Post by Dimitris on Mar 4, 2004 2:58:26 GMT -5
Great Ferengi Episodes
When the Ferengi were introduced early in the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, there was a sense that the highly anticipated "new alien threat" didn't live up to promises. Their "silliness quotient," as Rick Berman once put it, kept them from ever becoming a major adversary to the Federation, the way the Klingons were in the Original Series. But just because the Ferengi couldn't replace the Klingons didn't mean there wasn't a goldmine waiting to be tapped there, as the clever Trek writers eventually found. Once a Ferengi became a principal character in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, this culture of consummate capitalists was as richly explored as almost any other. And, in the finest Roddenberry tradition, it served to comment on certain aspects of the human condition, turning the mirror on some of our baser and shallower values. The Ferengi are often seen as the comic relief of Star Trek, but that is perhaps because we see so much of ourselves in them, and the funny part is that we try so hard to deny it.
The following is a look at some of the pivotal episodes that define who the Ferengi are and what place they occupy in the Star Trek universe.
The Last Outpost
The beginning is a good place to start. As mentioned, the depiction of this new galactic antagonist may not have quite lived up to expectations, but this first encounter by the Enterprise-D did lay a lot of groundwork for a culture and a value system that was strikingly different from our heroes'. Besides basing their entire existence on greed and the acquisition of material wealth, we learned that the Ferengi are chauvinistic in the extreme, not even allowing their females the honor of wearing clothes. They may have come across in this episode as annoying little trolls, but you have to admit that the first appearance of the giant Ferengi face on the Enterprise viewscreen is one of the most memorable moments of TNG's first season.
The Price
This third-season TNG episode signaled a shift in the way the Ferengi are depicted. From this point on, they are seen less as ruthless, violent marauders, and more as unscrupulous businessmen who are more petty and manipulative than anything else. (By this time, the "plasma whips" have long since been dropped.) Another reason this episode is pivotal is that it deposits two of those Ferengi, Dr. Arridor and Kol, into the Delta Quadrant via the unstable Barzan Wormhole, unable to return home. Hmm, whatever shall they do? Guess we'll never know ... or, will we?
Suspicions
Are all Ferengi loathsome moneygrubbers? Doesn't seem fair to make that assumption, given that they are an advanced spacefaring society. There are bound to be some scientists and thinkers among them who put as much value on acquiring knowledge as wealth. And whaddaya know, Beverly Crusher found one just like that at a scientific conference, but being a Ferengi Dr. Reyga had a distinct handicap — no one would take him seriously about his discoveries. So Beverly gave him a forum to demonstrate his metaphasic shield invention, and of course it all went bad, but this time the Ferengi was the victim and not the culprit. Just when you think you've got a people figured out, they surprise you with their diversity and complexity.
The Nagus
The first of many DS9 stories that would significantly expand on Ferengi culture played out as a not-so-subtle homage to Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather," right down to the dialog, the lighting, and Quark's mannerisms as he held court as temporary Nagus. Not only did this episode introduce Zek and establish "The Grand Nagus" as the leader of the Ferengi Alliance, it brought us the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, the brainchild of executive producer Ira Steven Behr which provided an endless source of fun dialog throughout the series.
Rules of Acquisition
Ferengi society's deeply entrenched sexism as established in "The Last Outpost" was finally put under the microscope in this second-season DS9 episode about a Ferengi female who poses as a male so she can make money and wear clothes. Pel's crimes were heinous as far as her legal system was concerned, but since she so adeptly fooled both Quark and Zek, she was allowed to go free in exchange for her silence. Everything's a deal with the Ferengi. This episode was the first to establish the existence of the Dominion in the Gamma Quadrant, which, Armin Shimerman is proud to point out, was the discovery of the Ferengi.
The Jem'Hadar
As mentioned above in "Suspicions," we should be careful not to quickly judge or look down our noses at another people because we perceive them to be less enlightened than ourselves. In fact, who are we humans to throw stones? This point was brought home in dialog between Quark and Sisko while they were held prisoner by the Jem'Hadar, dialog which exposed our hypocrisies. "The way I see it, Hew-mons used to be a lot like Ferengi. Greedy, acquisitive, interested only in profit. We're a constant reminder of a part of your past you'd like to forget. But you're overlooking something ... slavery, concentration camps, interstellar wars — We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see, we're nothing like you. We're better." Touché, Quark, touché.
Prophet Motive
Forget how humans view the Ferengi for a moment — What right would a superbeing have to entirely change someone's nature because they don't agree with that nature? More specifically, what right did the wormhole aliens have to return Zek transformed and with an entirely rewritten set of rules for the society he leads? Who are they to judge how we "corporeal beings" run our lives? As Quark pointed out so eloquently, one thing we linear whatevers have in common is the need to improve ourselves — our ambition motivates everything we do. "Without ambition, without — dare I say it — greed, people would lie around all day, doing nothing. They wouldn't work, they wouldn't bathe, they wouldn't even eat." Of course, it wasn't his ethical argument that convinced the Prophets to restore the status quo; it was the deal he made that no Ferengi would ever bother them again.
Family Business
Despite Quark's and most Ferengi's attempts to uphold the conservative values of their culture, the winds of change were blowing, and it turns out that Quark's own mother was the primary force behind those winds that would "shake the very foundation of the Ferengi Alliance." This is the episode that first introduced Ishka (or "Moogie") and established her financial acumen — despite her unfortunate status as a female. This is also the first time we got to visit Ferenginar, experience their climate, negotiate their architecture, see how their stock tickers work, and glimpse many of their traditions and rituals. And though it played as a comic episode, the story was a serious study of family dynamics with universal themes.
When the Ferengi were introduced early in the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, there was a sense that the highly anticipated "new alien threat" didn't live up to promises. Their "silliness quotient," as Rick Berman once put it, kept them from ever becoming a major adversary to the Federation, the way the Klingons were in the Original Series. But just because the Ferengi couldn't replace the Klingons didn't mean there wasn't a goldmine waiting to be tapped there, as the clever Trek writers eventually found. Once a Ferengi became a principal character in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, this culture of consummate capitalists was as richly explored as almost any other. And, in the finest Roddenberry tradition, it served to comment on certain aspects of the human condition, turning the mirror on some of our baser and shallower values. The Ferengi are often seen as the comic relief of Star Trek, but that is perhaps because we see so much of ourselves in them, and the funny part is that we try so hard to deny it.
The following is a look at some of the pivotal episodes that define who the Ferengi are and what place they occupy in the Star Trek universe.
The Last Outpost
The beginning is a good place to start. As mentioned, the depiction of this new galactic antagonist may not have quite lived up to expectations, but this first encounter by the Enterprise-D did lay a lot of groundwork for a culture and a value system that was strikingly different from our heroes'. Besides basing their entire existence on greed and the acquisition of material wealth, we learned that the Ferengi are chauvinistic in the extreme, not even allowing their females the honor of wearing clothes. They may have come across in this episode as annoying little trolls, but you have to admit that the first appearance of the giant Ferengi face on the Enterprise viewscreen is one of the most memorable moments of TNG's first season.
The Price
This third-season TNG episode signaled a shift in the way the Ferengi are depicted. From this point on, they are seen less as ruthless, violent marauders, and more as unscrupulous businessmen who are more petty and manipulative than anything else. (By this time, the "plasma whips" have long since been dropped.) Another reason this episode is pivotal is that it deposits two of those Ferengi, Dr. Arridor and Kol, into the Delta Quadrant via the unstable Barzan Wormhole, unable to return home. Hmm, whatever shall they do? Guess we'll never know ... or, will we?
Suspicions
Are all Ferengi loathsome moneygrubbers? Doesn't seem fair to make that assumption, given that they are an advanced spacefaring society. There are bound to be some scientists and thinkers among them who put as much value on acquiring knowledge as wealth. And whaddaya know, Beverly Crusher found one just like that at a scientific conference, but being a Ferengi Dr. Reyga had a distinct handicap — no one would take him seriously about his discoveries. So Beverly gave him a forum to demonstrate his metaphasic shield invention, and of course it all went bad, but this time the Ferengi was the victim and not the culprit. Just when you think you've got a people figured out, they surprise you with their diversity and complexity.
The Nagus
The first of many DS9 stories that would significantly expand on Ferengi culture played out as a not-so-subtle homage to Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather," right down to the dialog, the lighting, and Quark's mannerisms as he held court as temporary Nagus. Not only did this episode introduce Zek and establish "The Grand Nagus" as the leader of the Ferengi Alliance, it brought us the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, the brainchild of executive producer Ira Steven Behr which provided an endless source of fun dialog throughout the series.
Rules of Acquisition
Ferengi society's deeply entrenched sexism as established in "The Last Outpost" was finally put under the microscope in this second-season DS9 episode about a Ferengi female who poses as a male so she can make money and wear clothes. Pel's crimes were heinous as far as her legal system was concerned, but since she so adeptly fooled both Quark and Zek, she was allowed to go free in exchange for her silence. Everything's a deal with the Ferengi. This episode was the first to establish the existence of the Dominion in the Gamma Quadrant, which, Armin Shimerman is proud to point out, was the discovery of the Ferengi.
The Jem'Hadar
As mentioned above in "Suspicions," we should be careful not to quickly judge or look down our noses at another people because we perceive them to be less enlightened than ourselves. In fact, who are we humans to throw stones? This point was brought home in dialog between Quark and Sisko while they were held prisoner by the Jem'Hadar, dialog which exposed our hypocrisies. "The way I see it, Hew-mons used to be a lot like Ferengi. Greedy, acquisitive, interested only in profit. We're a constant reminder of a part of your past you'd like to forget. But you're overlooking something ... slavery, concentration camps, interstellar wars — We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see, we're nothing like you. We're better." Touché, Quark, touché.
Prophet Motive
Forget how humans view the Ferengi for a moment — What right would a superbeing have to entirely change someone's nature because they don't agree with that nature? More specifically, what right did the wormhole aliens have to return Zek transformed and with an entirely rewritten set of rules for the society he leads? Who are they to judge how we "corporeal beings" run our lives? As Quark pointed out so eloquently, one thing we linear whatevers have in common is the need to improve ourselves — our ambition motivates everything we do. "Without ambition, without — dare I say it — greed, people would lie around all day, doing nothing. They wouldn't work, they wouldn't bathe, they wouldn't even eat." Of course, it wasn't his ethical argument that convinced the Prophets to restore the status quo; it was the deal he made that no Ferengi would ever bother them again.
Family Business
Despite Quark's and most Ferengi's attempts to uphold the conservative values of their culture, the winds of change were blowing, and it turns out that Quark's own mother was the primary force behind those winds that would "shake the very foundation of the Ferengi Alliance." This is the episode that first introduced Ishka (or "Moogie") and established her financial acumen — despite her unfortunate status as a female. This is also the first time we got to visit Ferenginar, experience their climate, negotiate their architecture, see how their stock tickers work, and glimpse many of their traditions and rituals. And though it played as a comic episode, the story was a serious study of family dynamics with universal themes.