Product Details

• Actors: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Anthony Caruso, Vic Tayback
• Directors: James Komack
• Writers: Gene Roddenberry, David P. Harmon, Gene L. Coon
• Producers: Gene Roddenberry, John Meredyth Lucas, Robert H. Justman
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: CBS Paramount International Television
• VHS Release Date: April 15, 1994
• Run Time: 46 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6300213536
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #123,712 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This smart, funny episode finds the Enterprise visiting the planet Iotia, where the starship Horizon accidentally left behind Earth materials a century before. During that time, as Captain Kirk (William Shatner) discovers, the Iotians have made much of one of those items, a book called Chicago Mobs of the Twenties. The planet's population has divided into rival gangs who dress, speak, and do violence like the spiritual descendants of Al Capone, plunging Kirk, Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and McCoy (DeForest Kelley) into a facsimile of Earth's colorful and dangerous past.

The episode is played for comedy: Kirk and Spock keep getting kidnapped by the warring hoods, each of whom wants the Federation team to use their technology to defeat the other side. The big payoff, however, is a summit meeting of bosses, where Kirk employs plenty of gangster-movie jargon to get matters settled. --Tom Keogh

From the Back Cover

Following up a visit 100 years before, the crew discovers the planet Iotia has modeled its society on Earth's gangsters of the '20s! TREK TRIVIA
Vic Tayback (Jojo Krako) went on to fame as diner-owner Mel in the TV series Alice. John Harmon (Tepo), a veteran of gangster films, appeared as Rodent (the man who drops the milk) in "The City On the Edge of Forever."
When Kirk and Spock drive off in the car, you can glimpse parts of Paramount Studios in the background: the back of the old New York faade street, the fence that separated Desilu and Paramount, and the side of Stage 10, which was home to the Star Trek planet sets.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This episode gets an A grade and is ranked 6th out of 80, October 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Star Trek - The Original Series, Episode 49: A Piece of the Action [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The planet Iotia's last visit by the Federation was by the U.S.S. Horizon... a hundred years before. Realizing the lapse in monitoring the planet, the Federation sends the U.S.S. Enterprise to observe the progress of Iotia's population. Beaming down to the planet's surface, Kirk, Spock and McCoy are surprised to see a much different society -- an Earth-like 1920s gangster culture -- than was reported by the U.S.S. Horizon crew. Bodily seized, the landing crew are taken before one of the major planetary leaders, mobster Bela Oxmyx. Wishing to unite the population under his rule, Bela offers Kirk "a piece of the action" in exchange for the technologically advanced weapons of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Meanwhile, the other lead gangster, Jojo Krako, has his own idea about being the head mobster and captures the Enterprise officers. Struggling to gain the upper hand in this comical power struggle, Kirk creates a diversion... a little card game known as Fizzbin. Without knowing the nuances of the culture, Kirk and Spock try to accomplish their mission when Kirk attempts to drive a car and Spock strives to speak in gangster slang. Finally, Bela Oxmyx is given a display of the Federation's power when he is beamed aboard the Enterprise and held hostage in the transporter room. Arranging a meeting between the two antagonists, Kirk is successful in uniting the two gangs in a loose system of government with the Federation as Godfather... for a piece of the action, of course. Furthermore, upon discovering a book -- "Chicago Mobs of the Twenties" -- the U.S.S. Horizon crew left behind 100 years before, Kirk and Spock finally understand how the highly imitative Iotians reinvented their entire society. Back aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, Kirk notices McCoy unusually drawn and worried. When questioned, McCoy is forced to admit that he thinks he left his communicator on Iotia, leaving him to wonder what type of planetary society the next Federation visit will find....

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellence, May 29, 2001

By 

Joseph Tollefson (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Star Trek - The Original Series, Episode 49: A Piece of the Action [VHS] (VHS Tape)

In my opinion, A Piece Of The Action is in the top 3 episode category along with Mirror Mirror and the Corbomite Manuever. The whole episode is very deep and never uneventful. The action never stops. It employs humor in the form of "slang talk" which people like Spock and McCoy dont understand. I cant explain it all here, but I will tell you it is a very good episode.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The funniest of the original series, September 1, 2003

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Star Trek - The Original Series, Episode 49: A Piece of the Action [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is without question the funniest episode of the original Star Trek series. There is no funnier deadpan scene anywhere in television than the one where Kirk is "explaining" the fizzbin card game and asks Spock what the odds are against getting a royal fizzbin. His deadpan, yet truthful answer is, "I have never computed them." I laughed out loud the first time I saw that and still smile when I see it, even though I have seen it over fifty times.
The main premise is that a Federation vessel visited a planet before the Prime Directive was imposed and members of the crew interacted with the planet's inhabitants and contaminated them. Therefore, the primary task of the Enterprise is to repair the damage. The earlier Federation vessel left a book that described the Chicago gangs of the prohibition era and the inhabitants have modeled their entire culture after the book. Their clothing, buildings, speech and social structure are all modeled from the gangster movie cliches.
After many trials and errors, including Kirk trying to drive a car, there is a climactic scene where Kirk takes charge and unifies the government under one of the gang bosses. His pacing on a pool table while brandishing a machine gun and speaking one gangland cliché after another is one of the best scenes in the entire original series. His solution, where the Federation is described as an interplanetary gang, is funny and original. I have always wondered what the reaction of Star Fleet command was to his report of how he solved the contamination problem.
Funny, and essentially a spoof of a movie genre, this is one of the best Star Trek episodes ever, original series and beyond.