Star Trek TNG - The Last Outpost

Originally aired: October 19th 1987

Ah, the Ferengi. I remember hearing years later that the Ferengi were intended to be a big villain for this show, but here at their first appearance that plan must have fallen apart straight away.

But it starts well. They introduce the mysterious alien ship well, and the bridge crew cast all play it well talking about the Ferengi. That breaks down a little bit when Data starts an “As you know...” exposition line. Who talks like that? People don’t talk to each other about stuff they already know for the sake of filling in the audience. They try to sell us here on the Ferengi being roughly as advanced as the Federation. So far, I’m willing to accept that. The rest of the teaser works well with the Enterprise mysteriously being incapacitated by the mysterious unknown technology of the Ferengi.

As the Enterprise sits there in trouble, freaking out about how their ship has been neutralised by the enemy, it occurs to me that they are missing an obvious alternative. I decide to wait and see how long it takes them to realise they’ve missed something. They start off on a tangent about history instead which confuses me - that dialog started as a conversation about what little they know about the enemy and ended up as a talk about the colours of national flags on Earth. I really wonder why in the middle of a Red Alert, Picard would allow the conversation get off topic like that. I suppose there’s not much he can do until the crew he’s sent to Engineering report back on fixing the problem I guess. Though he gets a bit snippy when he drags Data back on topic, despite Data pointing out that Picard himself started talking about flags.

They do come up with a plan, though they’re still missing the obvious alternative. The plan sounds quite plausible actually though. Once character does use the phrase “point three hundred milliseconds” though. What the fuck is that? Is .300 the same as .3? For shame Star Trek writers. Either learn how numbers actually work, or make up a unit so I can just write what you make these people say off as technobabble.

Anyway, they try their plan and surprise, surprise it does not work. The ship sits there, not having moved an inch. Picard actually swears in French at this. Someone starts reading through every bit of info the ship’s computer has. Everyone freaks out that the Ferengi can do this, except for Troi who finally spots what the others have been missing. It’s been 7 minutes. Not bad - assuming everything’s been in real time. And there’s not been anything to suggest it’s not. I thought it would take them longer to realise that maybe it’s the unexplored alien planet their orbiting that’s messing the ship up rather than the Ferengi. Picard calls for the first of many, many ready room scenes. They come out of it deciding to surrender to the Ferengi. Wuss.

But the Ferengi assume he’s asking for their surrender as they're in the same situation as the Enterprise. Picard gets them to show themselves on the viewer and we see the Ferengi make up for the first time. Hmm. It hasn’t changed at all really since it’s first appearance. They return to the conference room, and Riker has to hustle some children out of there before the Captain arrives.They were just playing around, but in an off limits area. Which adjoins the bridge. What the fuck? How did two kids, less than 10 years old each get into the conference room?

Anyway, long story short, the planet is an outpost of a long extinct incredibly powerful empire, and that’s pretty much the last interesting thing in the episode. The Enterprise works with the Ferengi to resolve the situation and people from both ships beam down to the planet. The rest is a rather dull plot where the two away teams get into a bit of a struggle on the planet. The Ferengi use some crappy energy whips - I honestly have no idea who the hell those were a good idea, but the way the Ferengi are shown here makes it hard for me to believe they're as advanced as the Federation. And it’s here that the idea of Ferengi as a Big Bad really falls apart. They’re just plain ridiculous as they appear here. A completely botched execution that never really gets fixed until Deep Space Nine develops the Ferengi race into something actually worth spending time watching. So it’s no surprise that they abandoned this approach and used the Romulans and the Borg as villains instead. About the only thing worth mentioning about the Ferengi was that Armin Shimmerman appears here playing a Ferengi for the first time. Perhaps he’s a relative of Quarks.

The plot gets resolved when Riker convinces a representative of the extinct empire that humans are civilised and he releases their ship and decides he wants to learn more about their philosophy. He releases the Ferengi as well, and then goes back to sleep until another visitor arrives, and the Enterprise retrieves whatever McGuiffin the Ferengi had stolen and leaves. Again, I see what they’re trying to do here - show that humanity has grown even further than they had in Kirk’s era, but it just falls a little flat as Riker gets to act all superior and condescending to toward the Ferengi.

It’s not until Star Trek starts to show us humanity’s weakness and dark side that it really becomes compelling to watch, and the first time Next Generation tries that is up next in Where No One Has Gone Before.

Wow - that was rather a long post. They won't all be this long - I get the feeling I'll only have this much to say on the episodes I don't like. :)