'Bread and Circuses', production #43 was one of the last episodes made by Gene L. Coon himself who left the second season of Star Trek after 'A Private Little War.' (production #45.) The entire premise of this show was different from other Trek-Earth parallel stories such as 'Who Mourns for Adonis', or the subpar 'Plato's Stepchildren'. Here, captain Merik of the USS Beagle actually obeys the Federation's prime directive and avoids cross-cultural contamination with the inhabitants of planet 892-IV, a carbon copy of the ancient Romans when he orders his personnel to beam down to the planet--and essentially die. The head of the Romans, the cruel and vindictive Claudius Marcus, knows all about the Federation and its prime directive of non-interference. Bread and Circuses is an obvious what if: if the Roman Empire had survived into the 23rd century, what would life have been like today? Savage gladiatorial duels are now transmitted on live TV and dissident "sun worshippers" are shown resisting the regime. We have a classic McCoy-Spock interaction in the slave pens and the Trek trio including captain Kirk know that they all face certain death unless they violate the prime directive. Kirk--while threatened at gunpoint--still deliberately refuses to betray his own crew by ordering them to transport themselves down to the planet and instead uses the word "condition green" to Scotty to signal that his party are in trouble but the Enterprise musn't rescue them. Everyone obeys the prime directive which seemingly condemns the Trek trio to a painful death.
Roddenberry nicely lays out his conception of how slaves in our modern world would function while the Roman guards are equipped with both modern machine guns as well as ancient daggers to honour the memory of their predecessors. In the end, Kirk, Spock and McCoy are saved from death in the arena by the traitorous Merik himself who tells Scotty to home in on the communicator's general coordinates and beam the trio up. Merik is rewarded for his bravery by being stabbed to death by Marcus while Kirk, Spock and McCoy narrowly miss being machine gunned to death when Scotty beams them up in time. There are several classic lines in this show including one to the dissident gladiators and sunworshipper Flavius that if he brought down the show's ratings: "We'll do a special on you."
This episode was a tense tightly wound story by Gene L. Coon and since Coon was one of my favourite Star Trek producers, I highly recommend it. There are many great production values here.
Roddenberry nicely lays out his conception of how slaves in our modern world would function while the Roman guards are equipped with both modern machine guns as well as ancient daggers to honour the memory of their predecessors. In the end, Kirk, Spock and McCoy are saved from death in the arena by the traitorous Merik himself who tells Scotty to home in on the communicator's general coordinates and beam the trio up. Merik is rewarded for his bravery by being stabbed to death by Marcus while Kirk, Spock and McCoy narrowly miss being machine gunned to death when Scotty beams them up in time. There are several classic lines in this show including one to the dissident gladiators and sunworshipper Flavius that if he brought down the show's ratings: "We'll do a special on you."
This episode was a tense tightly wound story by Gene L. Coon and since Coon was one of my favourite Star Trek producers, I highly recommend it. There are many great production values here.