A Piece of the Action (12 Jan. 1968)

The crew of Enterprise struggles to cope with a planet of imitative people who have modeled their society on 1920's gangsters.

Director:

James Komack

Writers:

Gene Roddenberry (creator), David P. Harmon (teleplay),

Stars:

William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley

Cast

Episode complete credited cast:
William Shatner	...	Captain James T. Kirk
Leonard Nimoy	...	Mr. Spock
DeForest Kelley	...	Dr. McCoy
Anthony Caruso	...	Bela
Vic Tayback	...	Krako (as Victor Tayback)
Lee Delano	...	Kalo
James Doohan	...	Scott
Nichelle Nichols	...	Uhura
Walter Koenig	...	Chekov
John Harmon	...	Tepo
Sheldon Collins	...	Tough Kid
Dyanne Thorne	...	First Girl
Sharyn Hillyer	...	Second Girl
Buddy Garion	...	Hood
Steven Marlo	...	Zabo (as Steve Marlo)

Storyline

The Enterprise investigates a planet visited 100 years ago by the U.S.S. Horizon. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down and find themselves in a culture similar to Earth gangs of 1920 Chicago. They are quickly taken prisoner by men in the employ of a mob boss named Bela Oxmyx, who wishes them to give him phasers in exchange for "a piece of the action." When they refuse, Oxmyx puts them under guard. Kirk creates a diversion with a card game called "fizzbin," but without their equipment, the trio must find a way to unite the planet and escape to the Enterprise alive.

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Plot Keywords:

1920s | card game | gangster | phaser | knife | 

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi

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Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

12 January 1968 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Television, Norway Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

50 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Kirk and Spock "borrow" an old-fashioned Earth-style car (which Spock even refers to as a "flivver"). This is the only time in Star Trek that any character is depicted using ground transportation.

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Goofs

The balls on the billiard table change frequently, between shots, and also remain exactly the same when the camera is looking at Kirk, despite Oxmyx having made several shots.

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Quotes

Bela Oxmyx: The most co-operative man in this world is a dead man. And if you don't keep your mouth shut, you're gonna be co-operatin'.

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Connections

Referenced in Futurama: Where No Fan Has Gone Before (2002)

User Reviews

More Realistic than you'd Think!

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.