Bread and Croutons

Well, that was just a comment on Drusilla's figure. Ah Gene, you scamp.

 

The only thing in the episode with more curves than Drusilla was the
Gene Winfield Reactor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reactor_(show_rod)

 

Yep.

My feeling had long been that they weren't clever enough about this. They could have done it a little less on-the-nose by mixing and matching. "Return of the Archons" is my go-to example, because they needn't have made the setting 1890 from top to bottom, in settings and costuming (and the damned 12 hour clocks). They could have mixed say 16th century jackets with c1900 trousers, etc., and got a look that was close to familiar but not quite on the nose. And don't even get me started on Planet Nazi...

 

Wow, I've totally overlooked that double meaning all these years. Nice catch (continuing the baseball pun)!

 

I kept waiting for TOS to do a disco planet/parallel planet episode, but alas that was before that dance craze came and went.

 

The first season of Buck Rogers (1979-80) worked in some space disco.

 

You must grant that the subtext is what you think happened, not what you know. And I say the subtext is purposely misleading:
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/bread-and-croutons.307822/#post-13757571

 

I grant that subtext isn't the text. And, even the text itself is quite often open to debate as a representation of what happens in-universe.

But I'm curious: what is the reason that you think in this case the subtext would be "purposely misleading?" We know the reason why subjects such as sex would not have been referenced directly on American network television of the 1960s, especially when questionable morality was involved. It was because it was considered indecent to portray it at all, in contrast to murder and violence. So, only indirect references could be made, and the less direct, the better. But in this case, what function would it have had to imply that something happens when it "really" doesn't? After having gone to the trouble to mislead us, why is there no reveal that things happened otherwise?

 

I think it's pretty clear the Captain got some action in "Bread and Circuses" just like he did in "Wink of an Eye".

 

The people making the episode wanted it to be spicy and exciting. They wanted Kirk to bang Drusilla. They were surely thinking like, "He's just a TV hero, it's more fun if he has ice water in his veins like James Bond!" But the constraints of '60s TV kept them from a full-on picture of Kirk doing that, which creates an opening for realism.

In-universe, Kirk would have a more textured thought process. He's not a cardboard hero. If a normal man is being held against his will, and he thinks he's being watched, and it's very likely that he and his two best friends will be dead soon, that man does not drop trou and dive into sex. He can't. A prison chaplain I saw on TV once said that men on death row generally don't touch their last meal. Same idea. The knot in your stomach overrides appetites for pleasure.

Plus, Kirk is a professional Starfleet officer trying to work a problem: save himself, his two friends, and his crew who might start beaming down in vulnerable little teams, like Merrick predicted.

The lamp going down inarguably depicts a passage of time. But we can fill in the blanks with a more realistic Kirk, a fleshed-out human being who's a little better than the writers even intended.

 

Better than the writers intended? Yeah, that answers my questions. Thanks.

 

I love Bread and Circuses.

One of my favorite episodes - and while my subjective taste differs greatly, I think everyone agrees objectively it has a couple of the best Spock/McCoy moments in the series.

A word on "parallel Earths": they never bothered me too much and I think this is one of the better examples of using cheaper props and backlots for a story that has SF twist and a morality play that resonates above and beyond its budget.

Now I still prefer broader stories than "parallel Earth" stories but if I had to rank "parallel Earth" stories I would rank Bread and Circuses very high along with Spectre of the Gun and (if you think they count as "parallel" Earth): City on the Edge of Forever and Assignment: Earth. Another one that is very Earth-like but very strong is A Private Little War

Failures include Tomorrow Is Yesterday (I just never cared about the guest star that much)
Miri (lol - parallel Earth itself! now THAT is where even I get pushed and what a silly ride that had NOTHING to do with the mystery of having the EXACT continental patterns lining up)
Omega Glory (hahahaha I am as patriotic as the next American but wow what a laughable "plot twist")
Patterns of Force - (nope. No way. The explanation of creating an "efficient society" does not have the explanative force the writers imagined it would. It begs far more questions than if they had just left it open-ended as to how they became "parallel Nazis")

Cheers!

 

The problem with The Omega Glory is that without the "plot twist" there is no story. It's a series of (exceptionally well done) fist fights. Even the central MacGuffin of immortality is pissed away to make room for the Flag.

Patterns of Force really just feels like a "use these costumes" story, not a tale dying to be told. The series was kind of losing creative steam here.

Miri: oy. Drop the "another Earth" entirely, make it a lost Earth colony, just recolor the standard planet model and you've got me sold.

Tomorrow is Yesterday is an "actual Earth" story, as are City on the Edge of Forever, Assignment Earth and arguably Spectre of the Gun. These aren't societies which are "like Earth." They are Earth (or an illusion of same). So, yeah, I exclude them.

A Piece of the Action has got to be my least favorite episode of the entire run.

 

Kirk and Spock go gangsta.

 

Even with the dumbass plot twist, there is no story. Like "Patterns of Force", the reveal begs even more questions than it supposedly answers. Glad to see most every fan agrees it is a stinker plot-wise. Presentation-wise, it is tight and filmed exceptionally well imo.

Director outshone the material the writer gave him by FAR.

Most of these did, yes. But Gil patterning the Nazi culture for its "efficiency" is questionable considering the manner in which that society arose was consolidation of governmental power through sheer racism. If not racism, then how did the Ekosians hate the "space Jews" (can't remember the species name). It would have to be a cultural zeitgeist of phenomenal power so that the "explanation" also begs more questions than it answers.

Not me hahaaha "NO BLAH BLAH BLAH!" Hahahahahaha

Fair enough. It still feels like the "cowboy episode" (Spectre of the Gun) etc etc. I could argue that parallel developments on actual Earth fits in the category of "creative uses for budget savers" but nah, I'm good.

Agreed. Only fun scene I had was the fizzbin scene but everything else was just corny. This puts it as my second least favorite to Miri being my least (fight me haha) Cheers!

 

I don't know about that. I guess I'll disagree, actually. The idea that it's not possible to be a benevolent Nazi is both pertinent today, and also evidently not everyone considers the idea obvious.

I don't doubt that a reason for doing the episode was that its cost could be justified with off-the-shelf props and costumes, though. Whether it grew out of the idea of affordability or it had some other inspiration, I don't know. These sorts of issues I pretty much have to turn to people like Fact Trek to sort out.

 

For Bread and Circuses, my in-universe theory:
1. We know that Apollo and his friends visited Earth which seeded the Greek culture which basically morphs into the Roman Empire (or at least their pantheon) which eventually becomes the TOS Earth with the most common language being English.
2. Apollo, et. al. were a space traveling group and visited many planets in their journeys.
3. They also visited Roman World (planet four, system eight nine two) and affected their history similarly to Earth's history but where the Roman Empire never fell. As their planet's cultures commingled, English language became the same but with the Roman motif.
Thin, but there it is.

 

Apart from the tv gladiatorial games show, you don't see many Roman soldiers as it were! The people there are dressed like twentieth century people for the most part. The police uniforms are of a totalitarian state design while the leaders are clothed in loose fitting silver and black trousers or reddish brown tank tops for Merrick under which I thought was his SS Beagle uniform? The slaves all have the same blue/grey top with a chain sign near their neckline! And the shots of the city were famous ones from the US and even France!!!!
JB