Worst Voyager race: Farengi

[JirinPanthosa]

I've been running through Voyager episodes for the first time since it originally aired, and out of every episode in the series (Except for the three I skipped, Threshold and the two Fair Haven eps), two stand out as by far the worst.

1. False Profit. It almost made me want to quit watching. And then I realized, when it originally aired, it made me quit Voyager for a couple weeks before coming back to it a little later in the season. If any episode makes you almost quit the entire series, twice, I think it's by far the worst episode.

2. Inside Man. Holy crap, what a bad episode. Besides the fact that it brings the farengi back to the cartoonish level of ridiculous evil they were in season one of Next Generation, it makes no sense. Durr durr I'm Janeway, I'm going to take the ship into this phenomenon that to my knowledge is a death sentence, and take it on faith that these shield improvements and inoculations work without thoroughly testing it.

After DS9 turned the farengi from something cartoonish and silly into something a little more gray and far more interesting, Voyager brings them back to the abject silliness and absurd capitalist caricature they were originally meant to be. What the heck were the writers thinking?

 

[R. Star]

They're so bad they can't even have their name spelled right?

 

[SonicRanger]

Regarding False Profits, the director Cliff Bole gave some insights in interviews that are quoted over at Memory Alpha:

Director Cliff Bole explained, "This was the producers' attempt to get some of the little, evil Ferengi into the series because they're so well-liked and accepted by the fans. We call them the 'Peter Lorres of space,' you know? The producers wanted some lightness, some comedy." (The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine, issue #15)

After having directed this episode, Cliff Bole came to the opinion that he had made the installment somewhat too silly. "That one is 'Cliff's Folly,'" he said of the episode. "In fact, everyone should join in on that." Moments later, Bole remarked that this episode's level of comedy "went overboard." He continued by saying of the installment, "I don't think the studio was too happy with it, but they did get a lot of positive mail on it. It's not one of my favorites [....] It just got a little bit too silly. I'll take the hit for it, because I let everyone go a little too far. We were all enjoying the fact that it wasn't another new villainous character. And those damn Ferengi are so much fun to work with." (The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine, issue #15)

There's one other interesting bit of information at Memory Alpha: the writer Joe Menosky hadn't even set foot in the writers' room when he wrote the script:

This was the first episode that returning Star Trek staff writer Joe Menosky was involved in writing after a four-year stint of working and living in France, he having previously served as a staff writer on Star Trek: The Next Generation. (Star Trek Monthly issue 20) In fact, this Star Trek episode was one of several that Menosky wrote while still in Europe, prior to him joining the writing staff of Voyager for its third season. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 29, No. 6/7, p. 90)

 

[Guy Gardener]

How this episode should have went.

Kim: "Scans show a ferengi shuttle pod ahead."

Janeway" Really? Ferengi? Any Life Signs?"

Kim "No."

Roll Credits.

...

Seriously.

Slingshot back in time 20 years and go through the wormhole when it still behaved back to the Barzan System. I wouldn't feel so bad if this wasn't the exact same soloution to route the conclusion of Eye of the needle too, and then again in Futures End, or even in that Episode where Janeway sold Seven of Nine to George Costanza, actually there is not a single episode, starting with and including Caretaker that couldn't have been cured by going back in time a century or more.

 

[BruntFCA]

Both episodes suffered from a fatal case of stupid. VOY had an annoying habit of making the characters act stupid to fit the plot, not that it was the only one (Dax in Meridian).

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I have forgotten Inside Man. I can't remember a thing about it

False Profits I like just fine. I am always impressed by how profit is so deeply critical to Ferengi beliefs and identity that they are willing to give up everything they ever knew just to amass profit in a place they can't spend it. Just to sit on it. Never see Ferenginar again or their families but to be HAPPY, super super happy because they have profit. They don't even get to gloat about it to other people.

Not too impressed with the dumbass star trek villagers but they are in every series, always the same.

 

[MacLeod]

How this episode should have went.

Kim: "Scans show a ferengi shuttle pod ahead."

Janeway" Really? Ferengi? Any Life Signs?"

Kim "No."

Roll Credits.

...

Seriously.

Slingshot back in time 20 years and go through the wormhole when it still behaved back to the Barzan System. I wouldn't feel so bad if this wasn't the exact same soloution to route the conclusion of Eye of the needle too, and then again in Futures End, or even in that Episode where Janeway sold Seven of Nine to George Costanza, actually there is not a single episode, starting with and including Caretaker that couldn't have been cured by going back in time a century or more.

Now now lets not bring common sense into the debate.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Slingshotting around the sun and the failure of everyone to keep dong it has a lot to answer for.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The kazon chased them for two years.

it would have been so easy to hide from hem 20 years earlier.

Going around Borg Space?

Going through Borg Space?

Adding 40 years to the trip or out right Suicide.

Going back in time 800 years?

Piss easy.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Heck everyone should go back to some dark age where no sentient races had warp drive and no super races from other galaxies were larking about in this one. Go back to the time, zip across the neutral zone, never get a ticket.

 

[Lynx]

I must admit that I actually like the Ferengi and I do like "False Profits" too. Most of all because we could see what happened to those Ferengi from "The Price" and also because I think it's OK with a rather funny episode sometimes.

Not to mention that I find the parody of capitalism and greed both funny and appropriate. It reminds me of greedy people I've actually met.

And Quark is one of my all-time Trek favorites!

 

[Guy Gardener]

Maybe the technique is not public knowledge?

 

[R. Star]

Voyager basically proved it's easier to accidentally travel in time than it is to travel from point a to point b.

 

[Sandoval]

I have forgotten Inside Man. I can't remember a thing about it

Clive Owen is hiding behind a false wall in a bank and Denzel Washington and the bad guy from Serenity are trying to find him.

 

[jpch]

Regarding False Profits, the director Cliff Bole gave some insights in interviews that are quoted over at Memory Alpha:

Director Cliff Bole explained, "This was the producers' attempt to get some of the little, evil Ferengi into the series because they're so well-liked and accepted by the fans. We call them the 'Peter Lorres of space,' you know? The producers wanted some lightness, some comedy." (The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine, issue #15)

After having directed this episode, Cliff Bole came to the opinion that he had made the installment somewhat too silly. "That one is 'Cliff's Folly,'" he said of the episode. "In fact, everyone should join in on that." Moments later, Bole remarked that this episode's level of comedy "went overboard." He continued by saying of the installment, "I don't think the studio was too happy with it, but they did get a lot of positive mail on it. It's not one of my favorites [....] It just got a little bit too silly. I'll take the hit for it, because I let everyone go a little too far. We were all enjoying the fact that it wasn't another new villainous character. And those damn Ferengi are so much fun to work with." (The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine, issue #15)

There's one other interesting bit of information at Memory Alpha: the writer Joe Menosky hadn't even set foot in the writers' room when he wrote the script:

This was the first episode that returning Star Trek staff writer Joe Menosky was involved in writing after a four-year stint of working and living in France, he having previously served as a staff writer on Star Trek: The Next Generation. (Star Trek Monthly issue 20) In fact, this Star Trek episode was one of several that Menosky wrote while still in Europe, prior to him joining the writing staff of Voyager for its third season. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 29, No. 6/7, p. 90)

Thank you for the Information very nice

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I have forgotten Inside Man. I can't remember a thing about it

False Profits I like just fine. I am always impressed by how profit is so deeply critical to Ferengi beliefs and identity that they are willing to give up everything they ever knew just to amass profit in a place they can't spend it. Just to sit on it. Never see Ferenginar again or their families but to be HAPPY, super super happy because they have profit. They don't even get to gloat about it to other people.

Not too impressed with the dumbass star trek villagers but they are in every series, always the same.

I don't think it's the premise that's the major issue here so much. It's more the two dimensional-ness of it.

First, no way they should have done the "We can get home now! Oops, sorry, our morality screws us over again." That was just plain awful.

I would have liked to see the episode play out more than that last Maybourne episode in Stargate. That the planet realized they were not Gods and were exploiting them, but also realized that their economy was much better off and they had advanced more in the last few years than the previous few centuries. So maybe they let the ferengi stay, but as equal competitors instead of superiors. And I would have the ferengi be able to spin their tongue as well as Quark could and advocate his position instead of just snarling off how awesome profit is.

The way the villagers were written, I imagine one year after the ferengi left, the whole population went extinct due to a series of minor accidents. Somebody falls off a building, somebody sticks their arm in a wood chipper, somebody climbs into a lion cage. It really would have been more humane to leave the Ferengi as their gods. At least the Ferengi could teach them how to dress themselves, and teach them the stove is hot.

 

[lurok]

I have forgotten Inside Man. I can't remember a thing about it

Clive Owen is hiding behind a false wall in a bank and Denzel Washington and the bad guy from Serenity are trying to find him.

Then Denzel gets to confront Gen. Chang. (I love Inside Man )

The VOY one not bad either. That's the one with the cool, confident holo-Barclay?

 

[T'Girl]

Not too impressed with the dumbass star trek villagers but they are in every series, always the same.

Love to see a episode sometime where the ox cart technology villagers, show up our intellectually evolved heroes at the end of the episode.

 

[lurok]

Isn't that Errand Of Mercy?

But yes, would have been fun to see more in Trek (and Stargate)

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I think this is the best line of ferengi dialog ever written in Trek:

ZEK

Nevertheless, it is becoming more and more difficult to find truly lucrative business opportunities here in the Alpha Quadrant.

ZEK

And why? Because no matter where we go, our reputation precedes us. A reputation that has been tainted by the lies of our competitors who maliciously spread the erroneous impression that we are not to be trusted.

In Voyager all we get is. "We must have more PROFIT! So we can get LOBE ENHANCEMENTS!"