Captain Kirk and the....sonic screwdriver?!

[Severance]

Assignment Earth - Season 2

Is it me or has anyone else noticed that "Supervisor 194: Gary Seven" has a sonic screwdriver?

Even trying to find who ripped this off from whom, I saw this;

First appearance of the sonic screwdriver in Doctor Who:
Fury from the Deep - Part 1 first aired on 16 March 1968

First airing of the Assignment Earth episode:
March 29, 1968

Seems far too close to be a coincidence.

 

[tau136]

Any screen caps showing this ?

 

[Timo]

The first sonic screwdriver:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1st_sonic_screwdriver.jpg

The servo as used by Gary Seven:

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb21710/common/skins/common/blank.gifhttp://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Servo

The servo close up:

http://www.assignmentearth.ca/images/servo3.jpg

Timo Saloniemi

 

[tau136]

Thanks . . . sure seems derivative, if nothing else.

 

[Timo]

I dunno. I've never seen much of Dr Who, but I'd think the tool used in that early episode was indeed portrayed as a futuristic type of screwdriver in a plot situation where a screwdriver was needed (the Wikipedia screencap certainly suggests so). In contrast, the servo from Star Trek was a multifunctional device that didn't seem to stand in for any conventional tools: it was simply very vaguely screwdriver-sized and -shaped (or more like pen-sized and -shaped), but never drove any screws.

The Dr Who device of course later grew into a multifunction tool, although without losing the screwdriving ability. But I doubt that had much to do with a prop used in a single episode of Star Trek. We could just as well argue that the Star Wars lightsaber, a device of similar looks and approximate size, was derived from the sonic screwdriver...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Badger]

First appearance of the sonic screwdriver in Doctor Who:
Fury from the Deep - Part 1 first aired on 16 March 1968

First airing of the Assignment Earth episode:
March 29, 1968

Seems far too close to be a coincidence.

Actually, it seems far to close to be anything other than coincidence.

It is highly unlikely that someone on the Star Trek production team was in Britain when 'Fury from the Deep' aired, rushed back to America, either wrote an entire script or (at best) modified an already written script to include a screwdriver like device. Said script is then turned into an episode. Preproduction, casting, rehearsal, filming, post-production, special effects...the whole panoply of procedures needed for every episode.

All this in less than two weeks? I doubt it.

 

[T'Girl]

First appearance of the sonic screwdriver in Doctor Who:
Fury from the Deep - Part 1 first aired on 16 March 1968

First airing of the Assignment Earth episode:
March 29, 1968

First draft script of Assignment Earth was written in November 1966.

 

[Sector 7]

We could just as well argue that the Star Wars lightsaber, a device of similar looks and approximate size, was derived from the sonic screwdriver...

Timo Saloniemi

You just know someone will try, though...

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Assignment Earth - Season 2

Is it me or has anyone else noticed that "Supervisor 194: Gary Seven" has a sonic screwdriver?

Even trying to find who ripped this off from whom, I saw this;

First appearance of the sonic screwdriver in Doctor Who:
Fury from the Deep - Part 1 first aired on 16 March 1968

First airing of the Assignment Earth episode:
March 29, 1968

Seems far too close to be a coincidence.

You're entirely wrong - the close air dates enormously increase the likelihood that it's a coincidence. Or are you under the misimpression that an episode of a TV series was written, produced and aired within a two-week period?

Given the much longer production cycle of Trek episodes - shot on film and requiring many weeks of post-production for opticals, etc - it's even likely that the Trek story was written and possibly filmed well before the DW segment.

That, of course, is not even addressing how vanishingly unlikely it is that anyone at Trek had ever seen Doctor Who, much less was familiar with then-current episodes.

 

[Captrek]

Assignment Earth - Season 2

Is it me or has anyone else noticed that "Supervisor 194: Gary Seven" has a sonic screwdriver?

Even trying to find who ripped this off from whom, I saw this;

First appearance of the sonic screwdriver in Doctor Who:
Fury from the Deep - Part 1 first aired on 16 March 1968

First airing of the Assignment Earth episode:
March 29, 1968

Seems far too close to be a coincidence.

You're entirely wrong - the close air dates enormously increase the likelihood that it's a coincidence. Or are you under the misimpression that an episode of a TV series was written, produced and aired within a two-week period?

Given the much longer production cycle of Trek episodes - shot on film and requiring many weeks of post-production for opticals, etc - it's even likely that the Trek story was written and possibly filmed well before the DW segment.

That, of course, is not even addressing how vanishingly unlikely it is that anyone at Trek had ever seen Doctor Who, much less was familiar with then-current episodes.

You are, of course, neglecting the fact that Doctor Who is a time traveler, and Gary Seven was at least acquainted with time travelers, so the two-week window should be no problem.

BTW, I’m planning to sue. The character of Doctor Who was based on a story I’m going to write next year.

 

[Christopher]

According to The Star Trek Compendium, the ST version of "Assignment: Earth" was written in December 1967 and filmed in January and February 1968. And as stated above, it was based on a failed pilot premise developed in 1966.

And nobody in America in 1968 would've seen Doctor Who, certainly not if they had a full-time job producing television in Hollywood. They didn't have satellite TV or BBC America then. Most Americans didn't see the show until the '70s or '80s.

Every now and then, some Trek or Who fan notices this coincidence and spins a "ripoff" theory out of it, but it's just as wrong this time as every other time. Coincidence happens all the time.

And Gary Seven's device isn't a sonic screwdriver, it's a multipurpose "servo" disguised as a pen. There are definitely similarities, but it's hardly unprecedented for a work of science fiction to depict an advanced being using a single small device with multiple functions as needed. In fact, Gary Seven's servo was a lot more multipurpose in its first (and only canonical) appearance than the sonic screwdriver became for several years. All the 1968-9 version of the sonic screwdriver could do was open doors and panels, cut through walls, and, well, drive screws. Gary's servo had similar functions, but additionally and primarily operated as a weapon, communicator, and remote control device. So to look on that multifunction unit and equate it with a sonic screwdriver is anachronistic, projecting the later depiction of the s.s. as a Gallifreyan Army knife back onto a time when it was basically just what it said on the tin.


Also, Gary Seven was not a time traveller. In the original 1966 proposal, he was, but in the episode, he was a native of the era if not the planet, a human whose ancestors had been taken from Earth thousands of years ago and bred over the millennia into a superior form.

 

[TIN_MAN]

Somebody should do a rewrite of AE and replace Gary 7 with Doctor Who, that'd be a fun read?!

 

[Wingsley]

^ Are you suggesting that Doctor Who would be working for some alien outfit that would have an interest in meddling with Earth's affairs to coax the Human Race along? Could it be the C.I.A. (Celestial Intervention Agency)? The only question left would be "what happened to his T.A.R.D.I.S.?

 

[TIN_MAN]

^ Are you suggesting that Doctor Who would be working for some alien outfit that would have an interest in meddling with Earth's affairs to coax the Human Race along? Could it be the C.I.A. (Celestial Intervention Agency)? The only question left would be "what happened to his T.A.R.D.I.S.?

Not necisarily, but some plot points would obviously be different, but the gist of the story could be the same? The trick would be in figuring out how and why the rocket launch would still need to "malfunction" to preserve history?

 

[Nerys Myk]

SPOCK: We have him trapped inside this blue box.

KIRK: Yes. there's no way he can escape.

 

[Captain Robert April]

I'm sensing a sequel to "The Doctor and the Enterprise" in the offing...

 

[T'Girl]

The only question left would be "what happened to his T.A.R.D.I.S.?

What do you think was kept in that big vault of his?

 

[Captain Robert April]

Or, more like, what do you think that big vault is?

 

[Pauln6]

Also, Gary Seven was not a time traveller. In the original 1966 proposal, he was, but in the episode, he was a native of the era if not the planet, a human whose ancestors had been taken from Earth thousands of years ago and bred over the millennia into a superior form.

Personally I think he should be a time-travelling descendent of Willard Decker.

 

[Ssosmcin]

What do you think was kept in that big vault of his?

His porn stash.