced at the time Assignment: Earth was written, and was radically different to the device we know today (as was the Doctor’s character, less dashing hero and more Mr Bean).
Great commentary guys. Just wanted to remark that they went the whole episode without mentioning the Soviet Union, found that interesting given the nature of Seven’s mission.
I would totally have watched a whole series about Gary Seven and Roberta (especially since I’ve always liked Teri Garr). Kind of sad the spin-off never happened.
I actually liked Roberta. The first time I saw this episode, I kind of tuned her out as the ditsy secretary character. But upon this viewing, after going through Star Trek with you guys so closely, she may be my favorite female character up to this point. Most (if not all) of the leading female characters have been very serious. The leading ladies whose main purpose was to be beautiful have been silent and alluring. The leading ladies who have been there to do a job, I believe, were played seriously so that a 1960s world would take them seriously (with progressive intent from the show). However, Roberta is smart and brave and silly and honestly the most complex depiction of a human woman we’ve seen up to this point. And she’s by far the most dynamic. I LOVE the original series but this episode made me excited for the future Star Trek shows when we get regularly appearing, dynamic female characters. Oh, except shoutout to Uhura who is the exception to my little rant.