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

CAPTAIN KIRK FIGHTS A KILLER SPACE CLOUD THAT SUCKS BLOOD!

 

Episode Title:  Obsession

Air Date: 12/15/1967

Written by Art Wallace

Directed by Ralph Senensky

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”        Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura                 Roger Holloway as Lieutenant Lemli                        Frank Da Vinci as Lieutenant Brent       Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley           Majel Barrett as Nurse Christine Chapel      Walter Koenig as Ensign Pavel Chekov                Stephen Brooks as Ensign Garrovick                    Jerry Ayres as  Ensign Rizzo           Jeannie Malone as unnamed Yeoman   Basil Poledouris as unnamed Security Guard          Eddie Paskey as Crewman Leslie                

Ships: USS Enterprise NCC-1701

Planets:  Argus X, Tycho IV

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The episode begins with Kirk and Spock leading a survey expedition on the planet Argus X for the purpose of documenting its tritanium, a substance harder than diamonds, for a later mining expedition.  While conversing with his First Officer, the Captain notices an odd smell.  It is almost sweet like honey and at that moment, a horrified Captain Kirk knows exactly what it is he smells.  He quickly calls his security team over and orders them to adjust their tricorders to look for a substance called dikironium.  Spock states that this substance exists only in theory.  As the redshirts continue to search they think they find something and that is when they are attacked by the killer cloud. 

That is one big pile of...

Two men are dead and one is extremely injured.  The dead men were killed from being drained completely of blood.  McCoy says he has never seen such a thing to which Kirk then points him in the right direction.  Kirk mentions a case eleven years ago during a mission to a different planet, Tycho IV, that is a thousand light years away.  The starship on that mission was the USS Farragut and it had crew members suffer the exact same fatal injuries as these men.   Kirk has McCoy wake up Rizzo, the survivor, but he doesn’t get much out of him. 

Scotty informs the Captain that the ship is ready to leave orbit so they can rendezvous with the USS Yorktown in order to pick up a vaccine vital to Theta VII.   Despite the limited shelf-life of the vaccine Kirk isn’t leaving until he finds what is responsible for killing his men.  He orders sensor scans to be competed looking for more dikironium.

red shirts red shirted

We, the audience, learn through Dr. McCoy that a then Lt. Kirk served aboard the Farragut during his early years as a young officer.  (It must have been while serving on the Farragut that Kirk had gone to Neural and first met Tyree who we encountered just a few weeks ago.)  When the ship was attacked by this creature Kirk acted against it in a manner that the ship’s first officer wrote him a letter of commendation.  However Kirk himself did not feel that way.  In the mind of the Captain he had failed because he had hesitated to fire when first encountering the creature, a gaseous parasite.  Kirk feels that if he didn’t hesitate than he would have destroyed the creature instead it went to kill have the crew.  Among the causalities was Kirk’s mentor, Captain Garrovick.

Then as if fate were against our Captain or this is a work of fiction that needed a little more drama a new Ensign reports to the bridge.  The Ensign is named Garrovick and he is the son of Kirk’s former Captain.  Kirk, who apparently didn’t pay very close to attention to officer transfers this quarter, is shocked to meet the young man.  When they discover Rizzo has died Garrovick is visually disappointed because they were friends.  Captain Kirk offers the young Ensign an opportunity to have some revenge against the creature that killed Rizzo. 

Ensign Garrovick, what a coincidence 

Kirk goes down with Garrovick and others.  The cloud creature is formable it can alter its molecular structure at will.  The mission goes poorly and more red shirts are killed.  After it is over and they are debriefing Kirk is shocked Garrovick admits to hesitating before firing his phaser.  This enrages the Captain and he relieves the Ensign of all further duties and confines him to quarters. Kirk’s overly hard treatment of the young man combined with his refusal to go pick up the vaccine until he was finished with the cloud causes both Spock and McCoy to wonder about the Captain’s mental state.

Kirk in "the hunt"

Spock and McCoy basically pull an intervention on Captain Kirk. An intervention that goes remarkably well all things considered, Kirk doesn’t bite back or act with any anger at all.  At least he doesn’t once he realizes what Spock and McCoy are actually doing.  Once it begins Kirk calmly explains the level of threat that this vampire cloud seems to represent and how he has he has assessed that threat with the need to rendezvous with the USS Yorktown in order to pick up the vaccine.  I have more thoughts on this that I will save for the additional thoughts section.

Growing concern

While Captain Kirk is having his intervention with McCoy and Spock, Ensign Garrovick receives some tough love from Nurse Chapel.  She brings him some food because he wasn’t eating and when he tries to resist she tells him she has medical orders from McCoy that he eats or he will be forced feed.  This works and it turns out Chapel had no such orders and what she was using to pretend she had them was an information disk about an entirely different subject.

Things heat up when the vampire space cloud takes off out to space like a bat out of hell.  Kirk sends the Enterprise in swift pursuit.  It begins to look as if the Enterprise can’t keep up, but then the cloud stops and turns to fight.   Kirk is ready for battle he orders Chekov to fire phasers and photon torpedoes both proved useless against the creature.  In addition to fighting the creature Kirk also has to actively ignore Ensign Garrovick who, with timing on par with only Dr. McCoy, requests to be reinstated that moment. 

Space battle not going so well

The creature then heads directly toward the Enterprise and it manages to get past the shields and into the ship’s ventilation system.  It is at this time, after seeing Ensign Garrovick get on and off the bridge while being ignored the Captain throughout; Mr. Spock decides the Ensign needs a pep talk.  While trying to give the pep talk the creature attacks and Spock’s quick thinking saves the Ensign but he himself is now locked in there.  Garrovick calls for help and Captain Kirk heads down with a security team.  It turns out Spock is okay because his green blood has copper that the creature doesn’t like.  It’s not the first time being a Vulcan saved him from a vampire-like creature.  They managed to get the cloud vampire out by flooding with ventilation system with radioactive waste.  They can someone how do this without killing themselves but I can’t explain how.

Spock tires to pep talk Ensign

 As the vampire cloud flees the Enterprise, Kirk realizes where it is going.  It is retreating to a place where it last battled a Federation Starship: Tycho IV.  Kirk orders the Enterprise there and while he is at it he has a heart-to-heart talk with Garrovick.  The Ensign thought he was in trouble when Kirk brought up with the battle while they were on the bridge but what the Captain wanted to communicate was not the Ensign’s conduct but that the creature was invulnerable to conventional weaponry.  With that Kirk decides they can only fight it with antimatter.  Garrovick volunteers to go on a dangerous mission with Captain Kirk.  They transport down with a container that is filled with antimatter that if it were to get out could destroy a whole continent and strip the planet of its atmosphere.  It also has the side effect of interfering with the transporter.  They had a container full of blood to use as bait but the creature shows up and consumes it before they can set the trap.  Kirk decides that he will stand in as bait to which Garrovick tries to stop him because the thinks he is trying to sacrifice himself.   Garrovick is noble but flawed and since the Kirk is the greatest fighter in the galaxy his attempt to take over fails. As the creature comes for them Kirk then pulls an emergency transport and releases the antimatter.  It is close call but the Captain and the Ensign survive.  With the creature destroyed Kirk invites Gorrovick for some private time to talk about his dad.  

Additional thoughts: Earlier this season we got to see an obsessed starship captain transform into a modern Captain Ahab in Matt Decker who was chasing the Doomsday Machine.  There are times in this episode where Kirk reminds the audience of that with his smilingly singular focus of the vampire cloud damn all else.  However Kirk isn’t Decker, for Kirk never loses control the way Decker did.  Kirk is still conscious of his surroundings.   Kirk can see for example that a direct attack using conventional weapons isn’t working and he needs to come up with another plan.  Decker kept chasing after the Doomsday Machine firing phasers that clearly weren’t doing any damage.  More importantly when Kirk is confronted by both Spock and McCoy about his actions he can manage to rationally explain all of his actions without having to fall back on his rank and authority like Decker did.

Spock trying to fight cloud

Speaking of the intervention of McCoy and Spock I think that may have been my favorite part the episode.  Earlier in the series we saw those two try a Weekend at Bernie’s when Kirk had been split by the transporter.   They propped up the “good” half as so the crew wouldn’t lose confidence in him despite the fact he was clearly deficient.  In this episode they confront the Captain with legitimate concerns giving some of his orders.  There is no concern that the very existence of such an inquiry will ruin anyone.  A negative result could but not the practice of the procedure.  Kirk himself doesn’t even get angry about it but instead uses it as an opportunity not only to explain himself to his senior officers but as reflection on how his commands are being received.  Kirk did make some errors, not being more direct on how he knew about the vampire cloud and its threat was one.  Also not sharing his threat assessment early on with his command crew was another.  Seeing Kirk sit down and go over his thought process with his two officers was one of the best character moments in the series.

Kirk's intervention

On a lighter note, last I checked the USS Yorktown is another constitution-class starship.  So why are they not capable of delivering that vaccine themselves?  Why are they handing it off to the Enterprise like runners in a decathlon?  I think if that ship took a little more responsibly the Enterprise crew would not have that issue to deal with and could focus on space cloud vampire. 

Walking around with just a bit of antimatter 

Given how close Kirk was to Captain Gorrovick I have a hard time accepting that he didn’t know (1) that he had a son, (2) that said son was now old enough to be an officer in Starfleet, and (3) that he was now on his ship.  Doesn’t Kirk pay attention to who is assigned to where on his starship.  He seems to know just about everyone else.

Last but not least, Leslie dies. But we will later see Leslie despite his death later so how is this possible?  I think I have the answer.  The Leslie who has killed here was not Lt. Leslie who often see in the background but rather Crewman Leslie, who is the younger but very similar looking brother to the Lieutenant.  This makes sense when he dies under the leadership of an ensign.  If he was Lt. Leslie than he would have been in charge of that mission and survive it as he often does.

 FINAL  GRADE 5 of 5