posted
Oog, this episode had me shuddering most of the way through. The whole show was one big soapbox *all* of the Ferengi cliches ever. Anyway:
-In 2151, there are only 173 Rules of Acquisition. A bunch of them get quoted, including at least one new one.
-The Ferengi are on board a small cargo ship, which *looks* Ferengi, but seems realy small for how far they must have come. Their weapons include repaints of the established Ferengi hand phasers Quark has used, which is odd since they were originally established as Vulcan weapons. They also have newer shotgun-style rifles with a side handle.
-More importantly, the energy whip is back! The prop is a modified normal whip, and not the phallic blue thing we see in "The Last Outpost" and the Marauder Mo action figures. The Neelix Ferengi guy goes to town on Trip at one point with the whip.
-Specious mention: Bolians. Also, at one point they figured on Porthos being a superior form of life to the Hew-mons on the size of his floppy ears.
-In pillaging the ships, they were taking anything of potential value, including pecan pie and the helm chair. They also swiped a torpedo, leavingthe rest of them stacked in the armory.
-We see an expanded Jefferies tube set here, including a "biomatter something" side-chamber which serves as the "ship's vault" containing gold.
-Gold has value to the Ferengi, as does latinum. The two apperently have yet to mix.
posted
It's decent enough, but there's next to no story with all the cliches running around. It's something of a bottle show too, with only one new set (the Ferengi ship) and expansions of existing ones. Plus, aside from all the unconscious bodies lying around, only Archer, Trip and eventually T'pol get lines this week. Two more points:
-The Ferengi ship's controls are based around that black control hemisphere thing we see on the bridges of other ships. However, they have control levers and such everywhere.
-T'pol's characterization is really odd in this one. Again she lies her ears off, plus she quite blatantly enjoys tormenting and teasing the Captain at the end of the show. On the other hand, this is the first time I believe we see her nerve pinch someone...
posted
Having gold still be valuble to the Ferengi in this time period is actually a nice tie-in to the speculative history of Ferengi commerce that Behr and Wolfe wrote into "Legends of the Ferengi."
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
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posted
I guess... Could you expound on the role of gold in the book?
Also, they actually *do* mention gold-pressed latinum in the episode - once, and briefly. Archer corrects them to say the "vault" holds gold BARS, but it seems to be of little consequence...
posted
This episode made Rascals and The Siege look great. Once again the Enterprise is subdued by idiots. The lack of proper security procedures made Wolf look competent. Yeah, let's fiddle with a mysterious device... RIGHT BESIDE THE WARP CORE.
Tech and misc stuff: - The Ferengis and the Vulcans don't know about each other, when one's been travelling in space for 2000 years and the other's a prolific merchant species?
- The Ferengis were tricked into the biomatter resequencer (room) in the end, I assume that's what the funny looking thing was.
- All hand weapons onboard are stored in really obviously places, so that even idiots can find ALL of them in a short time even if they couldn't read English.
- Ferengis referred to Enterprise's weapons (including torpedoes) as "low-grade". They stole at least 3 of the torpedoes.
- The Ferengi rifles are made from the ST:FC rifle barrels, repainted and kitbashed.
- Porthos was stored in what appeared to be an air-tight box. This proves my theory that dogs don't need air to live.
- There are no cute looking women onboard the Enterprise.
- The Ferengis tried to steal the anti-matter injector... There was so much wrong with that I don't even know where to begin. It's not even something that you can just "pull out".
- Archer gets another round of beating.
- I don't believe that Ferengis are so stupid as to steal chairs off ships. There were so many other valuable things they could have taken.
- I don't believe that Archer would not have found out the Ferengi's specie, and informed Starfleet. So it's rather strange that the Enterprise-D was recorded as the first ship to make direct contact with them.
All in all, a very annoying and forgetable episode.
-------------------- "God's in his heaven. All's right with the world."
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posted
Being interested in the minutiae, I couldn't help but kind of like this episode. Yeah, it was boring and plot-less. But for once, I have to admit that they got most of the details right. (I have to wonder if Ira Behr ghost-wrote this episode...)
Did anyone notice the return of the Exploding Consoles? When the Ferengi shot the console on the bridge, not only did the annoying noise fizzle out, but the entire console exploded in some nice fireworks! (I guess this is the precursor to those 50,000-volt deathtraps.)
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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quote:But for once, I have to admit that they got most of the details right. (I have to wonder if Ira Behr ghost-wrote this episode...)
Of course he did. Because it would be impossible for anyone who ever made direct eye contact with Brannon Braga to get anything right on their own.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
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posted
Well, if the episode really is a long string of painful Ferengi cliches, I guess there's a good chance Behr was involved.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Why was porthos awake? I also missed the first five minutes, how did this nerve gas spread so fast throughout the ship?
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