Customer Reviews

Star Trek - The Original Series, Vol. 28, Episodes 55 & 56: Assignment: Earth/ Spectre of the Gun

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Assignment Earth for those who don't know was the pilot of a new Trek show that wold have featured Robert Lansing, and Terri Garr as the characters of Gary Seven, and Roberta Lincoln. Sadly the show was not picked up, and now we must be content with episode 55 Assignment:Earth. This is a great episode, and one of my personal faves. Robert Lansing was perfect as the calculating slightly impersonal Supervisor 194, and Terri Garr in i believe her first role is just classic as the neo-hippy with a brain, and heart of gold. She looks pretty good in that go-go dress as well ;) Seven has come to Earth to help mankind slow down a bit in its evolution, and plans on sabotaging a space weapons platform. All the while Kirk and company are wondering who, and what is motivating Seven. A heavy "No-Nukes" policy is felt throughout the episode, and sense of the arms race rings through as well. To imagine that at the same time this episode originally aired the vietnam war was raging, and the possibilty of nuclear weapons being launched boggles my mind, but i was just cute rosy cheeked baby at the time so to me it is ancient history. Enjoy this episode, and read the novels that continued Seven's adventures Assignment: Eternity, and Eugenics Wars both by Greg Cox. Will not disappoint!!

Volume 28 of The Star Trek DVD series may be the most bizarre DVD in the series. Partly because it contains the last episode of the second season and the first epiosde of the third. These two episodes differ greatly and it is interesting to compare and contrast between them however both of these episodes are above average Trek tales despite their strange differences.

ASSIGNMENT: EARTH was the season finale of the second season. Essentially it was a pilot for a proposed series by the same name. At the time Star Trek was going to be cancelled and it was quite apparent that Roddenberry developed this to have something to fall back on once the network had made their decision. I'm assuming Roddenberry was planning to have Robert Lansing and Terri Garr as the main charcters in this new series and have the Star Trek cast make various guest appearnaces. Anyways as it turned out Star Trek managed to stay on for a further season and Roddenberry and the network ditched the whole 'Assignment:Earth' idea. All we were left with was this strange episode of Star Trek (which makes you wonder if the show had been cancelled and Assignment:Earth had been accepted by NBC). The episode finds the Enterprise crew travelling back to 1968 (at the time this was aired: modern day earth). Upon arrival they cross paths with Gary Seven (Robert Lansing) and he has come to earth in order to slow down it evolutionary process to put a stop to destroying themselves. He does this by sabotaging U.S. rockets and Kirk feels he will change the course of time. However Seven insists he is doing this for the good of mankind. The episode is rather strange and complicated as most of the screen time is given to Lansing rather than Shatner which is quite a change. The rest of the episode involves Kirk and Spock chasing Seven around trying to stop him. In the end everything turns out fine as usual and the course of time is not affected but many viewers may be left scratching their heads after this episode is over. It is good but rather hard to follow. Terri Garr makes one of her first appearances as Roberta Lincoln a hip chick who applies for a secretary job for Mr. Seven. The casting was great in this one (Both Lansing and Garr are excellent) and perhaps Roddenberry should have salvaged the Assignment: Earth idea after Star Trek was cancelled in June of 1969? Sadly this was never done.

The other episode here is SPECTRE OF THE GUN which kicked off Star Trek's inconsistant third and final season. There is such a big change between this and ASSIGNMENT:EARTH. It's amazing that Star Trek was able stay on for a third season but it's obvious that the production budget was way tighter (which explains the true reason why there are incomplete sets in this episode). Still this is one of the better episodes in Star Trek's haphazard final season.
The Enterprise is abducted by a mysterious alien race called the Melkotians Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty and Chekov beam down to their planet only to end up in a situation where they are the Clampetts in the middle of the historic 'Gun Fight At The OK Corral' against the Earp's. This episode is ironic because Deforest Kelley did play Morgan Earp in the classic 1957 film. Despite being another bizarre Star Trek outing SPECTRE OF THE GUN is an awesome episode of Star Trek in my opinion especially for the majority of lackluster scripts submitted in the third season. Besides the casting of the Earps is impressive and the gunfight at the end is kinda cool.

Overall a bizarre pair of episodes but both are wonderful and interesting in their own ways. SPECTRE OF THE GUN is more enjoyable to watch than ASSIGNMENT:EARTH in my opinion but they are both special. Highly recommended.

Volume 28 of Paramount's complete Star Trek reissue bridges the gap between the second & third seasons of the original series.

As the end of Star Trek's second season approached, it became increasingly clear to cast, crew & producers that the show would be canceled. Gene Roddenberry, wishing to salvage what he could from Trek, came up with an idea for a new series. Assignment: Earth, as the new show would be called, was envisioned as a sort of futuristic Mission: Impossible. It also created the tantalizing possibility of occasional guest appearances by Trek characters. The result was this very unusual Trek episode, in which the guest star, Robert Lansing, receives more screen time than the series regulars. For all that, it is an engaging and entertaining adventure story, with the relevant social commentary fans have come to expect. In another example of Trek's unsettling prescience, Spock notes that "an important assassination will take place today" in an episode which aired just a few days before the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., was murdered. Watching this episode almost serves as a history lesson for the younger set, and a glimpse of one of the most agonizing years in American history, 1968.

As it turned out, NBC rejected Roddenberry's Assignment: Earth idea. But all was not lost. Thanks to Bjo Trimble's letter writing campaign, the bean-counters at NBC were persuaded to change their minds, and Star Trek was renewed for a third season. But there were caveats: the budget was slashed, Fred Freiberger was brought in as producer, and Roddenberry's role was reduced. As a result, more episodes would be confined to the ship to eliminate the cost of set construction. There was also a shift in tone away from serious, thought-provoking stories, and toward straightforward action adventure, and even camp-humor. While it is true that many third season episodes contained much of what was great about Classic Trek, just as many stories from that season were pitifully weak.

Spectre of the Gun demonstrates both sides of the issue. While the story deals with the issue of mind control, the limitations of the budget forced the producers to make compromises (the real reason for the half-completed sets). This episode comes off as being a mix of The Cage and Gunfight at the OK Corral--without the originality of either film.

The picture and sound have never been better.

See the planned spin-off of "Star Trek" called "Assignment: Earth"...a blatant Dr. Who rip-off...it's a miracle Gene Roddenberry didn't get sued! The story is good, however..."Spectre of the Gun" is better...Kirk gets to play "cowboy" by being a part of the shootout at OK Corral.

What an odd pair of episodes to put together! One pretty damn good, the other - well, fun, actually, but rather silly.

"Assignment: Earth" was a Roddenberry pilot that regrettably never flew, as it introduced an entertaining premise and pair of characters: Gary Seven, and Roberta Lincoln. Gary Seven (Robert Lansing) is a human abducted from childhood and raised by aliens on an undetected planet in Earth's solar system, trained for undercover missions on his home planet toward the purpose of keeping it from destroying itself before it becomes worthy of inclusion in a greater galactic community. Roberta Lincoln (Terri Garr, in probably her first role of note) is the ditzy hip-chick who inadvertently walks in applying for a job in Seven's office, on the day he just happens to need a replacement for backup agents accidentally killed before his latest mission. Seven is on Earth to sabotage a nuclear space platform, in order to scare the superpowers into disarmament. The Enterprise, orbiting Earth in 1968 for the purpose of historical research at the time, briefly intercepts Seven on the way to his office, and dogs his steps in an attempt to determine whether he is Earth's friend - as he claims - or its foe.

Nice casting in this one, a great premise and a solid production. Lansing is charismatic enough to pull off Seven's slippery personality, keeping him both menacing and likeable at the same time. Garr is her usual self, which is always a delight. There's even a nice performance from Seven's "familiar," a black cat named Isis - who sometimes turns into a beautiful Egyptianesque woman, when no one's looking. The Cape Canaveral scenes are especially good, Seven's alien sabotage there convincingly handled.

"Spectre of the Gun" finds Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy and Ensign Chekhov transported to a barren planet by the alien Melkots, there to be dispatched as unwanted invaders into Melkotian space. The Enterprise crew find themselves in the middle of a recreation of Tombstone, Arizona, with themselves cast in the role of the Clantons, just prior to their fatal encounter with the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday at the O.K. Corral.

Yes, it's silly, but the production is clever. Star Trek was suffering from a drastically diminished budget in season three, and made up for it in this episode with suggestive minimalist sets and props that are quite enjoyable, in a theatrical sort of way. Ron Soble, Rex Holman, Charles Maxwell and Sam Gillman are well-cast as the Earps and Doc Holliday, and the gunfight finale is actually kind of creepy.

An odd couple, but worth watching.

This was called Gary Seven in my copy of the episode. I love all the time travel episodes but this is my favorite. The smart but kookie Terri Garr really adds alot to the show and her interactions with the black cat/alien were fun to watch. I will watch this one over and over.

Nice to see what could have been as well as a great episode on understanding how the mind works.

This volume would come under the "nice-to-have but not essential" category if you are picking which volumes to keep. We have a couple of strange episodes here but for different reasons.

In the first episode, the Enterprise clearly plays second fiddle as Gary Seven and his assistant played by the multi-talented comedianne, Teri Garr, take the leading roles as an episode of Trek is sacrificed so that a pilot for a new sci-fi adventure could be showcased and mooted for public acceptance. Based on the evidence of this episode, it may actually be a shame that this attempt at a spin-off creation didn't succeed as there is enough here to suggest that Gary Seven may well have gone on to be quite a good series. Overall, this was a pretty decent episode to end the second season and it was a lot better than the previous few episodes that were major disappointments given what we had seen in the first season and the first half of the second.

The second episode of this volume is the beginning of the third and final season and is actually a good one. It's as if the powers that be realised just how badly the second half of the second season was and they decided to suck it up and we have here what overall is a very well-acted and well-written episode with a unique plot. A superior race of beings employ a very interesting method in determining whether or not to engage alien visitors on a friendly level based upon their reactions to situations created entirely in the mind of the one in charge (here Kirk) based on the premise that the leader reflects the overall thinking of the masses and should the leader fail to show the requisite behaviour when faced with the hypothetical situation, the entire band would be sent off on their merry way. For this reason, this episode ranks among my personal favourites although admittedly not among the all-time best Trek episodes ever.

In conclusion, this volume represents a significant improvement over the previous few volumes and is a good way to end season two and begin the next.

The enterprise is sent back to the late 60's to see how a potently deadly nuclear situation was avoided. They may have to do a little interfering themselves. While there their transporter snags a string man, Gary Seven (Robert Lansing), and his feline looking traveling companion Isis. A secretary Miss Roberta Lincoln (Terry Garr) to a missing agent is suspicious and thinks that Gary Seven may be a spy.

Is Gary Seven a sinister being, or part of a larger plan? In addition, keep a close eye on his co-traveler Isis.


Other Startrek time travel episodes include "Tomorrow is Yesterday", and "The City on the Edge of Forever". One of the most interesting time Startrek travels is "Assignment: Earth" It was probably meant as a pilot for a spin off. We also get to see a young Terri Garr with her signature confused facial expressions. We also get to contemplate the ramifications of time travel mixed with a few comic situations.

Episode 55 is great, yet episode 56 is a dud. What's more, Seven & his secretary, Teri Garr, are xellent in the two novels, "The Eugenics Wars". Given, the books are far better than this episode. Yet, this does give key (& very eerie) clues to the future.