History Recap / StarTrekS2E25BreadAndCircuses

-->'''Spock''': Situations quite familiar to the 6,000,000 who died in your [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI First World War]], the 11,000,000 who died in your [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Second]], the 37,000,000 who died in your [[WorldWarIII Third]]...

* GilliganCut: Just as Bones and Spock find something to agree about--their concern for their captain--we cut to Captain Kirk eating GrapesOfLuxury with a BeautifulSlaveGirl.

-->'''Flavius:''' At least defend yourself!
-->'''[=McCoy=]:''' I am defending myself!
-->'''Flavius:''' Not like that, you fool! Hold your weapon higher!

-->'''Flavius''': At least defend yourself!
-->'''[=McCoy=]''' ''[waving his arms in frustration and leaving himself vulnerable]'': I ''am'' defending myself!

-->'''Spock''': Do you need some help, Doctor?\\
'''[=McCoy=]''': Whatever gave you that idea?

* ShoutOut
** The survey ship SS Beagle is presumably named after the Royal Navy survey ship [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Beagle HMS Beagle]], famous for conveying UsefulNotes/CharlesDarwin. It might also be a ShoutOut to ''Literature/TheVoyageOfTheSpaceBeagle''.

* GladiatorGames: They even make magazines about it!

* WhipItGood: Anyone who tries to get out of the gladiatorial combat gets whipped back into action.

* HeroicSacrifice: Flavius rushing in to save Kirk from execution. He does succeed, though he's killed as a result.

* CutTheJuice: Scotty has Enterprise overload the power grid as a [[IntimidationDemonstration show of force]]. Cue the lights going out in the studio giving Kirk a chance to escape (unfortunately the scene is [[HollywoodDarkness ruined by the lights only dimming slightly]], making it a puzzle why the guard manages to miss at point blank range with a submachine gun).

When Kirk and company are captured and taken to the city, they find out what happened to the crew of the ''Beagle''. It seems not all captains are that dedicated to their crew. When Merik was offered a life of luxury as First Citizen in return for selling out his entire crew to fight in the gladiator pits, he couldn't resist.

* BBCQuarry: The US version, Bronson Canyon, is the place where Kirk and Co encounter the rebel slaves.

[[caption-width-right:350:Feel free to play the Blue Oyster theme music right now.]]

** Claudius Marcus has a touch of this; because he respects Kirk's courage, he feels obliged to give Kirk a proper death, to the point that when his guards have Kirk's team surrounded at gunpoint, he insists they use their swords instead of just gunning them all down on the spot (though at the same time, using their guns would cause more deaths than just their targets; [[RecklessGunUsage the soldiers are in each other's line-of-fire, Claudius included)]].

* AbsenteeActor: Sulu is absent, as Creator/GeorgeTakei was filming ''Film/TheGreenBerets''. A bit of luck on his part, as it allowed him to avoid being made to do an [[AllAsiansKnowMartialArts embarrassingly stereotypical]] martial arts fight scene.

The FanNickname for this episode is "TheOneWith the SpaceRomans".

* OpponentInstruction: Spock and [=McCoy=] get forced into the arena to convince Kirk to submit to the villains' plans. Despite preferring a pacifistic approach, Spock keeps his opponent at bay easily, but [=McCoy=], not being a CombatMedic, can barely manage. His opponent, Flavius, a fairly NiceGuy who doesn't actually want to hurt him, starts trying to coach him during the match.

* DontMakeMeDestroyYou: Spock to the gladiator he's fighting, who unlike Flavius is seriously trying to kill his opponent. Spock isn't bluffing either--on seeing Bones is about to get killed, he takes down the gladiator easily so he can rush to defend his colleague.

* GrudgingThankYou: Spock tells Bones to hurry up with what he's trying to say while he looks for a means to escape their cell. "I'm trying to say 'thank you', you pointy eared hobgoblin!" Bones blurts out.

* TheOathbreaker: Kirk condemns Merik as one because he sold out his entire crew just to save his own life and gain luxuries. Merik doesn't deny a word of this, as he's long-resigned himself to it, although later Kirk's display of character helps bring him out of that... enough that at the end, his last act is to help them escape at the cost of his own life.

* GilliganCut: Just as Bones and Spock find something to agree about--their concern for their captain--we cut to Captain Kirk eating GrapesOfLuxury with a BeautifulSlaveGirl.

* GilliganCut: Just as Bones and Spock find something to agree about--their concern for their captain--we cut to Captain Kirk eating GrapesOfLuxury with a beautiful slave girl.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[Website/SFDebris Feel free to play the Blue Oyster theme music right now.]]]]

* NoSuchThingAsSpaceJesus: A subversion in the literal sense, as the planet is implied to have had an actual Jesus. Beyond that, what exactly their version of him did doesn't get much coverage.

* AliensSpeakingEnglish: The fact that the locals speak English with [=20th=] Century Earth idioms is noted. Though that doesn't explain why Latin isn't the dominant language instead.

** Spock claims that about six million people died in WWI and eleven million in WWII. Low-end estimates place the number of dead in the first at about fifteen million, and of the second at an astounding seventy million, with the Soviet Union and China each losing far more than eleven million by themselves.

* DiscretionShot: When Kirk and co. are watching a televised gladiatorial combat, the losing gladiator falls to the ground and out of shot just before he's stabbed, so the death blow is not visible. Stands out because of the conflict between the priorities of the real TV network and the in-universe TV network, which would have insisted the camera follow the falling gladiator so the audience isn't deprived of the money shot.
** While he does fall out of shot, we then cut away to Uhuru flinching in horror, so presumably there was an InUniverse close-up of the killing. Uhuru also loses the television signal just as Harrison is about to be stabbed.