A Piece of the Action

In what must be one of the funniest episodes of the series (and a great indicator of the series' intentional comedic possibilities -- brought to fruition in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home), the Enterprise crew visits a planet that has taken a historical text on 1920s Chicago gangs as its bible. As the residents of the planet are remarkably imitative in nature, the planet's residents have divided themselves into a series of criminal gangs, two of which are headed by Bela Oxmyx (Anthony Caruso) and Jojo Kracko (Vic Tayback), and Kirk and Spock find themselves in the middle.

What makes this otherwise frivolous episode work is the fun Shatner and Nimoy have with the historical disconnect -- most notably in Kirk's efforts to drive a car (and Spock's reactions thereto) and his subsequent efforts to pick up the lingo of the planet. Needless to say, Shatner plays this for all it's worth, and Nimoy's gift for understatement complements it beautifully.

Truly a joy to watch -- just don't spend too much time analyzing it.

The Enterprise crew arrives at a planet a hundred years after another ship arrived there. The Iotians are an imitative race and have patterned their culture after the 1920's gangster culture of the U. S. This happened because someone left a book on he planet outlining the gangland characters. This has become their Bible. There is a battle going on for territory as the factions put hits on each other. The joy of the episode is watching Kirk and Spock try to adapt to the society without encroaching on he prime directive. There are great scenes as Kirk, and even more ridiculously, Spock try to mimic the dialect and nomenclature of the time. There is the priceless scene the two attempting to drive a flivver. Kirk jerks along, not quite getting the hang of the clutch, and Spock tells him he is a great captain but a horrible, dangerous driver. The guys need to meet the gang bosses on their own level, but what is this. Anyway, it is great fun and one of the most memorable in the series. One other thing, Kirk and Spock look great in those zoot suits.

A few months after I moved to Japan to teach English in the late 90's, I was starting to get a bizarre Star Trek Deja Vu. Rather than wearing Kimono and wooden clogs and all the traditional stuff they show in the guidebooks, everyone, EVERYONE, wore Western clothing that was all slightly offkilter. Western boots with high spiked heels, 10-inch platform shoes, died blonde or orange hair, T-shirts with English messages that made no sense, a predilection for uniforms, black business suits that belonged to morticians, ubiquitous high skirts and stockingless legs for women between 6 and 40, to name just a few examples. I was especially taken aback by the commonplace adoption of English words into Japanese that were used, pronounced and spelled wrong dozens of different ways. A friend of mine held out his hand in a light drizzle and said to me, "Look, Penny Rain, like in the Beatle song."

Finally I said to myself, "Now, this is a highly imitative Alien culture." Then I thought, "just like the Iotians in 'A Piece of the Action.'" For the next ten years, I kept my sanity only by imagining myself in the Reality TV version of "A Piece of the Action II." I've often wondered if the author of this script-- was it D.C. Fontana?-- had visited Japan. But really, when Old Commodore Perry first landed in Japan in 1853, crew members reported finding blueprints of devices and weapons pilfered from the ships for sale in the local markets. It could easily have been blueprints of Federation-issued phasers. Talk about your highly imitative Alien cultures.

I think the creators of this episode were right to make it a comedy-- it IS a comedy!-- and if the clowning around in pinstripe suits and tommy guns --I remember Fizzbin well!-- eclipses the core anthropological idea, so be it. Its still one of Star Trek's Classics, and it still makes me chuckle whenever I think of it.

And remember, all Japan wants is a piece of OUR action.

OK, here we go...a hundred years ago (funny how it's almost always a clean century back?), a Federation ship, The Horizon, visited this planet and left behind a book about the Chicago mobs of the 1920's. This book is the contamination, as Spock terms it, a bible on which an entire civilization has based its culture on. See, these people are imitative. The concept could be scary, an unsettling reminder of how an entire society of people can be deluded into following a certain doctrine, whether it makes sense or not. Well, whatever turns a profit makes sense to most people. But, the Trek-makers decided to go the comedy route on this one. Most of the humor stems from all the catchy phrases that Kirk and his boys get inundated with during the course of the adventure. They get 'bagged' by Bela, the big boss, almost immediately; they break free, but Kirk is soon put 'on ice' by Krako, the second most powerful goon. Then Tepo gets a ride to Bela's flop while on the other end of his blower. Check? Right!

The whole thing is ridiculous if you step back and look with a fairly objective eye but, by the 3rd act, we're so immersed in the escapades it doesn't matter. Here's Kirk's chance to play God once more, served up to him on a platter: the Federation itself is responsible for this culture getting out of whack years back, so Kirk, rubbing his hands together in anticipation, knows he has a great chance here, a duty really, to rectify matters. A rationalization? Maybe. But, so what? So soon we have 'Kirk-o' and 'Spock-o' dressed to the nines, toting their machine guns, re-organizing an entire culture - not in theory, but in practice; Kirk's a field commander, after all, not some deskbound pencil-pusher. He plays the game of the locals and, because he's Kirk, he plays it better. Speaking of playing games, his creation of the Fizz-bin card game is an instant classic, especially as I could swear that Shatner was ad-libbing the entire scene, changing the rules with each card played. My favorite scene, however, is with Scotty & Krako, their conversation about cement overshoes.

This second season episode of "Star Trek," lays on the goofy qualities a bit thick at times! William Shatner hams it up shamelessly in his attempts to imitate a gangster after he and his party land on a planet that resembles 1920s Chicago. I can't recall seeing Kirk and Spock dressed in 1920s suits very often. This is harmless fun, to be fair. The cast look as though they are having a good time and that's one way of encouraging the viewers to do the same. It's best to switch off the brain when seeing this.