mlrsl@emory.UUCP (08/01/83)
In the episode "Assignment Earth", the enterprise is gone back in time on a historical fact gathering mission to earth. While orbiting earth the enterprise intercepts Gary seven in the process of beaming down to earth from far away. Gary seven insists on being beamed down, kirk refuses till he gets some more info on who Gary seven is. Gary puts up a struggle on gets thrown in the brig. Subsequently later he's able to break out with a weapon he had on him. Question: Why wasn't he searched before being thrown in the brig? It would seem to be a serious blunder on the part of security would it not? robin ...!emory!mlrsl mlrsl@emory
rjnoe@ihuxx.UUCP (08/03/83)
Gary Seven's "weapon" appeared to be a ball-point pen which he called a servo (I think). It could easily be overlooked by security on board the Enterprise. It wasn't much of a weapon, anyway, more of a gadget. Now if Napoleon Solo showed up on the Enterprise would anyone know to say "Open channel D" into Solo's pen? Roger Noe ...ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe
karn@eagle.UUCP (Phil Karn) (08/03/83)
"Assignment Earth" is one of my favorite episodes. (Perhaps the prominent featuring of REAL space hardware has something to do with it.) Yes, this episode has lots of little things wrong with it, but then so do ALL Star Trek episodes. To wit: 1. They are launching a "suborbital weapons platform". Seems to me that it wouldn't stay up there very long to be a deterrent to the Russians. 2. They are using a Saturn V (cringe) to launch this thing, despite the fact that it (complete with launch escape tower for the Apollo-shaped bomb, I suspect) was never designed as a military weapon. That weapons platform must have been awfully big if a Saturn V could only put it into a suborbital trajectory! 3. The view on Seven's computer during the "third stage malfunction" is actually a famous movie sequence shot from the bottom of the SECOND stage just after first stage and interstage ring separation. 4. Given that the bomb must have been enormous, and assuming that it was actually detonated at the end, the resulting EMP (electromagnetic pulse) should have destroyed every piece of communications equipment in the Soviet Union. 5. Mr. Seven's "servo" looked enough like a pen to probably have been missed by the security guards. Everybody knows that they aren't too bright anyway; if they were marginally smarter they'd realize how short their life expectancies were and they'd have become Federation bureaucrats instead. 6. Scotty's use of "weather satellites" to get a stationary closeup view of Seven on the gantry is ludicrous. 7. The dialogue with the computer at the climax of the episode makes repeated references to something pronounced "Eks-seever". My guess is that some writer saw the abbreviation "XCVR" on a piece of equipment somewhere and didn't know that it stands for "transceiver". I still like this episode. After seeing each one 10 times, you start making a hobby out of finding nits like these. Phil