Star Trek TOS Re-Watch

[JLA]

Tomorrow is Yesterday

The Enterprise has gone back in time to the 20th century, was picked up on the radar and Captain John Christopher is beamed on board the Enterprise as his jet aircraft breaks up. He finds out the Enterprise is one of twelve such ships.

'A united Earth?'

 

[Warped9]

'A united Earth?'

From our contemporary perspective that seems highly unlikely, an impossibility, but Star Trek posits an optimistic future where a united Earth becomes a reality.

But, in fairness, it’s never really clarified exactly what is meant by a united Earth. I doubt it means united in terms of one world government, but who knows. Maybe it simply means the worlds major problems have been solved sufficiently to eliminate warfare between nations and different nations and cultures share a generally common perspective.

 

[Commander Troi]

"Assignment: Earth" by Art Wallace (based on a story by Wallace and Gene Roddenberry)

The Enterprise has travelled to Earth in the year 1968 for "historical research." They intercept a powerful transporter beam from very far away and a man in a business suit, holding a gorgeous black cat, appears. He introduces himself as Gary Seven and the cat as Isis. He realizes Kirk and Spock (who he recognizes as a Vulcan) are from the future and warns them that history will be changed if they don't let him go. Unsure of his true intentions, Kirk orders security guards to take him to the brig. Seven tosses the guards and Kirk aside, brushes off a Vulcan nerve pinch, and is finally brought down by Kirk stunning him. Kirk asks McCoy to check Seven out.

In the briefing room, Spock is petting Isis and finds himself "strangely drawn to it." Kirk calls a Zoom meeting. Their maps show nothing in the direction Seven's transporter beam came from and they can't analyse the beam either. Spock notes several historical events, including the launch of a US nuclear warhead platform. McCoy reports that Seven is human, but is completely perfect.

Meanwhile, Seven pulls a pen from his pocket and uses it to both shut down the forcefield and make the guard both happy and sleepy. Isis meets him in the transporter room and they beam down to Earth, appearing in a vault that opens into a fashionably decorated office/apartment. A wall with glasses closes, hiding the vault. Activating a computer, Seven asks it about the status of his agents and their mission to sabotage the launch of the platform.

Kirk and Spock, in 1968 suits and coats (and a hat for Spock) beam down and triangulate where Seven beamed down to.

The computer makes fake IDs for Seven. A young blonde woman arrives at the apartment's outer office. Seven mistakes her for one of his agents but the computer tells him she is Roberta Lincoln and she's been working for the agents as a secretary. Isis talks to Seven (she's obviously more than just a cat!). Seven finds out his agents died in a car accident on the way to the rocket base. Kirk and Spock get to the office just as Seven beams out from the vault. Roberta tussles with Spock and his hat comes off. Kirk finds the plans to "McKinley Rocket Base" in the apartment. There's a cute bit with some cops.

Seven gets to McKinley and gets stopped by security. Isis distracts the guard and Seven zaps him. Then Seven and Isis go up the gantry where he futzes with some wiring on the rocket.

Scotty gets some views of the rocket and Kirk and Spock beam down there, where they're captured by the security guard and taken to the control room.

Roberta accidentally opens the wall hiding the vault. She manages to get into it and plays around with the controls. Scotty spots Seven and tries to beam him up. At the same time, Roberta activates Seven's transporter and brings him back to the groovy apartment. She figures out he isn't who he says he is.

Seven uses his computer to control the rocket remotely and sets up a malfunction and arms the warhead on the rocket. Roberta, thinking he's doing something awful, clocks him on the head with a small box. "You've got to let me finish what I started, or in six minutes World War Three begins."

Kirk and Spock manage to get beamed to the apartment by Scotty. While Spock tries to use Seven's computer to destroy the warhead, Seven pleads with Kirk to let him complete his mission, which is to destroy the missile at a low enough altitude to scare everyone and deter the use of such orbital platforms in the future. Roberta decides to believe Seven and also pleads with Kirk. Eventually, Kirk relents and lets Seven detonate at 104 miles above Earth.

Later, Seven is dictating his report to his speech-to-text typewriter and Kirk and Spock are back in uniform. NOW they've looked at the records! Should've done that ages ago. Roberta, looking over at Isis, sees a ridiculously hot woman. But she's a cat again when Roberta tries to get the guys' attention.

SEVEN: What else do your record tapes show?
KIRK: I'm afraid we can't reveal everything we know, Mister Seven.
SPOCK: Captain, we could say that Mister Seven and Miss Lincoln have some interesting experiences in store for them.
KIRK: Yes, I think we could say that.

Sadly, we never got to see those. Wikipedia says, "It was originally written as a standalone half-hour television series; when no network chose to order a pilot, the script was reworked to fit into Star Trek as a backdoor pilot for the proposed Assignment: Earth series."

This is a taut episode that moves along briskly, made more so by the countdown to the warhead landing and blowing up a large area. Robert Lansing and Terri Garr are both great.

And we're at the end of Season Two! [cue trumpets] Next up: Spock's Brain!

 

[ananta]

Never been a huge fan of A:E as the Trek crew feel like guests in their own show. As a season finale that makes it all the more disappointing. It’s still entertaining, however, and the late Teri Garr gives an incredibly fun and charismatic performance. I often wonder what made her so anti-Trek afterward. If I recall she refused to even discuss it in interviews.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

If A:E as a spin-off had some filmed episodes in the bag, and they were planning to air it as a summer replacement for Trek initially, it would have segued better.

 

[scotpens]

The problem with "Assignment: Earth" is that Gene Roddenberry didn't originally intend it to be a Star Trek spinoff. It was a half-hour pilot script for a very different kind of science-fiction show that was shoehorned into the Star Trek format, and it's an awkward fit at best.

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

And we're at the end of Season Two! [cue trumpets] Next up: Spock's Brain!

Where the logic is raw and the sound-effects are ''BWAW''.

 

[Commander Troi]

"Spock's Brain" by Gene L. Coon (under the pseudonym Lee Cronin)

A strange ship approaches the Enterprise. A woman beams onto the bridge. She touches a band on her wrist and everyone goes to sleep. When they wake, Spock's body is in sickbay - without his brain. McCoy estimates they have 24 hours to get it back. (My limited biology says the body can't survive without a brain, but hey, he's a Vulcan.)

Kirk has Sulu track the ion trail of the ship. They lose it near a system with 3 class M planets, none of which appear capable of sending out that ship. The planet with no tech and still in an ice age has some kind of regular power fluctuations, so Kirk decides to check there. The scene of them all around the viewer debating the planets is actually pretty good.

Kirk, Scotty, Chekov and 3 redshirts beam down and are attacked by cavemen. They run when one is stunned. When he wakes, he tells them of the Others, "givers of pain and delight," but he has no idea what a woman or female is.

A cave full of food and supplies is obviously a trap for males. Chekov and the 2 redshirts stay at the cave entrance while Kirk and Scotty, joined by McCoy and Spock's body (on a remote control), spring the trap. The whole room descends and they are met by another women, Luma, who reaches for her bracelet. Kirk stuns her and removes it. When she wakes, she has no idea what they're asking her about and seems to have the mind of a child. Meanwhile, Scotty futzes with the communicator, eventually picking up Spock's voice! He doesn't know where he is.

The woman who was on the ship (Kara) arrives and knocks them out with her bracelet. When they awaken, they're in a chamber and have belts on. The women don't understand their questions. Kara says she's the leader but eventually it comes out that there's a "Controller" they aren't allowed to see. Kirk even goes so far as to flatter and then try to force her. Then she activates the belts and they're in intense pain.

[Side note: For decades, I've used "Brain and brain! What is brain?" whenever I or someone else does something bogglingly stupid. ]

We get a log from Sulu in the command chair! Very cool.

When Our Heroes awake, they're alone with 2 big male guards. Kirk, Scotty, and McCoy have a cute little exchange and then fight the guards, knocking them out. They connect with Spock again and have him send a signal that they trace to the Control Room, where Spock's brain is in a box. Kara is also there and activates the pain belts, but Kirk fights through it and uses the remote to have Spock's body deactivate the belts and remove her bracelet. They find out that Kara used "The Teacher" to remove Spock's brain, a device containing all the old knowledge of her people. Kirk forces her into the device and she instantly changes demeanor. (Kudos to Marj Dusay for the transformation.) However, she refuses to help put Spock's brain back.

Taking a big chance, McCoy uses the Teacher and starts putting Spock back together. However, this thing was meant for an alien brain, and he starts to lose the knowledge partway through. (Kelley does a nice job with this part.) He reconnects Spock's speech center and Spock talks him through the rest of the surgery (seriously?).

Kara is afraid her people will die without the controller. Kirk encourages her and says the Federation will help for awhile. (He says they'll need to move outside. Why can't they just bring the men inside?)

All fixed up, Spock starts going on about the civilization that used to be here. McCoy says he should never have connected his mouth and Kirk and Scotty laugh.

It's a deeply silly episode, but everyone plays it straight so once I bought into the premise, it was watchable and even enjoyable in places. I can see why Gene Coon used a pen name.

 

[scotpens]

Was this the only episode where the main bridge viewscreen was rigged for rear-projection?

 

[Airin]

I can see why Gene Coon used a pen name.

He used a pen name because he had a contract with another studio and couldn't write openly for a different series. So he moonlighted as Lee Cronin for the s3 episodes, like Spectre of the Gun.

I'm not sure if the episode was written to be serious or not. Some say that the themes are meant to be dead serious: organ transplants, and the dangers of leaving all thinking to a computer (maybe the days of "brain and brain" aren't so far off now...).
Others see some comedy or parody in it. Certainly the ending is humorous. And it seems the earlier version had Spock falling on his face because McCoy connected his motion centers all wrong.

As for Spock surviving without a brain, yeah, it's weird. Though Vulcans having their hearts on the side, instead of well-protected behind a ribcage, also seems pretty weird to me so... Maybe they have a back-up neural center somewhere, to control a minimal nervous system, just to keep the lungs and heart working.

 

[scotpens]

I believe an earlier version of the script had Spock's brainless body hooked up to life support in Sickbay for most of the episode, rather than bringing it down to the planet and having McCoy puppeteer it with a Game Boy.

 

[JLA]

Never been a huge fan of A:E as the Trek crew feel like guests in their own show. As a season finale that makes it all the more disappointing. It’s still entertaining, however, and the late Teri Garr gives an incredibly fun and charismatic performance. I often wonder what made her so anti-Trek afterward. If I recall she refused to even discuss it in interviews.

Did someone involved in the show not treat her right?

 

[ananta]

Did someone involved in the show not treat her right?

I don’t know. I do know she evidently walked off set because Roddenberry was obsessed with making her skirt shorter and shorter. She subsequently refused to talk about Trek and if she did it was to deride it. Which is sad.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I don’t know. I do know she evidently walked off set because Roddenberry was obsessed with making her skirt shorter and shorter. She subsequently refused to talk about Trek and if she did it was to deride it. Which is sad.

I can't place it, but I saw another anecdote somewhere about GR supervising a woman's hem length, demanding it be shorter and shorter, and William Ware Theiss being very unhappy about it because it wasn't going to look right. This might be from Inside Star Trek by Justman and Solow. It might have been Marianna Hill, if her costume is any indication.

That same year of 1966, in One Million Years B.C., Raquel Welch made sure her own costume was as short as it could possibly be, but she knew what she was doing and it looked great. She came across as the model cave woman, that all cave women should aspire to.

 

[Commander Troi]

He used a pen name because he had a contract with another studio and couldn't write openly for a different series. So he moonlighted as Lee Cronin for the s3 episodes, like Spectre of the Gun.

I'm not sure if the episode was written to be serious or not. Some say that the themes are meant to be dead serious: organ transplants, and the dangers of leaving all thinking to a computer (maybe the days of "brain and brain" aren't so far off now...).
Others see some comedy or parody in it. Certainly the ending is humorous. And it seems the earlier version had Spock falling on his face because McCoy connected his motion centers all wrong.

Ah, thank you. I didn't know that about Gene Coon.

Yeah, it's really tough to tell if it was meant to be serious or not. Tongues aren't as firmly in cheeks as say A Piece of the Action - everyone seems to be playing it straight. And as you say, there are some serious themes. So is it a serious episode badly written or a comedy episode badly executed or what?

 

[Warped9]

Given Roddenberry’s dictate there were to be no more comedy episodes after the three made in Season 2 it’s far more likely “Spock’s Brain” was meant to be serious and dramatic, but it went off-the-rails somewhere. It needed a good rewrite.

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

I believe an earlier version of the script had Spock's brainless body hooked up to life support in Sickbay for most of the episode, rather than bringing it down to the planet and having McCoy puppeteer it with a Game Boy.

James Blish's version has them beam up fro Act Four. That earlier version sounds a little too much like SHADES OF GREY for me.

 

[Noname Given]

Did someone involved in the show not treat her right?

I think it was more that after she did it, and the show blew up in syndication, her Trek appearance was asked about in any mainstream interview even if the interview was to promote something else; so she got sick of being asked about it over and over, and it was one thing among everything else she did, and while more than a cameo; it wasn't a huge part in the episode either.

She has said she was happy to get the part, and shooting it was a good experience, (it was a pleasant shoot for her) but she was just amazed at how often she'd be asked about it after she had so much more under her belt as the years went on.

 

[Tallguy]

I mean if Walter Koenig could resent Star Trek in the 70's (basically having to kind of do all the publicity for a show he wasn't getting paid for anymore) imagine poor Ms. Garr.

I don't know if I had ever heard that Assignment: Earth would have been a 30 minute show. That could have been really interesting.

 

[JLA]

I think it was more that after she did it, and the show blew up in syndication, her Trek appearance was asked about in any mainstream interview even if the interview was to promote something else; so she got sick of being asked about it over and over, and it was one thing among everything else she did, and while more than a cameo; it wasn't a huge part in the episode either.

She has said she was happy to get the part, and shooting it was a good experience, (it was a pleasant shoot for her) but she was just amazed at how often she'd be asked about it after she had so much more under her belt as the years went on.

I completely understand Star Trek fascination.