Star Trek 2x25 "Bread and Circuses"

rating: *

Memory Alpha summary

Just through the sheer repetition of Kirk being forced to literally fight for his survival, this is either one too many or perhaps the tipping point in making it a legitimate trope in the series (and franchise, as in Voyager's "The Fight" and "Tsunkatse" and Deep Space Nine's "In Purgatory's Shadow"/"By Inferno's Light").

Anyway, "Bread and Circuses" also continues the gimmick of doing every story type in existence, this time the Roman Empire, just because.

via Star Trek

I don't have a ton to say about this one.  It is what it is.  Take it or leave it.  As I've been saying, clearly the writers had become exhausted by the end of the season.  They were just throwing whatever they wanted at the screen, the total reverse of how it had begun, richly exploring the bugging mythology.  This is the opposite.  The complete opposite, especially as compared to "A Piece of the Action."

An oblique reference to Christianity, extremely rare in any Star Trek incarnation, may be the one notable element of the episode.  Until DS9 faith and/or religion never got much positive press, as it were, in the franchise.  That was a decision Gene Roddenberry made about humanity's future.  (Now if this had been the whole point of the episode, we'd be having a different discussion.  Incidentally, original Pike actor and series lead Jeffrey Hunter played Jesus in King of Kings.)

four quarter analysis

franchise * series * essential * character