Just Curious About the General Dislike of "Profit and Lace"

[Mike Have-Not]

I don't have any strong opinions on this ep. myself. I generally enjoy the Ferengi episodes. I think they are funny.

Anyone care to elaborate on what exactly you find makes "Profit and Lace", in particular, such a bad episode?

 

[Kegek]

Basically?

It's not funny.

Quark in a drag isn't exactly a hi-larious concept to begin with. The execution leaves much to be desired as well.

And in many ways it feels like a retread, spoofing a phrase that had already been used in the Ferengi "Profit and Loss", having a Ferengi character change gender having also been done, and much better, in "Rules of Acquistion", where it actually wasn't played for laughs and provided a more interesting quasi-feminist commentary than this episode gives.

There was apparently a bit of schiozprenia behind the scenes as well. Sidding wanted to make this a 'dark' Ferengi episode (whatever the hell that means) but that kind of fell through.

 

[SonicRanger]

Re: Just Curious About the General Dislike of "Profit and La

Yes, supposedly the whole thing was scripted, directed, shot, etc. as a "darker" episode until TPTB hated the tone, and it was basically completely changed in tone during post-production. That is bound to cause problems.

 

[MyCylon]

Well, I definitely think it's not a very good episode but I don't find it substantially different from most of the other goofy Ferengi episodes. I'm always surprised that it gets as much hate as it does.

 

[Jack Bauer]

A lot of people just don't like men in drag and don't find it funny at all.

 

[Jono]

Re: Just Curious About the General Dislike of "Profit and La

I don't mind it. Especially the Dabo girl at the beginning and end. She is quite good looking and I found her voice very sexy.

 

[TeutonicNights]

Re: Just Curious About the General Dislike of "Profit and La

I think what may add to the hate is that the episode is part of those episodes that show the transition in the Ferengi society.
It happened too fast and too smoothly, and that episode makes the Fergs look stupid.

 

[startrekwatcher]

Re: Just Curious About the General Dislike of "Profit and La

I don't care for most Ferengi episodes and was dreading this one but I actually enjoyed it. Take that for what is worth. I enjoyed some stuff like Quark as Lumba, Rom demonstrating the proper way to strut, the comic mayhem at the end. I don't get all the hate for this episode. It isn't "The Magnificent Ferengi" but it isn't awful either.