Podcast Enterprise: S2S25 Bread and Circuses

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis: When this episode opens, you find that the USS Enterprise is in orbit around a planet called 892-IV. They’re looking for an individual called RM Merik. He’s an old friend of Captain Kirk and he was in command of a spaceship that went missing on this planet and they want to find him before he violates a prime directive. And of course, Kirk, Spock and Dr. McCoy beam down onto this planet. They want to investigate and find Merik, but they don’t want to violate the prime directive and interfere with this planet’s civilization because from their scans they have found that there are cities, there is a civilization, there is a 20th century civilization. Actually, and there is a culture here. According to Federation law, they want to leave it as is. However, they land in this valley type area, they are promptly captured by a couple of people wearing very pale and grubby clothes. And They are threatened with violence and dragged off to the mountains. In the mountains, there are caves where an old man comes out. He trusts Captain Kirk for some reason. And The person who has captured Kirk, McCoy and Spock is called Flavius Maximus, which is a very Roman name. And It seems that these people who are in the caves are escaped slaves who follow the sun. And we don’t know what the sun is. They call themselves the children of the sun. They’re also very focused on peace and brotherhood and that camaraderie and that sort of thing. So they shun all kinds of violence, apparently. Even though Flavius Maximus wants to shoot Kirk, he doesn’t. And it also comes to light that the place that they escape from is Rome, an alien Rome that keeps slaves. The slaves escaped from there. Rome is still thriving. It has come into the 20th century. They have television, they have cars, they have electricity, and they have a television network that actually broadcasts all of their gladiatorial fights. Flavius was actually one of the gladiators over there and he escaped. So now he is one of the best gladiators but he has escaped and now he will not fight.

Kirk still has to find Merik and when he mentions his name to the old man in the cave, he realizes that Merik is now Mericus and he is kind of a high ranking official in the cave.

in the city. And Kirk has to go to the city, find Merikus and as things go, he finds himself captured, imprisoned. He meets Merikus, who is now in a strange mental state because he has to, he has had to watch his crew get killed in the gladiatorial fight. There’s also pre consul, I think, Bala is he, is he called a pre consul or a pro a proconsul Claudius Marcus, I believe his name is, who is almost in charge of the entire empire. And He is a very shrewd, annoying, irritating character who wants to throw Kirk and the rest of them into a gladiatorial fight for TV ratings. And also they managed to bring Flavius back into the arena.

Arena is actually a bit of a joke because it’s a small area in a studio where they have to stand within a rectangular space and fight each other to the death. And this is where McCoy and Spock have a lot of quips also. Spock is able to use his nerve pinch against his opponents, they escape from this area. Kirk has to use his wits to outwit his way out of this hellish Roman empire. And it’s. It’s all very, very surreal, actually, The experience of watching this is pretty surreal. And also, he manages to convey somehow to Spock about the Enterprise, that there is something wrong. And Spock has to use a bit of ingenuity to get the rest of them out of there. And Merik, when it, when push comes to shove, and when it comes to the end of this episode, he uses that last opportunity to get Kirk and the rest of them back onto the Enterprise while being killed himself. And this is where Kirk, when he’s back in the Enterprise, he’s wondering what the children of the sun actually mean.

And Spock thinks that sun worship is a very primitive religion, but then it turns out that it’s not the S U N sun. It is the S O N son. They are followers of some variation of Christianity. And so Kirk feels that this Roman empire will also fall.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

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Acknowledgements

1. Intro music: Music from anchor.fm
2. Shotcut for editing the podcast
3. References: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/