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Star Trek Voy - Season 3 - Episode 05

Star Trek Voy - 3x05 - False Profits

Originally Aired: 1996-10-2

Synopsis:
Ferengi opportunists pose as gods. [DVD]

My Rating - 1

Fan Rating Average - 2.57

Rate episode?

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# Votes: 70 23 2 9 11 12 12 9 5 6 3

Problems
- The Universal Translator translates rhymes in alien languages into English perfectly?

Factoids
- This episode is a sequel to TNG: The Price.
- The Rules of Acquisition have 47 official commentaries, ~900 official major and minor judgments and ~10,000 considered opinions.

Remarkable Scenes
- The Ferengi pleading to be returned to the surface. I hate the fact that Janeway returns them to the surface, but I at least enjoyed the Ferengi's performance in this scene. They were funny.
- Rules of Acquisition; 10. Greed is eternal. 22. A wise man can hear profit in the wind. (We don't know the number of this rule). Exploitation begins at home. 95. Expand or die. 299. Whenever you exploit someone, it never hurts to thank them. That way it's easier to exploit them the next time. (This rule is fake; Neelix made it up.) The unwritten rule: When no appropriate rule applies, make one up.

My Review
I'm not fond of this one at all as Janeway makes seriously bad decisions. A wormhole leading to the alpha quadrant is discovered, but Janeway won't go through it because Ferengi are exploiting the planet below. She beams them up and all is well, then she just lets them go for no good reason. All her problems could have been solved by just abducting them, going through the wormhole, and washing her hands of it all, but nope. Janeway's gotta do the "right thing" and let them go. She just takes the word of the Ferengi that their absence could damage the culture even more! Oh, so now we have to make it look like they leave naturally... waste more time on the Ferengi and before you know it they somehow manage to overpower ship security, steal back their shuttle, return to the alpha quadrant, and destroy the wormhole leaving it so Voyager can't go through either. And we're supposed to have sympathy for Janeway after these events? She was royally stupid! Oh yeah; and this episode features yet another alien race that looks exactly like humans. What a waste of a fantastic connection with a decent TNG episode.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From Pete Miller on 2006-08-16 at 9:17pm:
    This is another annoying "Voyager might go home in season 3" episode. However, the connection with the TNG episode was absolutely brilliant and extremely fun to watch. AWESOME way to bring closure to that TNG episode. And of all the ways to be foiled out of returning to the alpha quadrant, it's at the hands of those damn Ferengi! :)
  • From Tallifer on 2011-04-08 at 10:47pm:
    Janeway constantly reminds me of those British officials of the Raj in India who refused to go native in any way, giving rise to the expression, "Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun." She often makes stupid decisions only for the sake of upholding an inflexible and narrow idea of Federation values. Kirk was a Federation captain too: could she not model herself after a hero of the Federation rather than some ineffective armchair admiral?
  • From Inga on 2013-08-26 at 6:56am:
    The thing is, there really was a risk of damaging the culture by abducting their "gods", so I at least understand why she made that decision. Of course, the part with the Ferengi owerpowering the ship's security is beyond ridiculous, but this is the writers', not the Captain's fault.

    @Tallifer In 'Flashback' Janeway mentioned that Kirk lived in a "different time", where the Captains could get away with things they wouldn't be able to in the 24th century, so that might be one of the reasons she wouldn't model herself after Kirk.
  • From thaibites on 2014-01-31 at 2:50am:
    I'm not sure, but I think they said the wormhole ends would pop up sporadically in different places on BOTH ends after the Ferengi destabilized it. I think this adds a nice touch to the story because the Ferengi might end up millions of light years away from their home. Maybe they wouldn't even go to the alpha quadrant? If I'm right, it's an appropriate punishment for them.
    Also, I loved the boob shots in the beginning - camera low, with the bottom of the boobs uncovered, standing directly behind the Ferengi sitting on his throne. It's the most "remarkable scene" in the episode.
  • From Sylvain on 2015-04-13 at 4:28am:
    Janeway is clearly suffering from plot induced stupidity here though. It was obvious Voyager wouldn't be getting back to the Alpha Quadruant yet, and ofcourse the Ferengi couldn't just be left alone exploiting people like that either.
  • From tigertooth on 2016-09-17 at 12:17am:
    I'm pretty okay with suspending disbelief, and it wasn't a huge problem here, but let's be honest: there's no way a universal translator could fool a primitive society. It would look like an overdubbed movie. There's no way the speaker's lips would look like the words they were hearing.

    Granted, that speaks to all ST episodes, but I'm willing to overlook the fact that Cardassians and Romulans should look like a kung-fu film. It's just better visually for them to speak English.

    And that's why I'm fine with human-looking aliens. The fact is that they needed a lot of extras and making them all up (including the Starfleeters who beam down) would have eaten into the budget. So they just make them look like humans. If that means they can put more money into sets or effects or whatever, I'm good with it.
  • From Chuck the Canuck on 2023-07-04 at 9:02am:
    How do these dimwitted Ferengi always manage to outsmart or outmaneuver Federation security? It happened in TNG episodes "Rascals" and "The Perfect Mate" and now here. These two couldn't hit someone right in front of them with a giant sword, and we're supposed to believe they overpowered a security guard and somehow managed to shoot open a shuttle bay?

    And worst of all, as pointed out in the original review, they manage to persuade Janeway that removing them would somehow damage the fragile culture of the planet. Unreal...as if the inhabitants wouldn't come up with a supernatural explanation for the sudden disappearance of their "Sages".

    So, actually, this is a pretty bad episode for Tuvok. Two Ferengi manage to overpower his security officers and outdo him at the logic game.

    The only good thing about this episode is continuity with "The Price" which was a cool idea and made sense. But it's typical Voyager: take a great premise for an episode and execute it poorly.

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