Assignment: Earth: TOS Episode 55 Production 55 Original Air Date 3/29/1968 Stardate -Unknown-

Assignment: Earth - Star Trek TV Episode [ Synopsis | Editorial Reviews ]
Production # 55 Episode # 55
Air Date: 3/29/1968
Stardate: -Unknown-

Sent back in time to find out how Earth managed to survive without destroying itself, the U.S.S. Enterprise inadvertently beams aboard a space traveler, Gary Seven, along with his black cat, Isis. Seven claims to be a 20th-century human raised and trained by unknown and unnamed aliens to prevent Earth from destroying itself. Before Kirk can determine whether or not the man is telling the truth, Seven escapes to the planet below. Kirk and Spock follow him to Earth. Meanwhile, Seven has tried to contact two fellow agents, who are discovered to have recently died in an auto accident. Instead, he contacts Roberta Lincoln, who becomes his reluctant cohort.

An orbital bomb is about to be launched by the United States and it is Seven's mission to make sure the rocket explodes somewhere over Asia, thereby frightening the governments into not launching future bombs into space.

When the rocket goes out of control, Seven barely succeeds in stopping it, despite Kirk and Spock's well-meaning interference. Before Kirk and Spock leave Earth, Kirk consults the Enterprise's computer records and informs Seven and Roberta that they have a very interesting future in the offing.

"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.

Also on this DVD

"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