This was actually a good episode, if you can believe it, right up until the 
point where they start talking about "e plebnista" and the pledge of allegiance
thing, that's when it gets ludicrous.  Remove that part, and you have a decent
story about an indigenous band of people of a planet who never get old, who
live for a thousand years, and Captain Tracy wants some of that.  If they had
just stuck with that it would have been a cool episode.