I guess. Still, a great scene.
Star Trek TOS Re-Watch
- Thread starter Commander Troi
- Start date
Rewatching TOS. Just finished "A Piece of the Action." I'm not a mafia-movie lover, but who doesn't love Shatner absorbing the Chicago mob talk and announcing, "Scotty, this is Koik!"
If you're a Christian, I guess. I found it eye-rolling.
"A Piece of the Action" was Star Trek's answer to a then-recent hit movie, Robin and the 7 Hoods.
I posted the details here:
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/new-discovery-about-a-piece-of-the-action.306303/
The only line from that episode that I find funny is Spock's "I'd advise ya's to keep dialin', Oxmyx." The series really went around the bend with this one.
Well, as long as you believe in some higher power.
Well it has to be Christ based. I mean, Jewish folks probably wouldn't find it all that inspiring.
As a non-religious person, I do appreciate it for the historical importance. I don't get chills, but I do with they were able to play that up a bit more rather than simply having it as a last act twist before the fade out.
Honestly, I love this episode. It's my favorite of the parallel Earth stories.
I think part of it is that it's an event that happened about 2,000 years ago on Earth, so not a lot of info on it beyond the written word. Assuming it is true, it would be quite an event to witness.
I liked when Scotty thought he was finally getting it, with that cement galoshes comment.
Ahywho...
I fell into a production order rewatch and as of last night have gotten to Court Martial. As much as an episodic series can run in any order, I do enjoy watching the cast relax into their roles and in particular watching Spock develop. I started from Where No Man Has Gone Before because I wanted to watch The Cage through the lens of the two parter.
The John D.F. Black period was exciting and more hard sci-fi than the Coon era. It took two episodes for Coon to relax enough to introduce the “happy ending” to the series. The Galileo Seven is his first episode to end on a laugh and it’s a legendary force affair. Such a great episode with tension, jeopardy and death ending in an over the top laugh scene where Scotty is so breathless he needs to hold onto the doorjamb. Ugh.
Anyway, here are my 2023 revised ratings for each episode I’ve rewatched thus far:
Where No Man Has Gone Before: **** - incredible pilot. Feels like a feature
The Corbomite Maneuver: ***** wow
Mudd’s Women: *** better than I remember.
The Enemy Within: *****
The Man Trap: **** better than reputation
The Naked Time: *****
Charlie X: *** ½ Take out the rec room scene and it’s perfect.
Balance of Terror: *****
What Are Little Girls Made Of?: *** ½ one of two episodes where Spock is left in the background.
Dagger of the Mind: *** Okay episode, needs more Spock but still a pivotal episode for him
John DF Black is replaced by Coon at this point:
Miri: *** ½ I like this one better now. Great horror. Feels like a John Black episode
The Conscience of the King: *** Still feels like a Black produced show
The Galileo Seven: **** Great episode for Spock as he starts to soften
Court Martial: ** ½ This one didn’t age well. Goofy courtroom procedure with some great dialog but sabotaged by some sloppiness. I think it’s the last time we see Uhura at the navigation console. Every Star Trek show has at least one courtroom episode and I never like them.
Honestly, I think Spock is much more interesting in the pre-Coon episodes. He’s cold, alien and given to little smiles. The series was still trying new things and embracing cool sci-fi concepts. It’s dead serious and the lighting is even different. There are more colored lights and deeper shadows. Either way, other than one substandard episode so far, the show is consistently very good at its worst.
I fell into a production order rewatch and as of last night have gotten to Court Martial. As much as an episodic series can run in any order, I do enjoy watching the cast relax into their roles and in particular watching Spock develop. I started from Where No Man Has Gone Before because I wanted to watch The Cage through the lens of the two parter.
The John D.F. Black period was exciting and more hard sci-fi than the Coon era. It took two episodes for Coon to relax enough to introduce the “happy ending” to the series. The Galileo Seven is his first episode to end on a laugh and it’s a legendary force affair. Such a great episode with tension, jeopardy and death ending in an over the top laugh scene where Scotty is so breathless he needs to hold onto the doorjamb. Ugh.
Anyway, here are my 2023 revised ratings for each episode I’ve rewatched thus far:
Where No Man Has Gone Before: **** - incredible pilot. Feels like a feature
The Corbomite Maneuver: ***** wow
Mudd’s Women: *** better than I remember.
The Enemy Within: *****
The Man Trap: **** better than reputation
The Naked Time: *****
Charlie X: *** ½ Take out the rec room scene and it’s perfect.
Balance of Terror: *****
What Are Little Girls Made Of?: *** ½ one of two episodes where Spock is left in the background.
Dagger of the Mind: *** Okay episode, needs more Spock but still a pivotal episode for him
John DF Black is replaced by Coon at this point:
Miri: *** ½ I like this one better now. Great horror. Feels like a John Black episode
The Conscience of the King: *** Still feels like a Black produced show
The Galileo Seven: **** Great episode for Spock as he starts to soften
Court Martial: ** ½ This one didn’t age well. Goofy courtroom procedure with some great dialog but sabotaged by some sloppiness. I think it’s the last time we see Uhura at the navigation console. Every Star Trek show has at least one courtroom episode and I never like them.
Honestly, I think Spock is much more interesting in the pre-Coon episodes. He’s cold, alien and given to little smiles. The series was still trying new things and embracing cool sci-fi concepts. It’s dead serious and the lighting is even different. There are more colored lights and deeper shadows. Either way, other than one substandard episode so far, the show is consistently very good at its worst.
I am a Christian, but I can see why non-Christians would feel uncomfortable about that scene. Also, they should have omitted the assertion that Romans spoke English; to coin a phrase, it is illogical.
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Possible, although Roddenberry's one sentence description of the proposed episode "President Capone" in his March 1964 series pitch predated the June release of the Robin film.
http://leethomson.myzen.co.uk/Star_Trek/1_Original_Series/Star_Trek_Pitch.pdf
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I am sure it would be quite difficult to get such an episode made today, especially the ending.
If you read the original post at this link...
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/new-discovery-about-a-piece-of-the-action.306303/
...I would love to see you explain the similarities away as coincidences.
Or maybe you'll see what I meant.
I always thought the episode was more in response to the popular film Bonnie and Clyde released in August 1967. The episode first aired in January 1968.
The parallel Earth trick was getting incredibly old by this time in the series' run, but the sense of prevailing threat keeps the suspense going. There are a number of gritty moments, plus a great Spock/McCoy scene from what I can remember.
It was a great last-second escape scene. No less brutal, certainly by 1960s tv standards.
It's not a great episode.
But it's not a clunker.
Here's the clip of the Sun/Son scene:
The episode is unquestionably dated, and likely will never be seen as an outright classic by many no matter how much time transpires, but the general philosophy if not metaphor, rather than the literal wording, still suggests a romanticism.
UHURA: I'm afraid you have it all wrong, Mister Spock, all of you. I've been monitoring some of their old-style radio waves, the empire spokesman trying to ridicule their religion. But he couldn't. Don't you understand? It's not the sun up in the sky. It's the Son of God.
If nothing else, Spock got corrected by Uhura, which already makes for a robust scene as it's not often when another bridge crewmember gets to one-up our favorite Vulcan, and for that matter it's neither McCoy nor Kirk she's able to provide the missing piece to. But also listen to how she says it, her facial expression, and so on -- what do those aspects suggest about Uhura as a character? Is she a believer of this planet's civilization's words? Or romanticizing the notion? Both? Or something else entirely?
KIRK: Caesar and Christ. They had them both. And the word is spreading only now.
MCCOY: A philosophy of total love and total brotherhood.
MCCOY: A philosophy of total love and total brotherhood.
It's easy to see how McCoy's line becomes sexist at the end. Remove those last two words and it's no longer an androcentric term, assuming the original word was coined in the same vein. Which it was, but the first redefinition to be more properly inclusive came in the 1700s - some three centuries later:
https://www.etymonline.com/word/brotherhood
The meaning "a class of individuals of the same kind" is from 1728. The meaning "community feeling uniting all humankind" is from 1784
If there's a new word that supersedes the androcentric nature yet retains the all-encompassing meaning, it's been 2.39 centuries since then and yet no term has yet been coined that supersedes every other word currently shoehorned in?
I'm a Christian and I'm not bothered by the discussion of "Not the sun, the Son." I'm used to literary perspectives on Christianity. I think it's inaccurate, but then of course this is science fiction, so it's fiction. I enjoyed the parallel Earth and parallel Christianity.
I also think that Christianity is more than just total love and brotherhood and that it's not even necessarily history's best example of those things. Makes for interesting television. (Not sure I'm qualified to judge if it's good television, but I enjoyed it.)
I also think that Christianity is more than just total love and brotherhood and that it's not even necessarily history's best example of those things. Makes for interesting television. (Not sure I'm qualified to judge if it's good television, but I enjoyed it.)
You can't be serious. "A Piece of the Action" closely copies very specific aspects of Robin and the 7 Hoods.
By contrast, Bonnie and Clyde has nothing to do with Chicago mobs of the twenties, meaning the clichéd urban organized crime culture. Also, Shatner is not doing a Warren Beatty impression. He's doing Peter Falk's character from Robin and the 7 Hoods, and doing it very openly. And the whole Star Trek episode leads up to the 7 Hoods scene where Falk/Shatner declares that all the other bosses will now pay a percentage to him. I must have missed that scene during Bonnie and Clyde.
I like the modern day Romans, the swords and machineguns, works pretty well for a one hour episode. I always thought it was one of the better episodes. One thing to keep in mind, Uhura has been monitoring their broadcasts, so it was quite obvious to her what they were talking about.
McCoy's comment wasn't meant to exclude women at all, a brotherhood can include women, just as the term "mankind" includes everyone (not aliens).
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