"Star Trek"Assignment: Earth (1968) Part 1
The Enterprise travels back in time to observe Earth during a particularly tumultuous period in it's history. However, upon arriving they intercept a mysterious alien transmission and end up beaming aboard a man wearing a 20th century business suit and carrying a cat. So begins "Assignment: Earth", a Star Trek episode that was actually a pilot for a proposed series, a marrying of Ian Flemming's James Bond with Gene Rodenberry's socially relevant themes.
Robert Lansing plays Gary Seven, a human trained by an unnamed alien race to protect humanity against threats to world peace. In this story, his mission is to transport to earth and prevent the US from shooting a military satellite into space that could set off a nuclear exchange between the US and the Soviet Union. But when the Enterprise captures Seven en-route to Cape Canaveral, Kirk is reluctant to let him go, fearing Seven's mission may not be as altruistic as he claims. Mr. Seven then escapes the ship, beaming down to the city of Manhattan with Kirk and Spock in hot pursuit.
Next we are introduced to Mr. Seven's hapless new secretary, Roberta Lincoln, (played by the unmistakable Terri Garr). Though Roberta is definitely a scene-stealing sidekick, and a quintessential '60's "dippy blonde", Rodenberry fleshes her character out having her express concerns, both about her country, and her generation's future during that strife ridden period of the 1960's. Of Garr's performance you can see that even at so young an age (in the episode they state she is 20), her comedic timing was already impeccable and she seemed to have genuine chemistry with Robert Lansing. Lansing is effective here, too, both as an action star, and as a straight man to Garr. His deep voice and those unique, vaguely sinister looking eyes of his made him well suited to play an enigmatic hero. His screen presence reminds one of Patrick Magoohan with an American accent.
Rounding out the trio is Mr. Seven's black cat, Isis, which he talks to as if it's purring is actually a language- which it is. Isis, we learn later, is really some sort of alien female in the form of a cat. We only learn this at the end when she reveals a glimpse of her true self in order to tease an already jealous Roberta.
"Assignment: Earth" had some high quality production values including the swanky office apartment Seven worked out of complete with a huge vault that was actually a teleportal like the Enterprise's transporter system. Mr. Seven's weapon of choice was a fountain pen that could short out electrical mechanisms, temporarily neutralize suspicious guards, and, if necessary, kill. His snooty female-voiced super computer looked very much like the M-5 unit from an earlier episode, "The Ultimate Computer", but that's okay. It's still a cool prop.
Veteran "Star Trek" director Marc Daniels keeps things moving at a nice pace and maintains the right balance between the straight-up action and the more comedic aspects of the episode. There is some particularly effective usage of stock footage from NASA, too. The incorporated shots of the rocket being prepped for launch are quite awesome.
Author: BigFatTonyCal
Keywords: Ron Paul Obama Hillary Kucinich Pres Iphone Republican Democrat Nader Girls Iraq
Added: April 5, 2008
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