Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 54 Bread and Circuses
This was a favorite of mine as a kid. I studied a lot of Greek and Roman mythology back then (long story) and the idea of a planet where Rome never fell struck me as super cool. I particularily liked the Roman soldiers in ancient armor with submachineguns.
All that being said this episode was pretty dumb. The idea of planets developing exactly parallel histories or societies as Earth but with some slight difference had already been ground into the dust in The Omega Glory, Patterns of Force, and a Piece of the Action. If you add in all the time travel episodes, Miri, and the Squire of Gothos you would think that Star Trek faced some kind of budget issue and were writing stories that would allow them to use props, costumes, and sets that were lying around the studio grounds.
I think it also telling that all the “alternative Earth” episodes were all close together. I would bet they did A Piece of the Action and figured out this was a cool and easy way to crank out a few episodes. All kind of ridiculous (even if the universe is infinite and all possible worlds exist in it the odds of finding a parallel world even in our own galaxy are astronomically high), but not as ridiculous as finding out that every alien planet in the universe speaks American accented English.
This was the only one I can think of that had a real religious message and if you are not Christian you might have an issue with it. I love the fact that Spock thinks that “sun worshipers” are kind of silly but once Uhura explains that they are not worshiping the sun but rather the Son of God he thinks it makes logical sense. I kind of doubt a race dedicated to logic in all things would give any more credence to one religious belief over another, but whatever. I think that basing a whole “plot twist” on the similarity between two English words on a planet that has no business even speaking English is bass ackwards. Also, for the record the Roman Empire did not fall because of Christianity. It fell for a number of reasons, not the least of which include lead in the water supply and Germanic barbarians.
Still, a fun episode as long as you don’t look too carefully at Kirk taking advantage Drusilla, his one night sex slave. This whole episode was pretty much based on human trafficking, but given the fact that Kirk has the charisma to hook up with any female vertebrates (and most invertebrates, if they are clean) in his eyesight this is just being lazy (and creepy).
Dave
P.S. I just noticed that the image I pulled from the site lists this episode as number 43, which again was it’s production number but not its release number. That’s twice. I’m going to have to have a few words with my Star Trek t shirt people.
