Seven tries to convince Captain Kirk to let him disarm the warhead - with Spock unable to do it himself, the crew is left with no choice but to trust him. (Assignment: Earth) #StarTrek
Even when I saw this episode as a kid I felt that there was more to the story that needed to be told. Of course, I didn't realize it was a pilot that didn't catch on. I really wish it had! It could have been a lot of fun! Teri Garr is such a doll!
She is! I've heard her talk about embarrassed she is by this role. She need not be. There were worse: "Brain and brain, what is brain?". "Goodbye James Kirk. I will learn, and watch the lights in the sky, and remember". "She who bore me was killed in a freestyle match".
@@jjeherrerathey made the decisions based on worst case possibilities, which is the only way to proceed in a global pandemic of a new virus. It’s much better to have over prepared for a not so dangerous virus than to have underprepared for a more dangerous virus. Further, if people had actually heeded warnings and obeyed directions at the beginning of the pandemic, it could very well have been contained within a few months.
Lansing was tapped for this pilot for a reason: Steve McQueen’s movie “Bullitt” was released in 1968 and was a major hit. Suddenly the “cool as McQueen” look and personae were very much in demand. Lansing had it, and Roddenberry cast him.
Star Trek TOS was so ahead of its time in many ways. This episode showed the computer performing voice to text transcription. Science fiction in 1968, but reality today.
You know comma it seems like that typewriter was hooked up to an early version of ellipsis Dragon Naturally Speaking exclamation mark I mean comma I think of that scene a lot when I use voice to text software full stop 🙂
@@StudSupreme ... Yup, also 3.5-inch floppy disks or ram cards, tablets, stun guns, holograms, laser weapons, desktop-sized computers (or at least continuation of dumb terminals), etc. Still waiting for that food processor & holodeck. Food processor did sort of turn into the microwave oven. The transporter is kinda scary though. 04/13/24
Loved this episode. Facial expressions were the whole story...Talented Robert Lansing so underused. Would have made a great Vulcan or Star fleet Captain.. Had so much depth....
@@knightshousegames- I started a computer career back in 1987. I've seen stuff from the 60s and 70s that I'd never have a clue in how to use them. The furthest thing I remember is the punch card machine and card reader. Even then I'd be just standing there without a clue in how to use them. And the removable disk packs. The hard drive in my computer (five terabytes) could hold more information than nearly a hundred removable hard drives from the 1960s & 1970s.
@@stanleybroniszewsky8538Millions, not hundreds. You would need a million IBM 350 disk drives to match the capacity of a single 5TB disk. And each drive weighed 1 ton! To house them, you would need a building with a minimum 20 million square feet, making it the largest building on earth. The amount of electricity required would necessitate building a large power plant.
To this day whenever someone asks me for help in a decision I look thoughtful and they say - it is difficult to know which is best -- my second favorite Spock line (the first is "You may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting")
It's a cop out though. Spock says in many episodes only pure logic would be correct, then says in this, without facts logic is useless. He, in the script, just didn't want to make any decision. A logical officer would simply say...I can't figure this out, the only logical choice is to let him try. Because if he locked the controls or was prevented from getting at them the result was identical. Only if Kirk took the leap of faith in him, could they be saved. Faith in another, in that circumstance, was... logical. Remember Spock isn't being written by people with formal university logic training or empirical scientists...but writers imagining logic and science dramatically. Drama is not logical.
@@willoughby1888 you worship this don't you. Spock is not a formally trained logic character. He is dramatic logic, which is fictional conflict false logic. The logic worked backward from the end that the writer knows. Spock isn't going to make the decision....Kirk is. So they put Spock in a position to cop out. It is similar to how is Sherlock Holmes so bloody smart....he read the last page. Logic does not dictate to play a hunch. Logic is quite clear here based on the desire to not have the bomb kill people. Spock can't stop it....0% possible success Gary 7 can stop it....only possible success Gary 7 may lock the controls...that won't matter Gary 7 may run out of time while the useless conflict dialog happens....boom However the intent is to stall until it can be stopped with 2 seconds to spare....TV Excitement logic. Spock makes lots of logic mistakes even when he's being Vulcan Spock...but he is an entertaining character. For the most part he is being the emotionally detached military professional through most of the series. Logic is just used as an argumentative trope.
@@jonimichalski69 Oop! Thanks! Yep, you are absolutely right! Got my actors-in-drag movies mixed up...Tootsie/Mrs. Doubtfire. Don't suppose Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon were in that, either, huh? Never mind. ;-)
In 1968 TV was full of SpyFi so yet another was hard to fit in. Most of the SpyFi was about to end anyway by 1970. Jeffrey Hunter was in a SpyFi movie in 1966 (real reason he didn't take the offer) called Dimension 5, about a secret agent with a time travel belt. That could have gone to series too. With "The Bionic Man" making a SpyFi comeback in the early 70s, GR made a try with the Questor Tapes (an series based on this and Requiem for Methusala ?sp) but it died quickly with ho hum casting like Mike Ferrell and boring writing.
One of the great Star Trek episodes. Robert Lansing was excellent, as was Teri Garr. This started her on a great career of Sci-Fi and fantasy related roles (Close encounters, etc). If the Star Trek universe wants another spin-off show, they should consider bringing this storyline back with a new Mr. Seven and Roberta (but actors that remind us of Robert Lansing and Teri Garr).
I'd probably go with William Fitchner and (more for feel than looks) Alyson Hannigan. There might be one or two other female actors for the role, but I really think Fitchner could nail the Gary Seven part better than anyone else I can think of right now...
@@robertmorris8997 I dunno....I'm a first generation Trekkie (Thursdays at 8:30, and I was allowed to stay up for it!), and I think they're doing a pretty good job with Discovery. Is it how I'd do it? No, but neither was TNG, DS9, Voyager or Enterprise....and I liked them a lot, too....(okay, maybe not so much "Enterprise", but there were still good bits sprinkled throughout....)
One of my favorites. Was the pilot for a series that wasn't picked up. Robert Lansing and Terry Garr remind me of Mulder and Scully. The E.M.P. From the detonation made Earth reconsider this kind of weapon.
Miss Garr and Mr. Lansing are two of my favorite all-time actors, actually above Mr. Nimoy (whom my half-brother went to school with his son Adam with in Los Angeles) and Mr. Shatner whom I saw receive multiple standing ovations in his music group here in town in South Orange County -- this is my favorite episode, easily, of all of TV and I am VERY sorry that it did not turn into the series it was offered towards. What a shame!
This is legitimately my favourite episode of TOS. Mostly because you could take the Enterprise crew out of the episode entirely and it basically wouldn't change anything. XD
I'm reading Teri's book. It's fun, and she's like Zelig, hanging out in L.A. with major people before they became household names. Rob Reiner, Jack Nicholson, etc., dating the guy who eventually wrote the Blade Runner script, going to acting classes with later stars, going to recording sessions with the Beatles, and her early years as a dancer, getting tiny roles on stage in New York. She puts you right there. Also, read Ned Lynn's book, We Will Always Love In Beverly Hills. The BEST book of the early days.
Does it tell why she has such an unfavorable view of Star Trek, science fiction and its fans? That was what we got out of the Starlog interview. A third party said she didn't like them wanting to put her in a shorter skirt. But maybe there was more to it than that.
A very Happy 90th Birthday William Shatner. Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Montreal, Quebec. March 22, 1931 Born in Canada, But a U.S. treasure. Your legacy is worldwide. Thanks Tiberius..
So true. My all time fave episode. Strangely, when released back in the day the critics and commentators did not regard the episode quite as well as they do today. Amazing how it took nearly 50 years for this episode to garner the acclaim it has now gotten and deserved all along.
I watched the Changeling as a kid, first episode, and still scares me.. with AI now it seems more relevant than back then.. it kind of became the plot for the first movie too, no?
The spinoff series from this episode was to be titled "Gary Seven", but since the network wasn't interested in a Star Trek spinoff series, it never materialized, which was a real shame. Teri Garr was HOT in 1968!
@@gzuzsavz those micro dresses miniskirts and hot pants here the norm back then, back in high school girls wood get called down the office and the principal wood measure the hem of skirt to kneecap pervert vice principals sat in on measurement hot pants a no no and last day of school some girls pushed the limit and wore them i miss 1971
They did a really good job of ratcheting up the tension with the "Doomsday Machine" music and the "Count by tens" to the explosion. And yes, TOS had the best music of any Trek; I'd even put it ahead of "Wrath of Khan", even though that's probably my favorite movie of all time.
She had magic that never was realized. Only in the Letterman interviews do you catch a glimpse of what she could do. Vastly underutilized talent. Not enough good roles.
I love the detail where Spock and gary7 don’t even flinch at the bright light from the explosion, but Kirk and the girl both squint and recoil from it. Spock because of his Vulcan eyes better able to filter bright lights, and Gary because of his conditioning off world… Neat detail.
I was watching Star Trek all the time in the Sixties, but didn't really make note of Teri Garr by name until Close Encounters. A great episode-the seeming bad guy who is a good guy, the ditzy secretary who isn't so ditzy after all.
She seemed to play the ditz a lot. The computer said that despite her erratic behavior she possessed a high IQ. I watched _Tootsie_ again a week ago and her character gets locked in the bathroom for 30 minutes (couldn't scream?), then can't play rage in rehearsal, but really shows it when Dustin Hoffman's character says he's in love with another woman after sleeping with her but standing her up after.
This episode was actually an attempt by RODDENBERRY to use as a pilot for a spin off in which LANSING (Gary SEVEN) was going to star in. I guess it didn't sell.
A pretty fabulous debut role for Teri Garr. Yes... and one of my favorite episodes. When I saw it, I was confused by the "pen" weapon. I had also just started watching Dr Who and thought "wait a minute - Star Trek has those too?"
Superb episode. This would have made a great series. Maybe the current Star Trek producers can think about Assignment Earth again. Who could play the Robert Lansing part?
As much as we all love Trek put Teri Garr on that short list of actors that didn’t have fond memories of working on Star Trek along with William Windom and a few others
Yeah Teri Garr has never had anything good to say about her Star Trek appearance...when anything about it can be pried out of her. She's always been pretty tight lipped about it. The issue of her costume was a debacle. They kept altering the length, making it shorter. Roddenberry was all over that. "Hound Dog Gene never missed an opportunity with his young female guest stars. And given what else went on behind the scenes, you wonder what casting couch hi jinks went on and what Roddenberry & Co. made her do to get the role. And then the series wasn't even picked up.
@@Widdershins. William Windom in interviews said there was a ton of tension on the set between Shatner and Nimoy. Shatner was at the height of his paranoia at the popularity of Spock and had reportedly started counting lines to make sure he had more. Windom also said he thought the whole idea of a machine that eats planets was ridiculous and like a cartoon so he treated it as such and purposely overacted. He softened up a little to the idea of Star Trek over the years when he saw how much people liked the episode he was in but he clearly didn't think much of it at the time.
There's consequences to not holding abusers of women accountable, whether Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby, and the first is they feel free to do it again. If the executive that sexually assaulted Grace Lee Whitney was allowed to return to the set, then maybe he went after Terri Garr? And if so then maybe he assaulted some other blonde after her and then another and another? It would be interesting to know if Terri Garr had anything more to say in her book about _Star Trek,_ but ever since she said she hated _Star Trek,_ science fiction and its fans, I've hated her back.
Yes, but Spock didn't have his thinking cap on and neither did Kirk. They have a starship in orbit. All it would take is a phaser to destroy the missile. Scotty could have been ordered to fire! They obviously know what to do. Spock is at the controls of the device. Kirk says he doesn't know if Seven will detonate (his desire) or let it hit the wrong target (Kirk's suspicion). So, he knows what and has the starship.
I seem to remember some TV talk at the time about this Gary 7 (Robert Lansing) being spun off into his own show.....this was supposed to be the pilot for it.
@@Calriec ....quite right. From Memory Alpha: Star Trek: Assignment: Earth is a five-issue comic mini-series featuring the adventures of Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln. This is the third of IDW's "Second Stage" releases. Written and illustrated by John Byrne, the mini-series acts as a sequel of sorts to "Assignment: Earth".
Love this episode, great writing and direction. Ms Garr is absolutely beautiful, and the cat ain’t bad either, yes a what if episode with such great ideas along the way. You think he’s the bad guy, but the story flips and he’s the good guy, reminds me a bit of Steve McQueen, could you imagine Steve McQueen in this episode, food for thought there......
Lansing played Gen Savage in the first season of 12 O Clock High as such a hardass they decided to replace him with nice guy Paul Burke. The series was never the same.
Oh I wouldn’t fear too much all experiments by the SJW crowd have been utter total and dismal failures the networks all of them are in the business to make money and they are losing money hand over fist to the SJW crowd.
The beautiful Miss Garr was more famous as a dancer before she got this role which, indeed, did accelerate her great career. She appeared in "Shindig" and in several Elvis Presley movies and was outstanding.
I showed up for campus movie night to watch Young Einstein and this black and white movie was playing. I talked to the person in charge who replied, "Einstein, Frankenstein, what's the difference?" Guess she was as ditzy as Terri Garr. I walked out; I only watch movies in color.
I remember this episode of Star Trek... this was the most thought provoking episode... I think my Favorite... high entertainment value... a jewel... I thought Robert Lansing had his own series... his relationship with cat was memorable.. it appears he didn't...
This was also a backdoor pilot for a new series. It's a shame it didn't sell. Assignment: Earth would have made a VERY good show. Robert Lansing was a good actor. Terri Garr was a beautiful actress.
The sensitivity of electronic devices to EPM is inversely proportional to component size. Transistors were new, vacuum tubes were still used a lot, especially in legacy equipment and first level integrated circuits were rare and cutting edge. EMP was not as much of a threat to electronics (such as they were) as the same level would be to today's electronics.
I highly recommend the book "Assignment: Eternity" by Greg Cox, which is a sequel to this episode. Without giving away too much, Miss Roberta Lincoln, is, of course, instrumental.
Thanks for all your comments :) Just got the notifications. I think in Star Trek Enterprise the whole quantum physics backplot with Daniels was supposed to support this episode. We're just in need of a Suliban threat here, ha :) Have any of you ever seen the strange enter/sneak inside our realities? A rather difficult task to accomplish, yet a lot easier than it seems. I have. I will always believe in this show after what I've witnessed. Always look up at those stars :) Thanks again & take care!
I find it interesting that some say how Robert Lansing reminds them of Steve McQueen. In fact, Mr Lansing was actually 2 years older than Mr McQueen and spent more years in Hollywood though the latter may have been more renown due to his hot rod lifestyle which so popular back in the day.
The question of whether or not to trust him was dependent on whether or not Spock thought he would be able to detonate the missile in time. If he *couldn't*, it wouldn't've mattered whether Gary could be trusted or not (as Gary couldn't do worse than if nobody did anything). They framed the dilemma wrong, with Spock just standing there no longer even trying.
My favorite TOS episode. NBC really should have moved forward with the Assignment Earth series. They could have had some great story lines given what what was going on in the world in the late '60s.
@Dirt Track Racing Gaming Videos - this was AIRED in '68, early 1968. Was filmed in 1967 prior to her 20th birthday, which is late in December, the 11th to be exact 😉
Fun Fact - this was supposed to be a lead in to a new series about an alien stationed on earth with a hot female assistant, similar to the British sci fi series Dr. Who. Unfortunately, it didn't make it off the ground with the network.
@@stevechance150 - indeed you are correct sir, and I'm still hoping that this will be yet another cool new series that Paramount+ will bring to fruition in the not too distant future 😁
@@stevechance150 - it would have made an AWESOME series, especially if they could have kept these two leads. But alas, Desilu was in one heck of a financial mess by the end of 1968. It's a very interesting story in and of itself, and speaks loads towards the difficulties that the TOS show runners faced 😢
