Tribute to A Special Guest Star Who Was More Star Trek Than Star Trek
Teri Garr, who appeared in “Assignment: Earth,” fought a battle worthy of the franchise
Teri Garr played countless characters on television, in movies and on stage, in a career that spanned six decades.
But Garr, who passed away last week from complications of multiple sclerosis at home in Los Angeles at age 79, left a unique mark on Star Trek.
She was a young, 23-year-old actress trying to break into Hollywood when she was cast in the original series episode, “Assignment: Earth.”
Garr gave a memorable performance in what was one of the most memorable and unique episodes of the original series.
“Assignment: Earth” was not any regular weekly installment of the series. Rather, executive producer Gene Roddenberry set it up as a “backdoor pilot” for what would have been the first Star Trek spinoff, although it never actually was picked up as a series of its own.
The episode features the Enterprise back in time and encounters Gary Seven (Robert Lansing), a mysterious agent on Earth in 1968 to track down missing fellow agents and complete their mission of preventing the outbreak of World War III.
Garr played Roberta Lincoln, a young human woman secretary who had employed by the missing agents. She, however, had no idea of their true work traveling in time and space.
“Assignment: Earth” had shades of the UK series Doctor Who, with Gary Seven in a role analogous to the time traveling Doctor and Roberta as his smart, but inexperienced, companion.
“Assignment: Earth” was a wonderful episode on its own, and almost certainly would have been a great series if it had been picked up.
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But for all the great storytelling we saw on-screen as viewers, for Garr the episode was always mired in antipathy and she would never again visit the franchise in the remainder of her long and successful career.
What we didn’t see was Garr fighting a battle behind the scenes which, sadly, showed the original series — and even Roddenberry, himself — as a product of their time.
Garr was already wearing a terribly short skirt, but Roddenberry insisted that it be shortened by another two inches.
The actress rightly walked off set at such a sexist suggestion. The hem of her skirt had no bearing whatsoever on the story or the part that her character played in it.
And her actions that day were quite brave, as well. “Assignment: Earth,” after all, was Garr’s first big break; she certainly did not yet have any star power to fall back on. All she had was her self-respect and her integrity as a professional.
Garr returned to finish her work on the episode, but she had clearly soured on Roddenberry and Star Trek.
Rightfully so.
This incident with Garr is, unfortunately, a clear example that although Roddenberry and Star Trek represented lofty aspirations of respect and appreciation for all, they could — and sometimes did — fall well short.
One can easily see how another scriptwriter could turn the kind of struggle for equality and her respect as a professional that Garr suffered into an analogy to form the basis of a Star Trek episode with a powerful social message.
That Garr has to fight that fight inside of Star Trek is tragic.
And while it’s certainly understandable, the fact that she never returned to the franchise is equally so, because — in that moment — Teri Garr was more Star Trek than Star Trek itself.
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