No Roman Charges, yet (Review: 'Star Trek' 2.25, "Bread and Circuses")

So, I am a white Christian man, born in a city founded by the Roman Empire. My experience of this episode will of course be different to someone not of that background... and it's going to difficult to avoid sounding 'privileged'. But here we go.

****

The Prime Directive was Star Trek's response to the Vietnam War, which its writers saw as the United States interfering in the development of a SE Asian culture. In this episode, the crew searching for the survivors of a lost commercial survey ship find a "20th Century Rome" where gladiator fights are shown on television and slaves get pensions. Roddenberry and Gene L. Coon wrote this episode off an idea by an uncredited John Kneubuhl - it is definitely an interesting one.

The main three, looking to find out what happened to the crew encounter a group of escaped slaves whose 'rags' look remarkably like store-bought T-shirts, before getting captured, discovering that the captain has ended up in charge. I have seen this last one before; it goes back to The Tempest at least. Certainly the world, what we see of it, is well realised and the revelation that the arena is a studio set with audience "reactions" controlled by dials is a great one, raising questions about our contemporary television. Something as a medium that the TOS era seems to have moved beyond.

McCoy in particular is wonderfully acerbic throughout this episode, demonstrating great chemistry with Spock including in one scene often cut in syndication. Kirk does more of that Earth thing called kissing, but at least his shirt doesn't get ripped off.

Best guest star is Logan Ramsey as Claudius Marcus, who is wonderfully smarmy. William Smithers, who is now 94, does a good job as Merik, the former captain. The female guest cast are less well served. One is a slave girl in another skimpy costume. The other doesn't get named. At least Uhura gets stuff to do. 

The crew are rescued by another bending of the Prime Directive and Uhura suggests that a parallel to Christianity is developing that will see an improvement in time. That's a very 'Western' take on things considering what ended up being done in the name of Christianity, although I must point out that the zealots in any society often haven't read their own holy book properly. As we're witnessing in multiple places right now, such as in Texas. Which begs the question of when interference is appropriate.

****

Conclusion

Enjoyable, although somewhat dated. Could have been even better if the production wasn't rushed at studio management insistence.

8/10