In ‘Encounter at Farpoint’ the Ferengi were introduced\u2014a new TNG race\/villain, perhaps to replace the overused Klingons and Romulans\u2014in passing and made to sound both threatening and mysterious.<\/p>\n
In ‘The Last Outpost’ we are set up to encounter them in media res, but the episode, like the last couple, has too many ideas to fully explore in one episode.<\/p>\n
And that’s without evening mentioning how silly the Ferengi are when we finally meet them.<\/p>\n
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Back to a summary: we find the Enterprise in pursuit of a Ferengi ship suspected of ‘stealing’ a piece of Federation technology. As the ships approach a planet, the Ferengi ship seems to fire on the Enterprise, and the Enterprise is rendered powerless and defensless. Eventually surrender negotiations are opened with the as-of-yet-unseen Ferengi and over the course of the latter part of the episode it is discovered that the planet below is now all it seems.<\/p>\n
I like:<\/p>\n
I don’t like:<\/p>\n
Other thoughts:<\/p>\n
What I also like about this episode is that it places the Federation and other things\u2014the ‘Star Trek Universe,’ so to speak\u2014in a greater context, in a space opera realm of sorts where there are long-dead civilizations, and things that are quite alien<\/em>, not just analogs of human cultures (though once they’re introduced the Ferengi become a bit one-note). It’s a ‘bigger’ world than that of TOS.<\/p>\n It seems \/ seemed for a while that the Ferengi could be the new Klingons\/Romulans, but TNG has to wait, really, until first the Borg and then the In ‘Encounter at Farpoint’ the Ferengi were introduced\u2014a new TNG race\/villain, perhaps to replace the overused Klingons and Romulans\u2014in passing and made to sound both threatening and mysterious. In ‘The Last Outpost’ we are set up to encounter them in … Continue reading Kardashians<\/del> Cardassians until a serious rival to and antagonist for the Federation shows up. There are just so many dropped-balls in the first couple seasons (think of the mouth-infiltrating brain bugs a ways down the road).<\/p>\nLinks:<\/h3>\n
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