Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 55 Assignment: Earth
This episode has always been something of a mystery to me. Think about it. The studio was planning on getting ready to cancel Star Trek (and only the timely intervention of Nichelle Nichols and thousands of loyal fans saved it for one more season) yet thought it worthy of launching a spin off. Of course the failure of Gary Seven to inspire mass fan loyalty might have been the final straw that broke the studios love of Trek in the first place.
Gary Seven himself is a big mystery too. He was a human raised by aliens to do something (?) on Earth. He is supposed to be undercover but has the last name of Seven 
(? Could it be the aliens who raised him were the Borg??? Borg logo courtesy of the Star Trek T-Shirts category BTW), not exactly a normal name. Also was his technology more advanced or less advanced that the Enterprise? Why when the Enterprise returned to its own time did they not say “Umm, we found evidence that advanced aliens were screwing with human society at the end of the 20th century. It’s possible they may still be around.”? Wouldn’t that be worthy of the slightest investigation? For that matter why didn’t Gary Seven go screaming back to his alien superiors about a human ship from 300 years in the future mucking about?
Really, everything about this episode is total ass. It had already been established in City on the Edge of Forever and Tomorrow is Yesterday that the slightest change in the past could completely destroy the future from whence the time travelers came back yet they risk destroying their entire reality in the interest of…historical research? I had no idea that historical accuracy would be such a priority in the future. I guess the United Federation of Planets was founded by Wikipedia.
Also, this episode is completely recycled from like eight other episodes. Tomorrow is Yesterday is the obvious one, but an intelligent black cat who turns into a hot brunette woman? Catspaw, anyone? It’s clear that the other time travel episodes had garnered enough praise to make them try one more time. Too bad this one fell on it’s face. This episode also had a very Doctor Who feel to it, so I give it an F+ for originality.
Dave
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