Episode of the Week : Bread and Circuses

[Poltargyst]

This episode contains what is probably the single (imho) most reprehensible thing Kirk ever does, he was offered the "use" of a female slave for the night and (apparently) does have sex with her.

Actually, it would be quite out of character and contrary to the plot structure of the episode for him to have that sex.

Remember that this was a bribe of sorts, or at least a reward for Kirk living up to the standards of Claudius. But Kirk despises Claudius. He smiles derisively and irritatingly at the ideals upheld by Claudius, knowing he is the better man and has the upper hand. Surely the natural thing for him to do in the circumstances would be to talk politics and play checkers with the woman all night, confident that Claudius is watching and grinding his teeth.

That said, "Using a sex worker's services is evil" is a problematic stance for many reasons. It implies among other things that

1) the profession is beneath contempt
2) the worker therefore is beneath contempt, too
3) sex is bad

None of those sounds like a good approach to life. If Claudius had sent in a cleaning slave, should Kirk have told her to get her dirty mop out of there? Well, he probably should, considering this was all about ridiculing Claudius, but Kirk is a gentleman. He would have found a way to insult Claudius without insulting the slave. And he probably did so in the situation at hand, too.

Timo Saloniemi

The concern is that the woman didn't have a choice which makes it rape. Although she didn't seem particularly unwilling.

 

[Harvey]

8. A satirical farce on TV executives that certainly won GR no points with NBC, but highly entertaining.

Is there any evidence that NBC actually cared?

I don't have Stan Robertson's letter about the episode transcribed, but what's quoted in These Are The Voyages (Vol. 2) doesn't even touch upon the story's satirical elements.

Does Inside Star Trek: The Real Story touch on this? I don't have it in front of me right now. Ralph Senensky's blog on the episode is mainly focused on the new filming restrictions imposed by Paramount in the wake of the Desilu sale.

 

[Wingsley]

This episode contains what is probably the single (imho) most reprehensible thing Kirk ever does, he was offered the "use" of a female slave for the night and (apparently) does have sex with her.

I sometimes watch Star Trek that has been translated into Spanish, the son/sun thing obviously doesn't have the same ability to be confused (hijo/sol) in Spanish and is one of the clear indications that what the Enterprise's crew is speaking in the future is English.

I liked the episode's last scene, it showed that religion was alive and well among (at least some) of our heroes, I especially liked the joy on Uhura's face and in her voice as she made her explanation.

"Bread and Circuses" ranks as my all-time favorite TOS, and my all-time favorite of the entire franchise. And yet, the scene where Kirk is greeted by Drusilla with "I was told to wait for you" was among the cheesiest in TOS.

Note that Drusilla plainly orders Kirk: "Command me". It's clear that the Proconsul approached Drusilla in advance, told her what Kirk was, and asked her if she would be interested in wining and dining a real-live space alien... and possibly more. Note also that Kirk does not try to escape, even after she assures him "We're alone. Please believe me." He knows that if she screams, the goons will come a-running. They're just not outside the door. It is plainly understood that Claudius arranged this private "close encounter", no doubt with Drusilla's enthusiastic consent. This is later confirmed when the Proconsul has Kirk frisked in a search for a missing Enterprise hand-talkie and Marcus clearly quips to Kirk: "Not that I would have punished her. I would have blamed you. You're a Roman, Kirk, or you should have been." With that, the Proconsul made it clear that "my pretty Dursilla" is his personal slave/geisha, and, as has been the long-standing tradition among many Asian good ol' boys, he is happy to share. We can sit back and judge Kirk to be a lascivious boor for indulging Drusilla, as we can sit back and judge societies that still quietly condone geisha-like activities to this day. We can also judge the society of Planet IV in System 8-9-2 as being intrinsically evil for practicing open slavery in a "20th century" industrial society.

But there is a little fly in the ointment here. If we start judging issues like that, we wind up questioning the merits of the Prime Directive, which allows Kirk off the hook for not ordering the overthrow of the Empire and it's enslaving, flesh-trading ways. After all, 100 Enterprise crewmen, armed with phase pistols, could overthrow the entire Empire. If Kirk were a truly moral fellow, he'd surely order that, wouldn't he?

But he doesn't order an attack on this hands-off planet because it's his duty to obey the Prime Directive. Instead, he does the Starfleet thing, proceeding to investigate what happened to the "merchant service" vessel S.S. Beagle, beams down personally to find out what happened to Captain Merrick, and comes within a hair of getting himself killed.

It's already understood in TOS thus far that the Prime Directive keeps both "strange new worlds" and the Federation out of trouble. Consider it a "you break it, you buy it" philosophy. Was it reprehensible for Kirk to temporarily fall for Nona the Kahn-Ut-Tu witch (Mrs. Tyree) or Shahna the Drill-Thrall or for Captain Pike to fall for Vina, illusion or no illusion? One could argue that fine and upstanding starship captains, with the high-minded principles and their disciplines, would be expected to keep their trousers on. Since they didn't, was this destined to be yet another failure of "1960's TV" as personified on TOS?

Not so fast...

On planet "Angel One", Riker doesn't hesitate to bed-down with Mistress Beatta in the name of inter-world diplomacy. Only that wasn't TOS, it was TNG... and just about 20 years and some months later... But wasn't that reprehensible as well?

Perhaps the notion of Starfleet allowing strange, new peccadillos can be explained by a "it's none of our business" clause. Just as today, the notion of politics and corporate culture prying into private sex lives/orientations is slowly being challenged, perhaps it can be said that Starfleet can make no law forbidding intimacy with the natives while visiting on a mission.

To be sure, the notion of slavery, prostitution and other forms of using people makes me queasy as well. And the little "Kirk romance" music in that "I was told to wait for you" scene was cringe-worthy. But let's remember the context of the scene. Kirk is trapped, and his "Condition Green" stunt just signed his own death warrant; he expects to be tortured or otherwise killed for it soon. Given that Kirk is clearly known as a Fonzie kind of guy to begin with, is it really out-of-character for him (and is it really that bad) for our hero to make that "last request", particularly with the obviously enthusiastic Drusilla?

 

[Wingsley]

This is my favorite of the parallel Earth stories. It's got a strong message, great performances, a fast pace and is funny in all the right places.

What keeps it from being a 10 is the fact that Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam down in their normal uniforms with their huge Phaser 2 pistols slung at their hips. They're yammering about obeying the prime directive, but they never took the time to wear the clothing they saw people wearing on the view screen in the teaser. Just seems a little wacky.

Even though I love both "Patterns of Force" and "Bread and Circuses", both stories seem to conveniently ignore each other.

In "Bread and Circuses", where are McCoy's implanted transponders? They would've come in handy in either another jailbreak or at least an involuntary beam-out. And yes, it does seem odd that native costumes were used when visiting Ekos but not when investigating 8-9-2 IV.

In "Patterns of Force", Scotty's turning-out-the-lights trick could have helped discourage the Ekosian aggression.

 

[Melakon]

Was it reprehensible for Kirk to temporarily fall for Nona the Kahn-Ut-Tu witch (Mrs. Tyree). . .?

He'd been bewitched through the mahko root healing ritual without his knowledge, so he wasn't fully in control of his actions. That might lower the reprehensibility factor.

 

[Maurice]

...as has been the long-standing tradition among many Asian good ol' boys...

It's times like these when we need a Tex Avery-esque jaw-drop smiley.

Seriously, WTF?

 

[Wingsley]

Where do you think terms like geisha came from? There's still a flesh trade today in Asia.

 

[Maurice]

Geishas are Japanese.

It's the sweeping use of "Asian" which got my attention. Did you mean to include everything from the middle east to Japan, or was it just an occidental generalization?

 

[ZapBrannigan]

The Jupiter 8 was really the Reactor Mach II. It appears in the b&w newscast, and of course the magazine ad.

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x25hd/breadandcircuseshd0062.jpg

It also appeared on Bewitched and Batman.

 

[Marsden]

Solid 8.

I found the Roman leader to be one of the best villains TOS had. Nice to see one that is smart enough to turn Starfleet's rules against them.

Someone was complaining about all the +1 s so I'm going to give this post a hearty

"Harrumpphhh!"

 

[scotpens]

The Jupiter 8 was really the Reactor Mach II. It appears in the b&w newscast, and of course the magazine ad.

It also appeared on Bewitched and Batman.

And suffered the indignity of having a ridiculous cat face, ears and tail attached to it when it was used as Catwoman's "kitty car."

Oh, the pain, the pain!

 

[CrazyMatt]

^LSHIAHAEA!

(That's "Laughing So Hard I Almost Had An Embarrassing Accident")

 

[Shawnster]

Seriously, that never bothered me in the slightest. What did put me off a bit, though, was Spock's description of sun worship as "usually a primitive superstition religion." A surprisingly judgmental and ethnocentric comment coming from Spock, of all people, even considering the times.

McCoy expresses a lack of knowledge about ancient Rome, despite his statement to the contrary. Rome actually had sun worship, despite his claim to the contrary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Invictus

Sol Invictus ("Unconquered Sun") was the official sun god of the later Roman Empire and a patron of soldiers. In 274 AD the Roman emperor Aurelian made it an official cult alongside the traditional Roman cults. Scholars disagree about whether the new deity was a refoundation of the ancient Latin cult of Sol,[1] a revival of the cult of Elagabalus[2] or completely new.[3] The god was favored by emperors after Aurelian and appeared on their coins until Constantine I.[4] The last inscription referring to Sol Invictus dates to AD 387,[5] and there were enough devotees in the 5th century that Augustine found it necessary to preach against them.[6]

The idea, particularly popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, that the solstice date of 25 December for Christmas was selected because it was also the date of a Roman festival of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (Birthday of the Unconquered Sun) is challenged[7] by a different explanation considered academically to be "thoroughly viable".[8] Both theories have supporters, with some claiming that the festival of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti was later syncretized with Christmas,[9][need quotation to verify] and others saying that the Christian celebration may even predate the festival of the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti.[10][11][12]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_(mythology)

Sol was the solar deity in Ancient Roman religion. It was long thought that Rome actually had two different, consecutive sun gods. The first, Sol Indiges, was thought to have been unimportant, disappearing altogether at an early period. Only in the late Roman Empire, scholars argued, did solar cult re-appear with the arrival in Rome of the Syrian Sol Invictus, perhaps under the influence of the Mithraic mysteries.

Interesting that the pun sun/son comes into play again in regards real life Roman sun worship. The birthday of the "Unconquered Sun" transformed into the birthday of the Son of God. Well, according to some academics.

Spock and McCoy on Roman sun worship:

MCCOY: Odd that these people should worship the sun.
SPOCK: Why, Doctor?
MCCOY: Because, my dear Mister Spock, it is illogical. Rome had no sun worshipers. Why should they parallel Rome in every way except one?

MCCOY: Captain, I see on your report Flavius was killed. I am sorry. I liked that huge sun worshiper.
SPOCK: I wish we could have examined that belief of his more closely. It seems illogical for a sun worshiper to develop a philosophy of total brotherhood. Sun worship is usually a primitive superstition religion.
UHURA: I'm afraid you have it all wrong, Mister Spock, all of you. I've been monitoring some of their old-style radio waves, the empire spokesman trying to ridicule their religion. But he couldn't. Don't you understand? It's not the sun up in the sky. It's the Son of God.
KIRK: Caesar and Christ. They had them both. And the word is spreading only now.
MCCOY: A philosophy of total love and total brotherhood.
SPOCK: It will replace their imperial Rome, but it will happen in their twentieth century.
KIRK: Wouldn't it be something to watch, to be a part of? To see it happen all over again? Mister Chekov, take us out of orbit. Ahead warp factor one.
CHEKOV: Aye, sir.

 

[johnnybear]

I remember that for years the Drusilla scenes with Kirk were all cut by the BBC (but then again what wasn't?) So it wasn't until I got the DVD sets that you could say that I've seen the series in it's totality!
JB

 

[Timo]

Spock does leave the "usually" caveat into his statement about sun worship (which in general does cater to the authoritarian, hierarchical type of spiritualism, especially in the Roman case). I wonder whether Vulcan had lots of sun worshipping going on..?

Or did they rather worship shadows, making Mount Gol automatically one of the more benevolent deities?

KIRK: Caesar and Christ. They had them both. And the word is spreading only now.

This is interesting, too. How does Kirk divine that the local Christ lived and died long ago? "Spreading 'only' now" might be thanks to the Son of God having died in a live TV broadcast, with the slaves as well as the masters watching.

Uhura could know better, being privy to the broadcasts we never get to hear. But nothing told to the audience, or to Kirk, establishes the local inspirational figure as having died thousands of years ago, or decades ago, or indeed having died at all yet.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Shawnster]

If Planet 829-IV was mid 20th century tech level in Kirk's day, then shouldn't they be on the verge of developing warp drive in the Prime Universe?

Romans... in Space!!!!