Agreed. "Assignment: Earth" had the sort of superhero flair of Airwolf or Knight Rider. If the hero has superlative powers, the more extreme the enemies or challenges need to be to make a suitably engaging and suspenseful story.
Exactly.
Adam-12 was not going to work within its genre if its heroes--two uniformed officers in what was once called a "radio car"--never faced criminals who needed to be stopped / apprehended, instead, their calls always had them encounter incidents requiring them to act as firefighters. In other words, as a creation, Gary Seven was hard wired to a sci-fi origin involving aliens, whether his introduction was a part of
Star Trek or not. The essence of and interest
in Seven--that which made him distinctive as a potential series focus was his alien origin, otherwise he would have been--as noted earlier--an earth-bound human fighting threats with advanced weapons, which on its face was no different than Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin from
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. TV series. If a Gary Seven show was more
U.N.C.L.E. than all his backdoor pilot suggested / promised, it would have been seen as a late entry into an already dying "TV espionage" sub-genre, with no identity of its own.
"Assignment: Earth" gave viewers the expectation of alien involvement in Seven's life, even if his debut story was focused on an earthly struggle. I see the needs of a Seven series similar to the way the early Pertwee era of
Doctor Who (season seven) was handled: the strange and/or alien so often came to him at a point where he was earth bound, which lent itself to the sci-fi demands of the concept. Roddenberry, et al., likely had a desire to reduce expenses (IOW, no more
Star Trek-level production costs), but a series could have a fair amount of alien activity set in the 20th century--beyond that seen on
The Invaders--without breaking the bank. I maintain that Roddenberry--or perhaps Paramount--would not shower the series with the budget needed, and it would end up like any espionage-fantasy of the period (again, by 1968, they were dying off), leading to its quick cancellation.
For Airwolf there were only a small fraction of episodes in seasons 1 and 2 worth bringing in "the Lady." The others became silly or juvenile, like a hero of Superman's capabilities fighting common crime in one city.
Indeed, which was so often the case for the
Adventures of Superman TV series.
"Assignment: Earth" gave Seven an opponent on his own level. (The Enterprise.) One small change might have opened the door to much broader possibilities in a potential spin-off series. Instead of the previous agents dying in something as "useless" as a car accident, suppose they were taken out by a previously unsuspected enemy on Earth?
That would have been an interesting wrinkle, so it would not necessarily be an example of retconning the
"Assignment: Earth" dialogue, or his need to ask Roberta to join his cause.
