Star Trek: 10 Episodes That Wasted An Incredible Premise

The original premise for Assignment: Earth is more unique than most on this list. The episode was meant to produce a spin-off series starring Robert Lansing as Gary Seven. We'll never know what the quality of that show would have been, but the fact that it was never made leaves us with an episode of Star Trek: The Original Series that can only ever feel like the beginnings of something bigger.

The Supervisor/Watcher storyline did get an addendum in the second season of Star Trek: Picard. In that, Orla Brady's Tallinn had been "chosen for service as a Supervisor," and Picard made a comparison between her and Gary Seven who "was recruited by superior beings […] to 'protect the tapestry of history'." At the end of the season, it was revealed that Wesley Crusher and his colleagues (aka the Travellers) were the ones who sent out the Supervisors.

We know so very little about the Travellers that their reveal as the heretofore mysterious alien abductors (of Gary Seven's ancestors) from Assignment: Earth seemed almost anecdotal. The brief Traveller 'recruitment pitch' scene in Farewell was also the last we saw of Wesley, chronologically speaking or as close to that as he can be, making it the waste of two premises.

There's still hope, however! We're not going to be getting Gary & Wesley's Travelling Detective Agency, the Assignment: Earth spin-off anytime soon, but both characters (and Kore) could show up anywhere, anytime, and especially in Star Trek: Discovery.