Originally posted Nov 2 on facebook:
So this review needs to take into account the fact that I missed the middle five minutes of this due to the fact that I was entertaining electricians (They were meant to come round between ten and twelve, no sign, then at twelve thirty three turned up! Like buses!) It wasn't too bad though because we all sat down with a cuppa and watched the rest of the episode together... :)
Anyway the episode. Much better than the Gamesters of Triskelion. The premise is that Kirk, Spock and Bones beam down to a planet where the culture is 1920s Chicago Mafiosi (seemingly, of Italian/Sicilian descent too). I got in the first few minutes (drive by shooting, paying protection money etc) that the writers were extremely critical of Mafia culture - hooray, I hate it and don't find anything to romanticise about it as has been done in so many gangster films (yawn). But I was quizzical as to how Kirk et al might have found this planet - they didn't travel back in time as far as I was aware.
I wasn't disappointed though! I was actually quite impressed by the explanation that the planet (with a pre-industrialised culture) was originally visited by an earlier ship, of which one of the crew members had left behind a book "Chicago Mobs of the Twenties". The planet's inhabitants had used this as their Bible and blueprint for how their culture should be and hence they were all in Mafiosi-like gangs, with bosses and territories! Ace! (We will overlook the fact that these dudes had cars, radios, synthetic fibres ;) and beautiful buildings without seemingly having any workers and scientists to develop and make these things. It would spoil it.)
What I really liked about this episode, and I felt it was much better handled than in the Gamesters of Triskelion, was the absolute repugnance that Kirk et al felt for the nasty violent culture that they encountered. As said above I do find the way that organised crime has been portrayed in films over-sentimentalised and distasteful and this episode made that quite clear. I also loved Kirk and Spock's gangster outfits which they donned halfway through the episode and Kirk's terrible driving skills! (He should have let Spock take the wheel).
One can also ponder the meaning of this episode, whether the writers wanted to extrapolate beyond Mafia culture to criticising the cut-throat nature of capitalism as a whole (the situation is eventually resolved by Kirk persuading all the bosses to work together as a governing council and give up their nasty violent ways). Or even, due to this Chicago book thing being the planet's Bible, whether the writers are criticising blind religious faith (Gosh!). But maybe I am reading too much into a simple TV drama.
One slight criticism is the fact that this episode was so Kirk-centric, though. He is ace there's no doubt about that but the roles should be balanced. Kirk took centre stage throughout, did all the cool feats and action scenes and Spock was reduced to standing next to Kirk looking slightly uncomfortable and randomly beaming up to and down from the ship halfway through the episode due to a highly illogical plot device (Boo). And Bones! we only saw him about twice in the whole thing! No redshirts beaming down to be killed and about two sentences from Scotty back in the ship - the budget must have been about 2p for this episode.
Still. I loved it. Apparently in Star trek the Las Vegas experience (shudder) you can order a dish called "A Pizza the Action". Should I ever be passing that way I'll definitely give it a try!
