To explore strange new worlds

: examining Star Trek: The Original Series' relationship with the Greco-Roman world

Abstract

Since the inception of the genre, there has been a strong presence of the ancient world in science fiction, and this is equally the case in one of the genre’s definitive franchises, Star Trek. This paper explores the reception of the classics across Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS), drawing on examples across the series, but mostly using as case studies the episodes ‘Bread and Circuses’, ‘Who Mourns for Adonais?’, and ‘Plato’s Stepchildren’. At the time of its production in the late 1960s, the series was a product of a time where American SF was emerging as a genre, television was emerging as a medium, and America was in a period of social upheaval, requestioning its own identity and role in the world.

In considering why TOS then engages with the classics, this paper argues that science fiction and the ancient world are both removed temporally and spatially from our contemporary time and this allows for a unique confluence where the two can be used in conjunction to explore ideas about our own society.

It explores the cinematic legacy of the Roman Epics of the 1950s in the visual portrayal of the Roman empire and the homogenisation of the ancient world, and how this became synonymous with popular understanding of the ancient world. It then explores how they use the temporal contrast of the future setting of the show and the past of the Greeks and Romans to examine the idea of the progress of humanity, and how one should acknowledge the past but not be beholden to it. Finally, this paper considers how this thematically is used to highlight and comment upon various contemporary issues such as fears of imperialism, the morality of the television industry, and wider social issues.

Date of Award	21 Mar 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Supervisor	Pantelis Michelakis (Supervisor) & Shelley J Hales (Supervisor)