That Ferrengi Episode

[Captain X]

The inherent campiness built into the Ferengi--their appearance, their overt sexism and over-the-top greed, the Rules of Acquisition, all that--made them impossible for me ever to take them seriously from the get-go. They're a hoot. Brunt from DS9 is an absolute scream.

And part of the problem with the Ferengi is that the showrunners had the same attitude about them as you did. This is part of why they should have been left out of ENT.

A Ferengi-centric Enterprise episode turned out to be (for me) what I thought it might be...a romp, played largely for laughs. When I see Ferengi stealing pecan pie out of the mess hall and trying to wrestle the bridge seats into their ship, just because they're not nailed down, I gotta laugh.

Yeah, and what do you suppose they were piling up the women in with the rest of the loot for? Like I said, sex slavery is lulzy, just like rape, apparently.

T'Pol didn't seem "slutty" so much as clever to me, choosing the most logical way to take advantage of a Ferengi's, erhm, Achilles' heel.

Clever how? She used sex and lies when she could have used logic and strength to accomplish the same aim.

And as for Archer letting them go...they came off like the Ferengi Three Stooges to me. Maybe Archer saw them that way too, and didn't consider them a credible threat, once Krem was in charge.

Pirates who suck at being pirates are still criminals and should be brought to justice. Not only did he fail to bring criminals to justice, he left a threat to shipping in place - he didn't know the name of their species, all he had was a description of what the aliens look like (which is useless with a species that refuses visual communication), a description of that one ship they were using, and a description of that one object they used to knock the entire crew unconscious. So just letting criminals go on their word that they won't ever do it again makes Archer a criminal himself, really.

 

[Obi Wana Jones]

[/quote]
I didn't much care for the character abuse of T'Pol either, namely making her act slutty and out of character in order to "fool" the simple-minded Ferengi. Whatever happened to the nerve pinch? Why are such serious topics getting played for laughs? And that's all just scratching the surface, because to begin with they never should have done a Ferengi episode, and it was one of the lamest cop-outs imaginable to simply have them avoid saying their name, like that maintains continuity. Makes Archer look that much more the fool for not at least even thinking to ask them what species they belonged to during any of that, or demanding to know once he had the upper hand.[/quote]

What do you mean act slutty? A Vulcan in a catsuit??? Come on! I know it is just a SHOW, but B&B said "screw continuity, lets make ST:90210"

 

[SFRabid]

... She used sex and lies when she could have used logic and strength to accomplish the same aim.

....

At least we did not have to suffer the TOS method of having a Vulcan run around using the magical nerve pinch to save the day. The only thing I would have changed in the episode is at the end, make them pay for repairs by giving up parts of their ship. The parts that might have lead to interesting tech discoveries.

 

[cooleddie74]

What, they should have thrown the Ferengi in the brig? And then what?

Essentially they did punish the Ferengi by making them put all the stolen objects back on its place. And they were just glad to send them on their way and resume their mission.

And to be frank, doing more than they DID would have violated established continuity about the Ferengi even more than having them run into and plunder a 22nd century Earth ship in the first place. It might not have made a buttload of sense to let them go without finding out what their race was called or where they came from, but if Archer HAD forced the words "Ferengi" and "Ferenginar" out of them the fan community would have been up in arms far, far worse than it already was.

 

[ToddKent]

I don't think Archer & Co. had any authority to arrest them. They were in the middle of deep (possibly unclaimed) space. For example, if an American police officer was in China and witnessed a crime he would not be able to arrest the criminal and take him back to an American court to stand trial. He wouldn't have the authority.

I assume Archer was in the similar situation. He probably couldn't (and shouldn't) arrest citizens of a foreign government. For all he knew the "pirates" weren't breaking any of their own laws.

But I could be wrong.

 

[Captain X]

What do you mean act slutty?

Slinking, talking in a husky voice that emphasized sex, and giving the Ferengi an ear-job.

At least we did not have to suffer the TOS method of having a Vulcan run around using the magical nerve pinch to save the day.

Yeah, so let's just have our Vulcan science officer act like she's a tramp instead, that's so much better than having her act strong and intelligent or anything like that.

And to be frank, doing more than they DID would have violated established continuity about the Ferengi even more than having them run into and plunder a 22nd century Earth ship in the first place. It might not have made a buttload of sense to let them go without finding out what their race was called or where they came from, but if Archer HAD forced the words "Ferengi" and "Ferenginar" out of them the fan community would have been up in arms far, far worse than it already was.

Which is why they shouldn't have done the Ferengi at all in ENT, because there are more things to consider than just if they know who the Ferengi are before Picard and crew catch up with them.

I don't think Archer & Co. had any authority to arrest them. They were in the middle of deep (possibly unclaimed) space. For example, if an American police officer was in China and witnessed a crime he would not be able to arrest the criminal and take him back to an American court to stand trial. He wouldn't have the authority.

I assume Archer was in the similar situation. He probably couldn't (and shouldn't) arrest citizens of a foreign government. For all he knew the "pirates" weren't breaking any of their own laws.

But I could be wrong.

Yes, you are wrong. This would be more akin to pirates boarding a US Naval vessel or even a civilian NOAA-operated ship. Let's put it this way, if anyone even gets too close to a USN ship, they get fired on. So if pirates boarded an American ship, they would likely end up at Gitmo or someplace similar.

By the reasoning you used above, Enterprise shouldn't have ever been able to defend itself, because that would be attacking citizens of a foreign power in unclaimed space, they shouldn't have been able to arrest and hold the pirates that attacked them in the Delphic Expanse, they shouldn't have been able to arrest and hold the Klingons who sabotaged their ship in the Divergence story arc, or really anyone who wasn't a member of their own crew. That doesn't make much sense when I put it that way, does it?

 

[SFRabid]

I think you are forgetting a major point here. This is entertainment, not an attempt to create an alternate universe with lock-tight canon. That was thrown out by the third episode of TOS when they decided that Spock's human distant ancestor should be his mother. Oh, and don't forget the early episode where they went to an outpost on the edge of the galaxy, or traveled through the edge of the galaxy, or ... Trek has never traveled the straight canon road and a lot of episodes were based on less than logical stories.

I could pick apart half of the Star Trek episodes from any series, but i choose to enjoy them instead.

 

[Timo]

I don't think Archer & Co. had any authority to arrest them. They were in the middle of deep (possibly unclaimed) space. For example, if an American police officer was in China and witnessed a crime he would not be able to arrest the criminal and take him back to an American court to stand trial. He wouldn't have the authority.

True. But in most countries, he could do the equivalent of "citizen arrest" and then deliver the perp to the authorities. Assuming he had a sufficient idea of what was legal and illegal in that country, of course; otherwise, a citizen arrest might lead to the arresting party going to jail and the arrested one walking.

Should Archer have interrogated his captives to find out who the proper authorities were in this case, and then delivered these perps? Possibly - but that would have detracted him from his mission, to no good purpose. Piracy at that time was described as unstoppable: Starfleet didn't have the resources to do anything about it, so the shipping companies had already adjusted, and accepted piracy as part of the business. So there obviously wouldn't be any harsh anti-piracy laws in place on Earth, since their unenforceability would just humiliate Starfleet further. Pretty much the same situation as in the Mediterranean a couple of centuries ago.

OTOH, Earth had supposedly outlawed the equipping of the merchant ships with protective weaponry. Which is analogous to the situation today: possession of weapons will usually backfire, because the merchant ship will be outgunned anyway and then the pirates will have captured the weapons as well, not to have killed the crew that tried to use them.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain X]

I think you are forgetting a major point here. This is entertainment,

So? Shouldn't an attempt be made to do a good job?

not an attempt to create an alternate universe with lock-tight canon. That was thrown out by the third episode of TOS when they decided that Spock's human distant ancestor should be his mother. Oh, and don't forget the early episode where they went to an outpost on the edge of the galaxy, or traveled through the edge of the galaxy, or ... Trek has never traveled the straight canon road and a lot of episodes were based on less than logical stories.

So? You're using the mistakes from the first series before they really had everything figured out to excuse the things I've pointed out as being wrong with this episode?

I could pick apart half of the Star Trek episodes from any series, but i choose to enjoy them instead.

Depending on what it is, I can often enjoy aspects of an episode while pointing out mistakes or things that could have been done better.

 

[ToddKent]

Yes, you are wrong. This would be more akin to pirates boarding a US Naval vessel or even a civilian NOAA-operated ship. Let's put it this way, if anyone even gets too close to a USN ship, they get fired on. So if pirates boarded an American ship, they would likely end up at Gitmo or someplace similar.

By the reasoning you used above, Enterprise shouldn't have ever been able to defend itself, because that would be attacking citizens of a foreign power in unclaimed space, they shouldn't have been able to arrest and hold the pirates that attacked them in the Delphic Expanse, they shouldn't have been able to arrest and hold the Klingons who sabotaged their ship in the Divergence story arc, or really anyone who wasn't a member of their own crew. That doesn't make much sense when I put it that way, does it?

American Naval ships usually have permission to be wherever they are (in peacetime of course). They also usually know where they are. Neither of these two things were true for the Enterprise. My main point is that I don't think they had the authority to arrest and/or convict citizens of a alien government in a human court.

I'm not sure why you think I'm suggesting that in other circumstance they didn't have the right to defend themselves. I'm only talking about the ability to arrest and convict (in a human court) aliens that have broken "human laws" while they were not in human space.

But if they really wanted to it seems like they would have two options: 1. Hold them against their will in the brig until they decide to go back to Earth (and feed them and see to their day to day needs) or 2. turn around right then and head back to Earth so that the aliens could stand trial in a human court.

Archer probably wasn't interested in either option so he let them go. He was more interested in being an explorer than an intergalactic police officer.

But as I like to say, I could always be wrong.

 

[Captain X]

They probably wouldn't have had to go to Earth so much as they'd have to make a side trip to pass them along to say the Vulcans or another Earth ship, which would just be something that would have to be done since they were attacked by pirates, however incompetent they proved to be, IMO.

Just keep in mind that back in the day they would have a quick trial on the ship itself and hang them from the yard arm in order to keep things in perspective.