2x25 Bread and Circuses

[7.3/10] “Bread and Circus” is a bit half-baked, but still entertaining enough for everything to work just about as well as it needs to. It offers one of the usual Kirk vs. Local Potentate tete-a-tetes, some great Spock-McCoy moments, and even some decent action.

Naturally, it starts with our heroes implausibly finding yet another parallel Earth. But this time, there’s a twist! It’s Rome, except it’s a modern day Rome, with automobiles and televisions but also togas and televised gladiator fights. It’s all a bit silly, even nonsensical (particularly when Spock remarks that they’re speaking English -- which is a can of worms the show would do better not to draw attention to), but it makes for an amusing setting and a decent premise, albeit one that is, contrary to Mr. Spock’s declarations, entirely illogical.

It also features another Starfleet Captain gone native. This time it’s Captain Merik who was initially stranded on the planet, but then decided he liked it so much that he not only became “First Citizen” in their Roman Society, but sent the members of his crew with reservations to fight and die in the arena. There’s much hand-wringing over that darn prime directive, particularly after Merik introduces the Enterprise’s main trio to Claudius Marcus, the “proconsul” and de facto leader of the society, whom he’s told everything.

It’s here that the episode gets a bit incoherent. There’s a bit of the standard “this isn’t our way of life, but maybe there’s merit in it” back and forth that the show does so often. Merik argues that while the gladiator games seem barbaric, but suggests they’ve been an outlet for the planet’s war-like urges and with that to blow off societal steam, there has been no war for four-hundred years. And then...later...he just changes his mind and helps Kirk escape for reasons that are super unclear.

Maybe it has to do with Claudius. Claudius’s pitch to the spacemen is that their society is a stable one, where the strong men survive, as in nature, and that the concept of other ways or alternative methods of organizing society would undo that stability. Merik appears to have some minor jealousy and/or admiration for Kirk, so seeing Kirk fight and be called a “real man” by Claudius may prompt Merik to turn on Claudius, or it may just be that seeing Kirk imperiled is enough to convince him to help Kirk leave or that this society isn’t all peaches and cream after all. The episode mostly glosses over all this stuff in the name of rough-and-tumble excitement, and it’s not a bad call.

The peak of the episode is a gladiator fight pitting Spock and Bones against Flavius, a local escaped slave who ran away after he discovered a new local and peaceful monotheistic religion, and the Roman equivalent of a red shirt. The episode cuts back and forth between Spock toying with his attacker while Bones and Flavius are trying to make their fight look convincing, and Kirk engaging in the usual “aint our society great”/“you don’t understand” pontification with Merik and Claudius. It’s a long scene, but going back and forth between the action and the observers helps pace it very nicely.

It also includes one of the best things to recommend this episode -- plenty of excellent Spock-McCoy banter. In all of the faux-Roman trappings and jumbled meditations on “might makes right” philosophy, “Bread and Circuses” takes time out to dig into the contentious but affectionate relationship between the Enterprise’s first officer and chief surgeon.

That makes the episode both funny and a little touching. It’s amusing to hear Bones jokingly lament the prime directive, noting that just once he wishes he could beam down to a new planet and claim he’s the archangel Gabriel, while Spock could only pass as the devil. Later, Spock ribs him back that he didn’t realize McCoy was trained or had any logic at all, and assumed that he just proceeded based on trial and error. And during the gladiator games (which are, amusingly enough, shot on a standard studio set), the two have a great back and forth where Spock asks if McCoy need helps as he’s being pummeled by his foe and Bones rants about how that’s the most illogical question anyone’s ever asked.

Then, in a quiet moment, McCoy tries to thank Spock for saving his life in the arena, and Spock’s curt answer sends Bones into another rant about how Spock doesn’t fear death because it would stop the human side of him from peeking out, the thing he’s so afraid of. In a devastating, well-written line, Bones declares that Spock wouldn’t even know what to do with a warm feeling if it had one. Spock blanches just a bit, and even though they fight -- McCoy calls back to the great line that even they don’t know whether they’re enemies sometimes -- they understand one another better than they let on. And Bones perceives that Spock’s frantic (by his standards anyway) attempts to get out of their prison come from a place of worry about Kirk.

Kirk, of course, is fine, enjoying the opportunity to bed one of the local slaves, adding yet another morally questionably romantic conquest to his ledger. Thankfully, up in the sky, Scotty is dancing around the prime directive, and creating a power blackout on the planet just long enough for Kirk and company to make their escape during Kirk’s would-be live execution.

Flavius sacrifices himself for thin reasons. So does Merik. But by hook or by crook, our heroes make their way back to the enterprise (relatively) unharmed. It’s there that the episode gets downright silly. While Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were puzzling at the development of these “sun-worshippers,” Uhura reveals that she’s been listening to local radio and learned something important (it’s nice to see her get one of those big “here’s the twist” moments at the end of the episode) -- that they’re actually “son-worshippers.”

That’s right! The Romans found Jesus! It’s a fairly ridiculous twist in an already ridiculous parallel development, but hey, that’s half the fun I suppose. Between the flag-waving of “The Omega Glory” and the admiring tones in which the bridge crew reflect on the spread of Christianity, it’s clear that Star Trek is upping its ‘Merica cred as it closes out its second season. Regardless, “Bread and Circuses” works best when the viewer doesn’t take it too seriously, with a fun-if-standard caper for Kirk and some great Spock and McCoy stuff that reveals that however much they butt heads, they know one another and when it counts, are there for one another.