Star Trek Ent - Season 1 - Episode 19
Star Trek Ent - 1x19 - Acquisition
Originally Aired: 2002-3-27
Synopsis:
When the Ferengi, a group of intergalactic thieves, stun the Enterprise crew and try to rob the ship, it's up to Trip to work covertly to stop them. [DVD]
Problems
- The whole premise is a rather annoying continuity problem. See comments.
Factoids
- There are only 172 rules of acquisition at this time.
- Jeffrey Combs (Weyoun, Brunt, Shran) and Ethan Phillips (Neelix) play Ferengi characters in this episode.
Remarkable Scenes
- Archer getting beat up by the Ferengi...
- Archer regarding Vulcans: "They're really not all that interesting once you get to know them."
- Archer: "Trust me, she's got no sense of humor, she's always complaining..."
- T'Pol: "There are times I wish Vulcans hadn't learned to repress their violent tendencies."
- The Ferengi pulling a gun on the the retractable medical scanner bed as it approached him.
- The Ferengi talking to Porthos.
- Trip being hit by a Ferengi whip. Nice reference to TNG: The Last Outpost.
- Archer and Trip putting on a shwo for the Ferengi.
- T'Pol picking on Archer for the things he said about her to the Ferengi.
- Rules of Acquisition; 6. Never allow family to stand in the way of profit. 23. Nothing is more important than your health, except for your money. 45. Expand or die. ?. A man is only worth the sum of his possessions.
My Review
I suppose it was only a matter of time before something like this had to happen. Well, I'm not going to rant about how this episode tramples all over continuity like a fanatic at a convention, because with some rationalization it's not so bad. With some more careful writing, it could have even been a great episode. I liked the detail showing the Ferengi whip, and I liked how Archer seems to have scared them all the way back to their homeworld. Knowing the Ferengi, who are driven by fear more than other species, they probably avoided Earth's corner of the galaxy for a long time and once the Federation was formed they probably avoided that too until contact became absolutely necessary in TNG: The Last Outpost. That said, I'm not happy that the writers decided the Ferengi needed a cameo and that they did it in such a careless manner. In order to rationalize this episode, we're forced to believe that these Ferengi were a very long way away from home and that records concerning this incident were not kept in very good detail. Both are distinct possibilities, so I'm just going to leave it at that. Continuity does suffer because of this episode though, and I've forced to mark it down thusly. When you stop caring about such things though and watch the episode for its raw merits, what you find is that its marvelously hilarious. Watch this episode to find the basis for Quark's future "Vulcan Love Slave" holosuite program. ;)
The following are comments submitted by my readers.
As with many Enterprise episodes, you kind of have to ignore the continuity errors. After all, it is Brannon Braga's show. I find that when you dismiss the Ferengi first contact stuff, this episode becomes quite enjoyable. The humor is priceless, and I like how the Ferengi here are much more like the Ferengi we see in TNG rather than DS9.
Also, I really like Jeffrey Combs and Ethan Phillips in this one.
I agree with the sentiment here. Not a bad episode if you take it with a grain of salt. One thing that DS9 (still probably my favorite Trek overall though it got kind of religiousy after Roddenberry died) got so right was what it did with the Ferengi. They were so well used as fodder for satire in so many solid humor episodes even if you have to overlook a few really bad outings.
The problem with TNG-style Ferengi is that, much like the ones here, they seem so much of a self-parody that it's hard to believe they're really capable of space flight and pose any threat at all. At least these are a little sharper than the hissing, growling, whip cracking Ferengi we see early on on in TNG.
This has pretty much everything you need in a light-hearted episode: lots of humour, my two favourite ST supporting actors, and a solid 20 minutes of Trip running around in his underwear.
Usually Ferengi in large numbers annoy me, but its hard not to like Jeffrey Combs and Ethan Phelps. Besides Clint Howard, who was the other Ferengi played by?
One thing I wasn't sure about; I thought gold didn't hold much value to Ferengi? I could swear I remember Quark saying something to that effect...
Hey, did any of y'all notice that T'Pol is a very attractive woman? Don't worry if you didn't: the writers will make sure to repeatedly draw your attention to it episode after episode.