"Assignment: Earth" The final broadcast episode of
Star Trek's second season was this clever and funny story in which the
Enterprise travels back in time to 1968 (the year this program aired) to discover how the nuclear arms race came to an end. Captain Kirk (William Shatner) encounters a strange fellow named Gary Seven (Robert Lansing), who claims to have been trained by extraterrestrials in sabotaging the escalating nuclear threat. With the ambivalent aid of a nervous secretary (Teri Garr), Seven (yes, there was a
Trek character with that name before
Voyager) attempts to carry out his assignment, but Kirk isn't sure if he can be trusted. Lansing's droll and somewhat imperious performance is nicely counterpointed by Garr's cute confusion, and the eerie presence of his familiar--a black cat named Isis--adds a hint of hoodoo exotica. (Don't blink at the end or you'll miss the really exotic creature Isis briefly turns into.) "Assignment: Earth" was actually the pilot for an intended Gene Roddenberry-produced TV series that never happened. Too bad... But speaking of eerie, Spock (Leonard Nimoy) at one point refers to an important assassination that will soon take place. A week after this episode's original airdate, Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered.
"Spectre of the Gun" In this taut, exciting episode, the
Enterprise trespasses Melkotian space and is punished in a unique fashion. Kirk (William Shatner), Spock (Leonard Nimoy), McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Scotty (James Doohan), and Chekov (Walter Koenig) are all transported to the planet's eerie surface, where they are trapped in a re-creation of 1881 Tombstone and mistaken for the Clanton brothers, doomed principals in the infamous gunfight at the OK Corral. Despite their efforts to avoid trouble, Kirk and company can't seem to avoid their fateful duel with the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday (Sam Gilman). When Chekov is shot dead by Morgan Earp (Rex Holman), the danger is all too clear. The strange
Twilight Zone look and atmosphere of this episode--tumbleweeds and Old West facades popping up in a black void--grips one's imagination and doesn't let go until the very end. Fans of Captain Kirk's street-fighting style will especially enjoy the thrilling climax.
--Tom Keogh
Reader Reviews
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!!
