Episode Title: A Piece of the Action
Air Date: 1/12/1968
Written by David P.
Harmon and Gene L. Coon
Directed by James
Komack
Cast: William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones” James Doohan as Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty” Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie Frank Da Vinci as Lieutenant Brent Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley Walter Koenig as Ensign Pavel Chekov Jeannie Malone as unnamed Yeoman Anthony Caruso as Bela Oxmyx Victor Tayback as Jojo Krako Lee Delano as Kalo John Harmon as Tepo Sheldon Collins as unnamed Tough Kid Dyanne Thorne as unnamed First Girl Sharyn Hillyer as unnamed Second Girl Buddy Garion as unnamed Hood Steven Marlo as Zabo Diego Barquinero as unnamed Radio Voice Nick Borgani as unnamed Hood Marlys Burdette as unnamed Krako's Girl Tony Dante as unnamed Hood Jay D. Jones as Mirt Jim Michael as unnamed Hood
Ships: USS
Enterprise NCC-1701
Planets: Sigma Iotia II
My Spoiler filled summary and review: The Enterprise is heading toward Sigma Iotia II a planet that was last visited a hundred years ago by the Horizon. The Horizon’s mission took place a before the Prime Directive was established. Because the Horizon did not have a subspace radio a century ago it took that amount of time for its logs to reach the Federation after the ship was destroyed. Uhura is able to get communication with one of Iotia’s leaders, a man named Bela Oxmyx whose only title is “Boss.” The conversation between Kirk and Oxmyx is rough but they are able to arrange a meeting. As Spock and McCoy enter the bridge and Kirk then literally grabs and leads them back to the turbo lift to accompany him on the leading party to meet with “the Boss.”
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| The Bela Oxmyx greeting party |
The three men beam down and to their astonishment it appears that they have beamed down into Earth back during the 1920s. Everything the buildings, the vehicles, and the clothing all say the 1920s. McCoy makes note that it is just as he always read about, momentarily forgetting about the time where all three of them did go back to Earth in the 1920s. (McCoy can be forgiven for this oversite he was drugged for a good deal of the time.) There are some differences for every single man without exception wears a suit and carries a Tommy gun. Granted those things were popular but not everyone would be dressed and openly carried like that.
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| A very stereotypical 1920s group of people |
When the three head to the arranged
meeting place the landing party is shocked when the individuals sent out to
meet them point their guns, which they call heaters, and take them
hostage. The armed party forces the
Starfleet trio to hand over their weapons and their communicators. As they begin to bring the three to their
Boss, suddenly there is drive by shooting! One of the men is killed as the other fires back. Kirk wants to know the meaning of this to
which his captor responds by asking if he has never seen a hit before.
The three Starfleet officers arrive in the office of Bela Oxymx. This planet has no real government save for gangs. These gangs provide all the services from money from their “protection” tributes and other forced taxes, such as taking a ‘piece’ of all business that is done in their territories. Oxmyx gloats that he has the biggest territory on the planet but the problem with having the biggest is that everyone wants to challenge him. When Spock mentions Krako Oxymx immediately demands to know how they know of him. His own men inform him of the earlier hit to which Oxymx orders retaliation.
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| No choice but to go with them! |
Oxmyx invites Captain Kirk to play pool with him. Oxmyx has no real idea how to play pool as he just randomly hits balls that have nothing to with one another. Kirk just holds his pool stick while Oxmyx talks. The Boss figures that the Federation must have its have improved on its technology in the last hundred years and would like assistance from the Federation in taking over the rest of the planet. If they do this he would cut Kirk in for a percentage. Kirk of course refuses and with that Oxmyx tells Kirk that he is going keep all three of them hostage until the Enterprise hands over what they want.
With landing party “on ice” Oxmyx uses Kirk’s communicator to call up Scotty to make his demands. Scotty wouldn’t give in anyway, if he were inclined to however he would have been delayed as he can’t truly understand what it is Oxmyx is trying to tell him about “heaters.” While being held prisoner Kirk discusses with Spock and McCoy what it is they saw in there. The Iotians have based their entire culture on a book that they saw in Oxmyx’s office. The book was titled the Chicago Mobs of the Twenties and it was written in 1992. Using that book and some technical manuals left behind the Iotians organized their planet into mafia territories of the 1920s, except there isn’t any actual government but the said gangs. They Federation are the “the Feds” and the gangs handle all the issues in their territory. International diplomacy is all on a 20th century gangsters’ code of honor. Nevertheless Spock points out that Oxmyx is correct in wanting to unify the planet.
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| You are an effective Mafia Leader, but as pool player you leave a lot be desired! |
Kirk notices that Oxmyx’s men are as at good at playing cards as their boss is at pool. So he decides to teach them the game of Fizzbin, a fictitious game that he just made up. While distracting them with the confusing rules Mr. Spock is able to apply his never pinch on one and the trio defeat the rest using normal fisticuffs. Kirk orders Spock and McCoy to return to the ship. They achieve this by going to a local radio station and contacting Lt. Uhura who was monitoring the transmissions. Kirk heads out to Oxmyx’s place but he is then captured by man from the rival gang of JoJo Krako.
When Kirk is brought to Krako the
new boss behaves in a predictable manner, in fact Kirk is able to tell him his
plan before Krako gets it out of his mouth.
Krako does offer better terms but Kirk is no more tempted then
before. Krako decides to have his men hold
Kirk but with the Captain’s quick wit and fighting skills that are unequaled
anywhere in this galaxy he easily beats up his capturers and has an escape.
Kirk gets back to Oxmyx’s office just in time to rescue Spock and McCoy who had for some reason allowed Oxmyx to talk them into beaming back down. (Say what you want about Mr. Spock, but you can’t say he is not an optimist.) Kirk pulls a terminator-like strip and swap, sixteen years before first the Terminator movie came out. Then Kirk and Spock leave McCoy to watch Oxmyx why they head over to Krako’s to kidnap him and force him and Oxmyx to talk. They decide it would be better to take one of Oxmyx’s cars. Captain Kirk demonstrates an equal talent to me when it comes to driving a stick. He barely gets the car to Krako’s place without casualty. Then Spock delivers one of his best lines. He shows a great and excellent way to give constructive criticism. “Captain, you are an excellent starship commander, but as a taxi cab driver you leave a lot to be desired.”
With the help of a smart young kid Kirk and Spock get into Krako’s place and stun a few of his men. However Krako then gets the drop on them and has them out numbered. Kirk then tricks Krako into letting him talk to his ship and he has Scotty beam him up. Then Kirk and Spock use their supreme fighting skills to defeat Krako’s men.
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| A kid wants a piece of the action! |
To Spock’s horror they get to go on
another car ride. They get back to
Oxmyx’s place where McCoy was still holding them. They have Oxmyx call the all the other bosses
and Scotty uses transporter to beam them all into Oxmyx’s office. Using his new found gangster talk Kirk
explains to the bosses that the Federation is taking over and they are going to
form a syndicate. A discussion does
begin between the bosses but part way through they start questioning Kirk. None of them have seen this ship, except
Krako and he only saw two guys up there.
This is strange considering that Kirk brought all these people to the
office via a transporter. You would
think that someone who can apparently make a person else magically appear miles
away in mere seconds would be an individual you didn’t want to mess with. Nevertheless Krako gets excited when his men
come to spring him by attacking Oxmyx’s headquarters.
Kirk is once again uses his communicator to get himself out a jam with Krako by ordering the Enterprise to fire phasers with a stun setting on the streets knocking out all of Krako’s men. With that the bosses capitulate a syndicate is formed with Oxmyx as the chairman and Krako the deputy chairman.
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| Kirko the big winner! A front man for the Federation |
As the Enterprise gets set to leave Captain Kirk explains to Spock that
the 40% cut that the Federation agreed to receive and collect would go into a public treasury for
the planet’s development. Spock is
reassured as he was wondering how he was going to explain that part to the
Starfleet Command. McCoy is more
concerned. It turns out the Doctor left
his communicator behind. Given the
Iotians ability for mimicry there is now the legitimate concern that they may
disassemble the communicator and learn the basis of their technology. Kirk jokes that in the near future they may
start looking for a piece of their action.
Additional thoughts: I was very disappointed when I went on Amazon and looked up “Chicago Mobs in the Twenties 1992.” Try as I might I couldn’t find this book. I couldn’t believe it; with a twenty-four years notice and not a single Star Trek fan-20th century historian thought to write a book about Chicago mobs of 1920s and give it this title. How foolish, you would have had a built in audience you silly professional historians. Although I think that a 20th century gangster book would have been somewhat incomplete with no information about the Five Families of New York.
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| Someone should have written this twenty-eight years ago! |
What I think I love most about this episode is the Iotians try to replicate 1920s gangster culture so much that they are complete parody of it. It was amusing that every man was dressed in a suit and carries a Tommy gun. Even more amusing is that fact that each boss gangster has a sign on the front announcing who they are and that this place is theirs. Krako has a plaque and Oxmyx goes so far as to have photograph of himself holding a Tommy gun!
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| Oxmyx, explaining the book! |
What strikes me as odd is that each of the gangster’s territory is supposed to be like a nation state, yet the distance between the headquarters of Oxmyx and Krako is only a few blocks from the other. Also Krako talks about not getting arrested. Who arrests anyone? Last I checked they don’t have a Federal Government to make arrests. In fact they seem to view the Federation as “the Feds.”
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| The Big Boss: Bela Oxmyx |
In real life under the leadership of Lucky Luciano a national syndicate was formed that governed gangland activity amongst the mafia in the United States. The unnamed committee would be the deciding factor in dividing up the criminal action among the various families and would meditate any disputes. They had an enforcement arm called Murder Inc. that would deal with wayward members. They didn’t give us too many details about the organization except Oxmyx as the Chairman, but it seems strange the ultimate solution of Captain Kirk was out of the page of Lucky Luciano.
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| Lucky Luciano |
I liked when Krako’s men woke up
after getting their butts kicked by Kirk and Spock a second time and one of them mutters “not
again.” You would have thought they
learned something but they knocked out one more time with the power of the Enterprise.
Spock didn’t like Kirk’s driving
but I noticed he didn’t volunteer to drive himself. You would think being able to master a stick
is something a Vulcan would be good at.
It wasn’t Spock’s best episode seeing as he was successfully conned by
Oxmyx when he clearly should have known better. In this episode Spock seems to
have picked up Kirk’s bad habit of entering official logs at weird times, such
as about to be in the middle of duel with Trelane. Spock thinks a good time to make a log entry
is while he is captured by Oxmyx.
A good way to ignore the prime
directive by showing that is doesn’t apply in pre-contaminated cultures. It is also way more creative than just coming
up with another fake Earth. I really
enjoyed this episode it was funny without being out right silly. Star Trek can be great served either funny or
serious.
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