”Comedy” episodes

[Boomer359]

Profit and Lace has it's moments, but is sort of painful to watch these days. I'm not sure how it was regarded at the time, but I don't think it has aged very well.

I also consider Take Me Out to the Holosuite to be a comedy episode, and very good one, at that, particularly because it gives some context to the on-going Dominion War story line. Sisko, very specifically, decides to challenge the Vulcan crew to a baseball game to, in part, distract his people from the war going on around them.

 

[JesterFace]

As I've been going through later seasons of DS9 lately after a long time, I just think these "comedy" episodes are wasted potential. The Dominion war could have had much more to offer than Damar having a drink of Kanar and having a fight with Weyoun, Quark in drag and Bashir trying to get along with odd genetically manipulated folks.

 

[JesterFace]

As I've been going through later seasons of DS9 lately after a long time, I just think these "comedy" episodes are wasted potential. The Dominion war could have had much more to offer than baseball, Quark in drag and Bashir trying to get along with odd genetically manipulated folks.

 

[Timewalker]

I wonder, why does DS9 have the ”comedy” episodes like 'Ferengi Love Songs' and 'The Magnificent Ferengi'? Does someone really like them? I'm on my rewatch of DS9's later seasons and I just skip those episodes, they have nothing to do with anything.

All that money and time could have been used for something interesting about the, I don't know, the WAR that is going on...

Oh, horrors. You had to endure two comedy episodes. However did you survive?

It was a nice break from all that war stuff. Overall, the Dominion War bored me silly. I'm not saying there weren't some good scenes and character development in it, but I'm not someone who's into extended war storylines in my Star Trek.

(In general, I think the Ferengi are funniest when they're clashing with another culture.

Agreed. For example, I enjoyed the scene in which Quark explained to the female Vulcan weapons-runner how the Rules of Acquisition are really logical.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

As I've been going through later seasons of DS9 lately after a long time, I just think these "comedy" episodes are wasted potential. The Dominion war could have had much more to offer than baseball, Quark in drag and Bashir trying to get along with odd genetically manipulated folks.

To have DS9 only focus on the war itself would have been too much of a shift in direction for the show. The show was already about a lot of things during the first five seasons and it wasn't going to drop all those threads in favor of just focusing on one. Also, with 26 episodes per season it was necessary to have a variety of different episodes so that it wouldn't make the show feel monotonous. Maybe you would have preferred if it stuck to the war, but I think it would have lost a lot of charm if it didn't have fun episodes like the Ocean's Eleven holodeck adventure.

If DS9 was just a 13 episode per season deal it might have been able to pull off just focusing on the war, but that's not where television was in the 90s. You can look back and find that a lot of shows that were integrating semi-serial storytelling had what's known as "filler" episodes that were unrelated to the main story so that the budget could be reserved for those big episodes. Of course, DS9 splurged on the final season which is why the finale uses a lot of stock footage mixed in with new.

 

[JesterFace]

Oh, horrors. You had to endure two comedy episodes. However did you survive?

I mentioned two, there were more. I thought that was a given.

 

[Timewalker]

[Saavik] Sarcasm... it is a difficult concept. [/Saavik]

 

[Betelnut]

DS9 can be pretty grim. Even the color pallette is dark, gray. The funnier episodes are a nice change of pace. I'm binge watching it right now so that influences my opinion quite a bit as I'm watching 2-3 episodes at a time. I need a break from the war, overly earnest religious zealots, and gray skin. Even in serious episodes, more humorous characters like Garak, Quark and Weyoun are a nice break.

 

[Timewalker]

I never thought of Weyoun as funny.

 

[marlboro]

There are a handful of good Trek comedy episodes, but there were several that were complete stinkers. They may have been fun for the cast, but they weren't very fun to watch.

As I've been going through later seasons of DS9 lately after a long time, I just think these "comedy" episodes are wasted potential. The Dominion war could have had much more to offer than baseball, Quark in drag and Bashir trying to get along with odd genetically manipulated folks.

I agree with this. I think they ran out of stories to tell about the main cast somewhere near the very end of season 6. The Dominion War storyline was still great however.


Some DS9 comedy episodes that I liked:

Who Mourns for Morn?
Trials and Tribble-ations
Our Man Bashir
The House of Quark
Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I never thought of Weyoun as funny.

He has his funny moments. When he just grabs and downs the poison kinar like it's nothing. When he's posturing to Worf and he suddenly just grabs him and snaps his neck. Certain of his interchanges with Dukat.

 

[kkt]

I really liked the comedy episodes. Okay, some were not as good as others, but on the whole they hold up well. If anything, the Dominion War episodes don't hold up to rewatching 5 or more times as well as some of the comedy, in my opinion.

And real war is like that for the individuals involved. Occassional terrifying battles, with long intervals of boredom with possible comedy in between.

 

[Betelnut]

I never thought of Weyoun as funny.

Maybe it is his delivery. He can say the most evil, threatening things with such lightness that I find it mesmerizingly delightful.

 

[Greg Cox]

Maybe it is his delivery. He can say the most evil, threatening things with such lightness that I find it mesmerizingly delightful.

As I recall, he could be dryly amusing . . . .

 

[Kilana2]

How good some of these funny characters are depends on a great deal. Q was great in TNG and awful in VOY. Lwaxana was great in DS9 and terrible in TNG.

I agree when it comes to Lwaxana, but I disagree regarding Q. Q was great in TNG, he had hilarious moments in his interactions with Janeway. He was bad in DS9, his appearance didn't work there, so he never showed up aboard DS9 again.

 

[Prax]

There's not enough story to make every episode about the war. Not when you're making 26 episodes. Plus it would send the writing staff into deep depression, and the actors would be unhappy.

Q is always great. Sometimes his co-guest stars bring him down, like Q Jr. or maybe Vash, but others add to the greatness, like Quinn or female Q.

 

[JesterFace]

There's not enough story to make every episode about the war. Not when you're making 26 episodes.

But, they have writers, people who create stories.

I think every single episode could and should have been about the war. Why start a war if there's nothing to say about it, instead of the main storyline, there's Quark in drag...

How about series like 24 with some episodes in between episodes that have little or nothing to do with the main story.
It wouldn't work.

I think the "comedy" episodes were just wasted potential, there was a lot of material to write about.

If series uses stand alone episodes, like TOS for example, then those comedies would be fine, but DS9 was an arc.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

I think every single episode could and should have been about the war.

Why? Not every episode of Band of Brothers featured fighting, and it was fewer episodes.

 

[JesterFace]

Why? Not every episode of Band of Brothers featured fighting, and it was fewer episodes.

I don't mean fighting all the time, something that has something to do with the war effort.

Later seasons of DS9 was an arc about that war, somehow it feels like waste of time if it tells stories about something completely different.
(once again this example: Quark in drag)

 

[Phily B]

I loved The Magnificent Ferengi when I was a kid, I was laughing so hard at it throughout specifically the holodeck training scene.

 

[jaime]

The thing about profit and lace is, it continues the overall Ferengi/Quark arcs, and plays with the Shakespeare stuff bubbling away in Ds9. It’s a comedy in one of the oldest traditions. Now, we can look at it through a different lens (I.e Today’s World) and ignore those things, but it’s kind of missing the point. It’s not funny because ‘it’s a man in a fecking dress’ (to quote a very popular comedy of the last few years) it’s funny because it’s Quark in a dress. (Or not) it’s an inversion in some ways of the earlier bits in his story with Pel. It’s not about trans anything, it’s about walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. And it’s a comedy. Do people squirm when Rochester cross-dresses and blacks up in Jane Eyre? And why?

 

[JesterFace]

I think it's okay for everyone to wear what they want, if a guy wants to put on a dress, I have no problem with that.

It's just that DS9 had more potential than that and only 26 episodes each season.
Show us a mission with admiral Ross or something rather than "Ferengi silly hour".

 

[Balok's Decoy]

Dr. Bashir, I Presume is an excellent comedy episode. As is Badda Bing, Badda Bang, which is a great riff on Ocean's Eleven. The writers/producers were just having fun and I love that.

 

[Kilana2]

I loved The Magnificent Ferengi when I was a kid, I was laughing so hard at it throughout specifically the holodeck training scene.

And the final scene with Keevan running against a bulkhead

 

[oberth]

I think it's okay for everyone to wear what they want, if a guy wants to put on a dress, I have no problem with that.

It's just that DS9 had more potential than that and only 26 episodes each season.
Show us a mission with admiral Ross or something rather than "Ferengi silly hour".

is 'had ... only 26 episodes' some sort of a joke?

 

[JesterFace]

is 'had ... only 26 episodes' some sort of a joke?

Not that I know of, maybe it was a poor choice of words.
Language barrier is a bitch.

 

[Phily B]

And the final scene with Keevan running against a bulkhead

I actually had to rewind the tape (in the UK the DS9 episodes came out a month before on VHS) several times because I was laughing so hard and missed key plot details, at least 3-4 times in that holodeck scene.