50th Anniversary Rewatch Thread
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If they had an inkling of how TV works they'd have expected it. As soon a show creator has a series up and running they start working on the next thing, because you never know how long the current show will stay on so you get busy trying to sell the next one. Irwin Allen certainly didn't wait until Lost In Space ended to develop The Time Tunnel. And Gene was actually giving more feedback on the 3rd season scripts than is generally assumed, even if he was trying to start new projects elsewhere.
That was shorthand for "ancient Rome with 20th century technology." Or ancient Rome that survived into its 20th century-like era.
Because by doing so he makes contact with her mind and senses there is more to her?
Star Trek
"Assignment: Earth"
Originally aired March 29, 1968
Earth date: 1968
What was going on the week the episode aired.
Yeah, it's a backdoor pilot, so what? It makes for something different and an enjoyable little "what if". And we get Spock in his grandpa hat to boot!
As somebody who recently watched through Season 1 of 12 O'Clock High, it's nice to see Robert Lansing pop up in other roles. How common was that guest star credit directly after the main credits?
Gary Seven talks of "this time period" in the past tense, which suggests that he's more than he tells Kirk that he is. There does seem to be a time travel / knowledge of the future component in play.
An eerily prophetic line that jumped out at me in immersive 50th anniversary context: "There will be an important assassination today." This episode aired exactly six days before Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination...and 1968 would become largely identified with that moment and Robert Kennedy's assassination two months later.
Oribital nukes must have been on people's minds in the day. There was an Outer Space Treaty in 1967; plus, 2001 also comes out in a few days, and while not identified in the film, some of the spacecraft seen in Earth's orbit were meant to be nuclear weapons platforms. Was Gary preventing 2001's future from happening? He certainly knows what a pain in the ass overly willful computers can be.
Roberta is also a very sign o' the times character.
Cats can open doors in the 23rd century...that must be annoying.
A bit much is made of Gary Seven's pen being similar to Dr. Who's sonic screwdriver. The more immediate and timely reference for American audiences of the day would have been UNCLE communicators...TMFU had just ended its four-season run a couple months earlier.
As for Kirk and Spock seeming to know more about Gary and Roberta in the coda than they had in the rest of the episode...maybe it was just a matter of having enough information to know what to look for. Kids these days expect everything to be out there on Space Google.
In six months: Yeah, the letter-writing campaign worked. Be careful what you wish for....
"Assignment: Earth"
Originally aired March 29, 1968
Earth date: 1968
MeTV said:
What was going on the week the episode aired.
Yeah, it's a backdoor pilot, so what? It makes for something different and an enjoyable little "what if". And we get Spock in his grandpa hat to boot!
As somebody who recently watched through Season 1 of 12 O'Clock High, it's nice to see Robert Lansing pop up in other roles. How common was that guest star credit directly after the main credits?
Gary Seven talks of "this time period" in the past tense, which suggests that he's more than he tells Kirk that he is. There does seem to be a time travel / knowledge of the future component in play.
An eerily prophetic line that jumped out at me in immersive 50th anniversary context: "There will be an important assassination today." This episode aired exactly six days before Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination...and 1968 would become largely identified with that moment and Robert Kennedy's assassination two months later.
Oribital nukes must have been on people's minds in the day. There was an Outer Space Treaty in 1967; plus, 2001 also comes out in a few days, and while not identified in the film, some of the spacecraft seen in Earth's orbit were meant to be nuclear weapons platforms. Was Gary preventing 2001's future from happening? He certainly knows what a pain in the ass overly willful computers can be.
Roberta is also a very sign o' the times character.
Cats can open doors in the 23rd century...that must be annoying.
A bit much is made of Gary Seven's pen being similar to Dr. Who's sonic screwdriver. The more immediate and timely reference for American audiences of the day would have been UNCLE communicators...TMFU had just ended its four-season run a couple months earlier.
As for Kirk and Spock seeming to know more about Gary and Roberta in the coda than they had in the rest of the episode...maybe it was just a matter of having enough information to know what to look for. Kids these days expect everything to be out there on Space Google.
In six months: Yeah, the letter-writing campaign worked. Be careful what you wish for....
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Always loved that the briefing room doors opened - and just wide enough - for Isis.
The most memorable part of the reunion film was Solo fishing out his long disused pen and whispering “Open Channel D.”
Doctor Who first used the sonic screwdriver in Fury From The Deep (16 March-20th April 1968) so which came first as the date on the IMDB for Assignment:Earth seems to be for the BBC transmission in 1970? 
JB
JB
When Kirk is doing his Picard impression and asking the entire crew to come up with ideas there's a succession of shots where Leslie's first in a gold uniform in the corridor, a second later he's in a working jumpsuit in engineering and then moments later he gets into a regular red uniform just in time to be unconscious in the transporter room.
Can't say I'm particularly impressed by this one, it's not really bad, and it's definitely amusing at times, but I also did find myself bored at times. There's just too much standing around and stock footage shots of control rooms and rockets and Scotty adjusting the TV set and people walking in and out of beaming mists... secret agent man from space episode should have had a slightly more exciting edge than that... All in all I'd say the biggest accomplishment of this particular episode was getting a cat to do what they wanted on camera.
Can't say I'm particularly impressed by this one, it's not really bad, and it's definitely amusing at times, but I also did find myself bored at times. There's just too much standing around and stock footage shots of control rooms and rockets and Scotty adjusting the TV set and people walking in and out of beaming mists... secret agent man from space episode should have had a slightly more exciting edge than that... All in all I'd say the biggest accomplishment of this particular episode was getting a cat to do what they wanted on camera.
Sign o' the times...that's what immersive 50th anniversary retro is all about!
Assignment Earth is a good episode. Good pilot episode for another series. Robert Lansing and Terri Garr are good together. I would have like to have seen that series. As has been said, there is a lot of stock footage and Kirk and Spock seem to be stuck at NASA way too long. I loved Spock's Gilligan hat. One thing I worried about is ISIS when she and Gary Seven are way up in the air sabotaging the rocket. I worry that she was going to fall. Finally I found it amusing that Kirk and Spock now know everything about Mr. Seven at the end of the episode. It sure would have been nice to know this information beforehand. "They will have some interesting adventures"
Spock looked cool in that hat, but not so good in the furry hat.
It looked like some Russian style hat.
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I read that Teri Garr had hardly ever spoken about her Star Trek appearance. But when she did speak about it, she was sarcastic and had negative things to say about her experience and about Trek in general. She also took a swipe at Trek fans by mocking them.
Yup, Teri Garr never seemed to embrace Star Trek very much. Perhaps because for her, it was a failed pilot. Her loss.
I also gather that her casting was Roddenberry at his Roddenberriest.
I think I get what your saying here, Tallguy! 
JB
JB
Ughhh. Did I get it?I think I get what your saying here, Tallguy!
JB
There were good aspects to this episode but like dodge I find it a bit boring but I don't know why.
Seven's OK, the cat has potential, the computer needs improvement. I dislike Roberta's character a bit even before I knew Garr hated us. She was a bit too sanctimonious, a bit too hippy like.
I don't like it how Seven owned Kirk and Spock and then even a ditzy girl like Roberta got the droo on them.
So one of the 'messages' of this episode is WTF is the Enterprise doing 'historical' research by going back in time, Nothings worth the risk after seeing what happens in the episode.
That being said what happened in this episode was a part of history so presumably was what happened in their other slingshot. It was only the episodes with the Guardian that the future could be changed by going into the past,
Agreed; this is one of the time-travel episodes that does not make much sense no matter how you slice it. Historical research? Maybe just read a book next time.
Having just recently discovered time travel, it makes sense that Starfleet would play around with it a bit before deciding it was too risky for routine use.
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