A Gary 7 series???

[Warped9]

I just recently rewatched this episode during my revisit of the entirety of TOS.

And so I'm asking if anyone thinks the series idea had any real legs to it, do you think it had any genuine potential? Do you think it might have been better served with its own pilot instead of being piggybacked onto a Star Trek episode?

Note that I've yet to read John Byrne's comic stories of Gary 7 published by IDA, but it's something I do intend to do.

 

[BillJ]

I'm honestly surprised no one has brought this to series in the forty plus years since it aired. I do think such a series has legs.

I also see the episode as a subtle rebuke of the Prime Directive.

 

[lurok]

Abso-frakkin'-lutely Love Gary Seven, Roberta and Isis, but can understand why lot of TOS fans equally dislike. Not sure why like idea: felt to me could have been closest thing to an indigenously American Dr Who

Sadly, think they've missed the boat on series. Unless...there was a new Trek series, and rebooted concept/episode off that. But I'm not sure it would work as a standalone concept. Though happy to be disproved

 

[Warped9]

I really think the Roberta Lincoln character was a weak point, but that could have been easily fixed in a proper pilot and/or in series production.

It also might have been interesting to see Gary 7 again...but in the 23rd century.

 

[Maurice]

I never thought much of it, personally. I am not surprised no one bought in the intervening years when it's easier to create something similar and/or pay Paramount for the privilege.

 

[Harvey]

It's not that spectacular an episode, really. Kirk and Spock are like guest stars on their own show, and yet Seven isn't really the star, either. I like what Gary Cox has done with the Seven character in several novels, though.

 

[lurok]

I really think the Roberta Lincoln character was a weak point, but that could have been easily fixed in a proper pilot and/or in series production.

What I liked about Roberta (in context of period show was made) was that she was soooo random. Is it this aspect you think is weak? Or more that she's not proactive? Which I'm sure would have or could have been fixed. On earlier point about whether should have been separate pilot, I have no idea how that works on US TV (or at that time). Was there ever a sixties US TV series like DW, or The Avengers?

 

[Christopher]

On earlier point about whether should have been separate pilot, I have no idea how that works on US TV (or at that time).

Actually it was developed as a pilot for a standalone series first, and you can read about it here:

http://www.fastcopyinc.com/orionpress/articles/assignment.htm

When that script was rejected by all the networks, Roddenberry decided to give it a second chance by reworking it into a Trek episode that could serve as a backdoor pilot. Basically, since he couldn't convince any network to invest the money and resources needed to produce a pilot episode, he used the existing ST production budget to get his pilot made in the hopes that someone would like it enough to buy it as a spinoff.

Was there ever a sixties US TV series like DW, or The Avengers?

Nothing like Who, but I'd say The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was kind of like The Avengers, though maybe somewhat more serious. There was also Get Smart in the other direction, a spy-parody sitcom.

 

[22 Stars]

It most definitley could have been a serviceable show, look, who thought that Forbidden Planet would make a feasible pilot for an hour long drama set on a Starship

 

[Greg Cox]

It most definitley could have been a serviceable show, look, who thought that Forbidden Planet would make a feasible pilot for an hour long drama set on a Starship

I've always thought that "Assignment: Earth" is to The Day the Earth Stood Still as Star Trek is to Forbidden Planet.

Gary Seven is basically "Klaatu: The Series."

Works for me. I like to think that there's an alternate universe where Assignment: Earth ran for years--and maybe even got a big-budget reboot in 2009!

(Of course, I obviously feel there's a lot more mileage in Seven and Roberta and Isis. I've written three books about them!)

 

[lurok]

On earlier point about whether should have been separate pilot, I have no idea how that works on US TV (or at that time).

Actually it was developed as a pilot for a standalone series first, and you can read about it here:

http://www.fastcopyinc.com/orionpress/articles/assignment.htm

When that script was rejected by all the networks, Roddenberry decided to give it a second chance by reworking it into a Trek episode that could serve as a backdoor pilot. Basically, since he couldn't convince any network to invest the money and resources needed to produce a pilot episode, he used the existing ST production budget to get his pilot made in the hopes that someone would like it enough to buy it as a spinoff.

Oooh...that's pretty sneaky. But nothing I wouldn't expect from stuff I've read here and elsewhere about Roddenberry...

Was there ever a sixties US TV series like DW, or The Avengers?

Nothing like Who, but I'd say The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was kind of like The Avengers, though maybe somewhat more serious. There was also Get Smart in the other direction, a spy-parody sitcom.

I only know the awful Carrell/Hathaway movie, but get the idea (I think ) MFU is great, but again boy-boy. So it seems an older male-genius/spy/whatever with cute young female companion would have been different/unusual...

 

[lurok]

It most definitley could have been a serviceable show, look, who thought that Forbidden Planet would make a feasible pilot for an hour long drama set on a Starship

I've always thought that "Assignment: Earth" is to The Day the Earth Stood Still as Star Trek is to Forbidden Planet.

Gary Seven is basically "Klaatu: The Series."

Works for me. I like to think that there's an alternate universe where Assignment: Earth ran for years--and maybe even got a big-budget reboot in 2009!

(Of course, I obviously feel there's a lot more mileage in Seven and Roberta and Isis. I've written three books about them!)

This is first time EVER had motivation to read Trek fiction. Though technically, for me anyway, not really Trek. Will happily google...

 

[Greg Cox]

(Of course, I obviously feel there's a lot more mileage in Seven and Roberta and Isis. I've written three books about them!)

This is first time EVER had motivation to read Trek fiction. Though technically, for me anyway, not really Trek. Will happily google...

My work here is done . . . .

 

[Christopher]

When that script was rejected by all the networks, Roddenberry decided to give it a second chance by reworking it into a Trek episode that could serve as a backdoor pilot. Basically, since he couldn't convince any network to invest the money and resources needed to produce a pilot episode, he used the existing ST production budget to get his pilot made in the hopes that someone would like it enough to buy it as a spinoff.

Oooh...that's pretty sneaky. But nothing I wouldn't expect from stuff I've read here and elsewhere about Roddenberry...

Well, I didn't mean to make it sound devious. Lots of TV shows over the decades have made episodes that were backdoor pilots for spinoffs. Sometimes it even works. Heck, there have even been one or two anthology shows whose whole point was to try out pilots. (That's where Happy Days came from -- its pilot was an episode of the comedy anthology Love, American Style.)

There was also Get Smart in the other direction, a spy-parody sitcom.

I only know the awful Carrell/Hathaway movie, but get the idea (I think )

Oh, no, no, no. I haven't actually seen that movie, but from what I've read about it, it's very, very unlike the original. Get Smart is a classic.

MFU is great, but again boy-boy. So it seems an older male-genius/spy/whatever with cute young female companion would have been different/unusual...

No, that's what Get Smart was, except Max was hardly a genius. (Agent 99 was every bit as awesome as Emma Peel, except she was a professional.)

 

[Gary7]

I really liked the episode, enough that I even selected my name after it.

What I found appealing was the shift of perspective. Kirk and Spock are now partially front and center, for a change. Sure, there were holes and weaknesses... it wasn't the best episode of TOS. But good fun and something different. I think it was clever of Roddenberry to get in his "pilot" this way. It fit in pretty well.

Incidentally, someone made an entertaining intro to an imaginary "Gary 7" series, with a very 60's/70's quality to it. That was the first incarnation, which was a slide-show format. The author redid it with full motion video, here.

I'm not sure it would have made it as a stand-alone. I guess it could've been a little like Quantum Leap, where Gary 7 is constantly going on missions to "right the wrongs", much as Sam Beckett did. The temporal implications are huge... does this mean that if we didn't have outside help, we'd have destroyed ourselves in our adolescence of technology era? That the "human experiment" would have failed without some outside assistance? Would be tricky to do right, make believable.

 

[Christopher]

I'm not sure it would have made it as a stand-alone. I guess it could've been a little like Quantum Leap, where Gary 7 is constantly going on missions to "right the wrongs", much as Sam Beckett did.

Well, I think it would've been more like a spy show. In the original premise, Gary and his foes the Omegans were time travellers, but the Omegans were focused on the "critical" 1960s and forward -- i.e. from the moon landing onward. They wanted to disrupt the human space age so that humanity never became an interstellar power. (I.e. kind of like the Borg's motives in First Contact or the Sphere-Builders' in Enterprise season 3.) So the show wouldn't have involved jumping around through time, just good and evil operatives in the "present day" of the 1960s, working to preserve or disrupt the future.

And the version that aired as a Trek episode had no time-travel elements beyond the Enterprise's presence. It was made clear that Gary was from the 1960s, just from another planet. So an A:E series spinning off from that would probably be much as John Byrne has portrayed it in the IDW comics: Gary and Roberta taking on various superscience and espionage threats, mad scientists, the occasional alien incursion, things like that. Sort of like The Six Million Dollar Man a few years later, or like The Avengers (though I don't know if they ever tackled aliens). There might have been occasional time-travel episodes, especially for Trek crossovers, but it wouldn't have been a regular part of the series.

 

[Greg Cox]

Sort of like The Six Million Dollar Man a few years later, or like The Avengers (though I don't know if they ever tackled aliens).

Most of the "aliens" on The Avengers tended to be hoaxes, but there was at least one ep about a mind-controlling alien plant (or so I recall).

 

[lurok]

From what I know (admittedly gleaned from internet...but ), The Avengers never had aliens.

What makes me really depressed is that you Greg and Christopher never around in Sixties to make this series happen, with your passion.

Like me, guess we're out out of our time. But as we Brits like to say: ho hum...

 

[Greg Cox]

I looked it up. "Man Hunter of Surrey Green," a 1965 ep of The Avengers, featured telepathic alien spores that tried to take over the world.

As far as I know, that may have the only ep to feature real aliens.

 

[RandyS]

I just recently rewatched this episode during my revisit of the entirety of TOS.

And so I'm asking if anyone thinks the series idea had any real legs to it, do you think it had any genuine potential? Do you think it might have been better served with its own pilot instead of being piggybacked onto a Star Trek episode?

Note that I've yet to read John Byrne's comic stories of Gary 7 published by IDA, but it's something I do intend to do.

Do so as soon as you get the chance. It's quite good. As is Greg Cox's Eugenics Wars novels, of which Gary and Roberta are the heroes, fighting Khan (after failing to take him into their organization) a generation after they met Kirk and Spock.