THE TV SHOW THAT NEVER WAS

 Episode Title:  Assignment: Earth  

Air Date: 3/29/1968

Written by Gene Roddenberry and Art Wallace

Directed by Marc Daniels

Cast: William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk    Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock             DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              James Doohan  as Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”        George Takei  as Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu              Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie                 Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley and Rocket Base Technician    Frank Da Vinci as Lieutenant Brent       Walter Koenig as Ensign Pavel Chekov                 Robert Lansing as Gary Seven          Teri Garr as Roberta Lincoln       Don Keefer as Cromwell        Morgan Jones as Colonel Nesvig               Bruce Mars as First Policeman         Ted Gehring as Second Policeman              Paul Baxley as Security Chief           Barbara Babcock as Beta 5 Computer  and Isis (voice)              Bob Johnson as                 Ground Control (voice)            Edwin Rochelle as  Man With Newspaper April Tatro as Cat Girl

Ships and Space Stations: USS Enterprise NCC-1701

Planets:  Earth

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The Enterprise is in orbit around Earth in year 1968. (Present time when this episode aired.)  They have come back not by accident nor are they on a mission to fix the timeline from damage caused by some reckless time traveler.  No, they are here strictly to do historical research.  Historians of the 23^rd century are curious to how exactly Earth survived the chaotic year of 1968.  (I have to say that is amazing prediction.  Considering this aired at the end of March, Dr. King would be assassinated in less than a week with Bobby Kennedy following a few months later. 1968 was one hell of year in terms of politics, international relations, and social change.) So at these historians behest the Enterprise took a slingshot around the sun to come back to this famous year to see if an up close investigation will allow them to discover how the Earth survived.  Next week they should go back to the library of Alexandria to find out what caused the fire and see if they can preserve some of the ancient text.  

All of a sudden the ship begins to jerk.  It appears they have intercepted a long-range transporter beam that should not even be theoretically possible.  Kirk and Spock head down to the transporter room and witness a man materialize on the pad.  He is dressed in 20^th century clothing and has a cat named Isis.  The man introduces himself as Gary Seven and explains that he is a human from this time who is trained by advanced aliens to aid Earth in its coming crisis.  Kirk for some reason has hard time believing this, and even though he is in the past to get these types of answers, he decides to lock Seven in the brig.  Seven puts a fight and displays immunity to the Vulcan neve pinch but ultimately succumbs to Kirk’s forces.

Kirk not quite sure what to make of Mr. Seven

Kirk is having second thoughts about having Seven locked up.  He tells Spock who is taking care of the cat, that he is unsure about what to do and wants to be certain before making any decisions.  It all turns out to be an academic thought experiment because Seven takes it out of Kirk’s hands by escaping from the brig using a poor man’s psionic screwdriver.  He retrieves his cat and beams down to the surface.

  Now on Earth, Gary Seven proceeds to their headquarters to meet the agents that he is supposed to supervise.  When Seven arrives he doesn’t see his operatives anywhere.  He accesses the Beta 5 computer and identifies himself as Supervisor 194 and asks for the locations of the two agents listed as 201 and 347.  The Beta 5 demands more information to give him security clearance this leads Seven to explain his mission and what he his organization is all about.  He does this to the stratification of the Beta 5 and now the audience is aware of his complete backstory.  A woman named Roberta Lincoln enters and at first Seven thinks she is one of their operatives but it turns out she is not an agent just a secretary the agents hired. In questioning her Seven discovers that she knows absolutely nothing about who her employers actually are.  

Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln

With the Beta 5 now finally obeying him Seven discovers that his two operatives are both dead from a car accident.  He however will assume their mission and stop the launch of a nuclear satellite warhead.  With someone fake IDs created by the Beta 5 he manages to win over Ms. Lincoln.  She is also very impressed with the typewriter that responds to oral commands. 

Kirk decides to go to the surface looking for Seven.  Kirk chooses to bring Spock with him, which really seems like a poor choice considering they are in the Earth of the past.  You would think Kirk would choose one of the 400 some odd humans on the Enterprise who could probably blend in a little better?  Well Spock does have some experience in Earth’s past from last season.  Spock also explains to Kirk and the audiences about how satellites armed with nuclear warheads were such a danger in this time period.  The transporter records allow them to beam down fairly close to where Gary Seven had gone down to the surface.  They find Seven’s headquarters and barge in.  Lincoln tries to stop them but it doesn’t matter as Seven has made an escape using his own transporter.  Lincoln called in the police forcing Kirk to do some tricks with his own transporter in order to lose them. 

Kirk and Spock looking for answers!

Seven arrives at NASA and almost gets caught by some guards before pulling the wool over their eyes with his gadgets and gets to work on the rocket.  Kirk and Spock also head there but are not as lucky when it comes to not being captured.  Despite being under arrest Kirk manages to get word to Scotty to try to lock on Gary Seven.  While this is going on Lincoln is exploring the office and discovers its secrets and accidently makes their transporter bring Seven back before he was finished.  Seven is angry at Lincoln at first but realizes she prevented the Enterprise from taking him back.

Seven discovers through the Beta 5 that while his work was unfinished he may be able to take control of the rocket due to the adjustments that he did make.  This however scares poor Ms. Lincoln who thinks he is now some foreign agent who is out to harm the United States.   She hits him over the head and takes his weapon.   While this is going on Kirk is able to get Scotty to beam them directly from NASA to Seven’s apartment as the NASA personnel are responding to the rocket seemly gone rogue. 

Attempting to stop a bomb

When they get there they find there is now a serious chance this nuclear weapon will go off over Florida.  Spock doesn’t understand the Beta 5 enough to something about it in time.  Seven begs Kirk to let him help and Kirk reluctantly agrees.  Seven takes the controls and stops the nuke.  History tapes on the Enterprise show that this instance leads to a ban on nuclear weaponry in space. This makes Kirk think that everything that has happened was supposed to.  He wishes Seven and Lincoln luck as the same records show that the two of them will have many interesting adventures together.  For a moment Lincoln looks over at Isis and sees a woman in her place.  When she calls attention to her and the others turn their heads Isis is once again a cat.

Additional thoughts: This was not a Star Trek episode.  It sounds strange to say considering it is Star Trek’s season 2 final, but it isn’t a Star Trek episode.   This is a supposed to be a pilot episode to a new series called “Assignment: Earth.”  In it humans whose ancestors had left Earth with some friendly aliens some 6,000 years ago have returned with a special assignment to help Earth survive its nuclear age.  Gary Seven the main character is one such person.  The character strikes me as a type of Dr. Who-lite and he even has his own psionic screwdriver.  The pilot was rejected and so they decided to re-work it as a Star Trek episode. 

Caught at NASA

The fact that it is a pilot remade into a Star Trek episode is precisely its problem.  The Star Trek characters seemed roughly hammered in.  The crew of the Enterprise does not do anything useful and are entirely pointless to the plot.   If they had not been there Gary Seven would have gone straight to Earth, discovered his agents dead, meet Roberta Lincoln, gone to NASA before being pulled back by Lincoln, almost stopped by Lincoln until he talks her down and allows him to save the day.  Even Kirk’s point at the end about how they were supposed to be here is a poor argument.

Many adventures together just not live action!

Speaking of Kirk he is very poorly written in this episode as he comes off as almost incompetent.  If Assignment Earth was its own TV show and the Star Trek crew was guest staring I don’t think they would have won over any Assignment Earth fans.  First Kirk forgets why he is in the past. He is not on some mission to save the time line by someone who might disrupt it.  He is there to get some answers for 23^rd century historians on how Earth survived the year 1968.  When he meets Gary Seven his only real concern should be confirming he is from this time period.  Once that is confirmed then Kirk should realize whatever Seven is doing he is supposed to be doing it. In fact he now his answer to the historians question: friendly aliens who clearly don’t have a Federation-like prime directive.  The worst part is the end when Kirk tells Seven and Lincoln that he was able to confirm on his ship’s computers that everything was supposed to happen as is and all the adventures that the Seven and Lincoln will have together.  Well if he could do that then what was the whole point locking up Seven?  Kirk should have been able to find out who he was and what he was all about rather quickly.  Next time they should check their records sooner. 

Okay all working together now!

It is interesting that season 2 started with a lady that could turn into a cat in Catspaw and ends with a lady that can turn into a cat here.  Considering the problems the first one gave them we are lucky that I it was only Ms. Lincoln that saw the transformation.

So is she a cat that turns into a lady or a lady that turns into a cat!

So Starfleet has had a reasonable option for time travel for about a year now.  Instead of keeping this a super-secret they are already using it to send ships back to the past for no other point than to just check up on some things for local historians’ curiosity.  Am I the only one who finds that strange?

 FINAL GRADE 2 of 5

TWO CAPTAINS DUKE IT OUT ON A FAKE EARTH!

 

Episode Title:  The Omega Glory

Air Date: 3/1/1968

Written by Gene Roddenberry

Directed by Vincent McEveety

Cast: William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk    Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock             DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              George Takei  as Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu              Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie                 Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley       Roger Holloway as Lieutenant Lemli                        David L. Ross as Lieutenant Galloway                                      Frank Da Vinci as unnamed security guard                 Ed Fury as unnamed security guard             Morgan Woodward as Captain Ronald Tracey                       Ed McCready as Dr. Carter     Roy Jenson as  Cloud William          Irene Kelly as          Sirah                    Morgan Farley as Yang Scholar            Lloyd Kino as Wu             Frank Atienza as Kohn Villager               Adele Yoshioka as Kohm Servant

Ships: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, USS Exter NCC-1672

Planets:  Omega IV

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The USS Enterprise arrives in the Omega system and goes into orbit around the fourth planet to find their fellow Starfleet vessel and sister ship, USS Exter already there.   The ship isn’t responding to hails and the sensors aren’t picking up life forms aboard.  Since sensors are not always perfect, Captain Kirk decides an investigation is in order.  He forms an away team of himself, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy and Lt. Galloway. 

The Enterprise and the Exter

The four men board the ship via the transporter when they fully materialize they begin to look around.  There is no one on board but they do notice all these uniforms lying around with some strange substance in them.  They find all the shuttle craft in shuttle bay and no transporter logs to account for the entire crew’s disappearance.   Dr. McCoy looks into the “abandoned’ uniforms and with his tricorder discovers a horrible and disgusting truth.   That “substance” around and in the uniforms is the crew.  It’s all that’s left of their bodies when all of the water was removed.    They have seen the human reduced like this before but it was under a controlled environment by the Kelvans.  The Kelvans were at least able to restore the humans to their pervious form, providing that the objects the humans were turned into were not damaged.  This however was just plain ugly death.    

The turn on the final log entry from the Exter’s chief medical officer, Dr. Carter, who warns that if anyone is listening to this message is on the ship then they too are infected.  The only hope they might have is if they beam back to the surface as the Captain went down and seems okay.  The Doctor then dies and Kirk glances over and sees the empty medical uniform next to the command chair where he had been sitting.  

Once a CMO no dust

Not needing to be told twice the away team quickly heads down to planet’s surface by transporter.  As they arrive they find themselves in the middle of an execution, Kirk wants to interfere but won’t do to the Prime Directive.  However the whole thing is called off by Captain Tracey himself.  Tracey explains several things to his fellow Starfleet officers.  First he explains that the virus that killed his entire crew is incurable and they can only survive so long as they are on the planet’s atmosphere. 

Captain Tracey shows them around

Tracey then explains the political situation.  There are two groups down here.  The “Kongs,” who resemble humans of East Asian descent, are peaceful, civilized, and welcoming.  The other groups are the “Yangs” who are brutish and savage.  The Yangs cannot be reasoned with.  They also resemble human Caucasians.  As a Caucasian himself, it took a little while to get the Kongs to trust him.  Right now the Kongs are under heavy threat from the Yangs.

 Dr. McCoy uses the equipment sent down from the Enterprise to research their condition.  They have something bad and it reminds McCoy of one of the plague weapons from the 1990s. (So if they went back to Ceti Alpha V Kahn should be able to recognize it.)  Spock however has developed another more pressing concern.  From his interactions with the Kong villagers, Spock has learned that Captain Tracey has been more than friendly.  He is in fact aiding them in their conflict and has gone so far to battle Yangs using his phaser.  As evidence Spock points to an empty phaser battery that Tracey had discarded near an area where Spock and Galloway were attacked by Yangs.  Upon hearing this McCoy tries to defend him as a captain who just lost a crew and had found hospitality amounts these villagers.   Naturally he would want to defend them from harm.  Spock points out that it doesn’t matter and reminds Kirk of his duty. 

One Captain reveled to be a traitor 

Kirk feels conflicted at first about what he must do.  It is a conflict that he doesn’t need to resolve however as Captain Tracey gets the jump on them with a phaser.  Lt. Galloway tries to pull his on phaser quietly but Tracey vaporizes him.  That’s right he doesn’t stun him, he vaporizes him.  Tracey then takes Kirk’s communicator and calls up to the Enterprise to tell Sulu, who is in command because Scotty is clearly on vacation, that their illness has caused the away team to fall unconscious and they don’t want to send anyone else down here for fear of making it worse.

Tracey then tries to recruit Kirk to his cause, apparently forgetting he just killed one of his men right in front of him.  Tracey points out that the guard Wu is over 400 years old, and his still living father is over a thousand.  Tracey said this planet is the key to discovering a super-immunity that can give them a dozen lifetimes.  Kirk pretends to be interested but it is just a ruse to get Tracey to point his phaser away from him.  Kirk attacks him using his amazing fighting skills that are known to be peerless throughout the galaxy.  Actually it turns out he does have a peer, for Tracey also has a similar set of amazing fighting skills. Tracey defeats Kirk.  He places Spock in his own cell and Kirk a cell with a male and female Yang. 

Kirk battling a couple of Yangs!

Kirk gets to practice his fighting skills in his cell as the two Yangs try their best to defeat the Captain.  From his own cell Spock is able to land a quick nerve pinch on the female which allows Kirk to focus on the male and outfight him.  Later the male, who we later learn is named Red Cloud, hears Kirk use the word “freedom” with Spock that he identifies as one of his people’s worship words.  Kirk and Red Cloud bond a little and work together to remove the bars from their decaying cell.  However, Red Cloud betrays Kirk by using a bar to hit Kirk from behind on his head.  Kirk is knocked out and the two Yangs escape.

Getting hit on the head gave Kirk a nice nap about eight hours long.  When he comes to he gets Spock out of his cell and they head for Dr. McCoy.  When they reach McCoy he has quite the tale to tell with his research.  It turns out the true story of USS Exter is the disease that killed her crew could have been avoided all together had her landing party stayed on the planet a few more hours.  The planet’s atmosphere that had exposed them would have run its course and they would have been fine.  They are fine now to go back to the Enterprise.  Also Tracey’s idea of a thousand year life is a delusion.   The life cycle of the people of this planet was extended due to natural evolution.  Tracey’s life expectancy is the same as it ever was.  

Helpful nerve pinch!

Tracey then enters armed with a phaser and looking overwrought.  He explains the Yangs attacked by the tens of thousands and even though he drained multiple phasers it was not enough.  Tracey takes Kirk outside and threatens him demanding that he call his ship for more.  Kirk tries to explain how that is pointless but relents just to demonstrate its pointlessness.  Kirk and Tracey fight again but this time the fight is unresolved as they are both captured by the Yangs.

This is the point we find out we are on a fake Earth it turns out the Yangs are really the Americans with “Yangs” short for “Yankee.”  The Kongs are the Chinese Communists.  They bring in the US flag and try to say the pledge but the way they recite their “holy words” is garbled and Kirk is able to correct them.  As we are about to get our dish of Americana, Tracey being a spoil sport tries to ruin everything by trying to convince the Red Cloud that Spock is the devil.  This almost works but Kirk gets Red Cloud to agree to let him and Tracey fight it out.  As they are fighting Spock uses his telepathic mental powers to make the female Yang, Sirah, to open the Starfleet communicator.  Lt. Sulu beams down with two security guards (interestingly no one seems to think he is a Kong) and takes Tracey into custody.  Kirk explains to Red Cloud and his people more about the “holy words” that are meant for everyone not just a few.     

Additional thoughts: I am really not a fan of Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planet Development.  I think it just shows a complete lack of imagination.  The crew of the Enterprise should be running to alien civilizations not more Earths.  The one interesting thing about this fake Earth is, unlike the others we have encountered before, this one seems older than us.   In Miri the long lived children were said to be centuries old.  That would mean our worlds probably developed at the exact same time with the only difference being in their 1960s they tried to extend their life and instead caused the zombie apocalypse.  The Roman Earth from Bread and Circuses was an Earth that not only had a Roman Empire but a 20^th century Roman Empire.  This means their Earth was three hundred years behind us.  Yet the Earth that we encounter in this episode had people living on it who were thousands of years old and they all were born after the Great War.  This means out in the galaxy there was another Earth developing their societies exactly like ours but thousands of years ahead of us.  The only difference is with them taking a very different turn in their 1990s.  I guess we can see what became of Earth if Kahn was left unchecked.

One thing this episode screws up is the racial demographics of the participants, which is odd when you consider that Star Trek generally speaking is noted for its diversity.  According to census data at the time the United States was 87% White, 10% Black, 2% Hispanic, Native Americans and Asian Americans were under 1%.  So the “Yangs” instead of being all white should have been mostly white with over ten percent of their number being people of color.  While China may have been the Communist nation with the largest population, Communism got its start in the Soviet Union.  So even if the “Kongs” should be mostly Asian there should be a sizable Slavic minority.   

Captain Tracey won't accept defeat!

So here is what I think the episode is trying to say.  During the Cold War it was not unusual for movie and TV propaganda to try to depict our side as a “good and virtuous side” and the Communists as the evil and vicious side.  A good example would be The Manchurian Candidate. In this episode when we first meet the Kongs they are the civilized, reasonable and productive people; where the Yangs are angry violent savages by comparison.  It isn’t until we meet the Yangs that we discover that they have depth and maybe even a reasonable grudge.  In fact the American audience learns they are us. The episode is trying to challenge the perception of the good guy/bad guy mentality.  We first encounter the Kongs who we see are decent people and start to hate the Yangs for how they threaten them.  When we learn the Yangs are us the episode wants us examine our own prejudices in how we regard certain people as enemies.  That being said, the episode doesn’t live up to its task.

Oh no! Fake Earth time

If any Starfleet captain loses his or her crew it is important to know you can’t ever trust them again.  Captains care for their crews and their sanity surviving them is very unlikely.  First we saw Matt Decker and now Ron Tracey both men of fine reputation whose mind was unable to cope with their loss.  Decker turns into Captain Ahab and Tracey gets obsessed with finding the fountain of youth.  Starfleet needs to establish a regulation that if a captain loses his or her crew that captain must be immediately committed for their safety and that of others.

Kirk explaining what the holy words mean!

              My favorite scene in this episode is when Captain Tracey has Kirk at phaser point and demands he call up to the Enterprise to have them send down more phasers and packs.  Kirk tries to explain that this won’t work but Tracey is beyond reason at this point, so Kirk is like okay and opens his communicator to make the request.  As soon as he makes it to Uhura she immediately calls Sulu over and they are both like WTF!  They try to respectfully explain that such an order doesn’t make any sense, as Kirk predicted they would.  Tracey has moment where he remembered how Starfleet officers actually behave.

When your Captain says something really stupid!

I actually enjoyed this episode.  It starts out interesting with the missing crew, and continue to be so with a captain who was violating the Prime Directive, it is too bad it falls off the rails with the fake Earth nonsense and insensitive racial set up for the Yangss and Kongs.

Holding a relic!

 

FINAL GRADE 4 of 5