OEEG: Acquisition

Description: This is the first of four reviews of Enterprise episodes taken from throughout the series run. With each week, I'll also be adding a new season full of micro-reviews similar to those in the Voyager section (one to three sentence summations of each episode). With that, let's get to our first entry.

Acquisition is a notorious Enterprise episode for one main reason: it has the Ferengi in it. Now the Ferengi have been mentioned before in Enterprise, which is fine, but now the Enterprise crew is going to directly interact with them. This puts us in a bit of a bind, since the early TNG episodes established the Ferengi as an unknown element to the Federation, that they had little to go on besides the fact they were interested in profit. At the same time, well, early TNG also sucked, and sucked hard.

Like I said previously, I'm not obsessed with the minutia of continuity, I care about that which is significant. For instance, if the B-plot of an episode is specifically about the fact that you can't beam through shields, then I'm annoyed when we see people beamed through the shields. I don't care too much if you can't remember what deck Riker's quarters are on, but if you can't recall a plot point which you used as the basis for a whole episode, then you've crossed the line between trivia and just plain not giving a shit. We're going to see a lot of the former type of continuity in Enterprise, which is fine, but for me, I could not give a crap that some alien species mentioned in passing is visited if that visit is in a shitty episode.

Now this episode is an odd duck, because it was firmly entrenched in several TNG episodes that the Enterprise-D was the first Starfleet ship to meet the Ferengi. To their credit, they knew that making this episode and did something about it. To their detriment, it depended on the Enterprise crew being morons. That's no help - the whole frickin' point of continuity is to have things make sense, and the only thing this does is further show just how incompetent these so-called explorers are. It's the difference between the Joker escaping at the end and Batman just letting him go on purpose - one works, the other doesn't.

Anyway, our story begins with a tiny Ferengi ship coming across Enterprise, floating dead in space. We discover soon that the entire crew was gassed, so it makes sense that as soon as Mayweather passed out the ship would just stop on a dime and then start spinning. The Ferengi ass-heads slowly come into the shot, and then they menacingly speak gibberish and grin evilly. This is actually going to go on for quite a while before a universal translator gets working, and yet, no one bothers with subtitles. Then again, how would it help? Aside of Quark, how many times has a Ferengi ever said something worth listening to?

So the Ferengi come aboard and start checking the ship out. We discover the device with the super-knock-out gas, and they turn it off. Krem (as we learn later) discovers T'Pol and begins stroking her ear in a way that you imagine most serial killers fondle their slumbering victims, until the other barks at him to get back to work. Krem, by the way, is played by Jeffrey Combs, who has played several thousand supporting roles in the various Star Trek series, and always manages to give a different aura to each of them. This is the only thing that stops Krem from being as creepy and idiotic as he's written to be, as he clearly manages to elevate this part so at least he doesn't make you wish he was dead.

Anyway, back to the episode, where it seems that just a minute or two with the cannister off is enough to take their masks off and move through the rest of the ship without them - thus Enterprise must use the idea that if one thing is bad, the whole ship must be as quickly as possible, but if one area isn't any more, the rest must need to be flushed out, or something. Who knows, these are the people who gave you the much overrated Dear Doctor, so you know that common sense isn't going to be found here. They find their way to the bridge, and then send a message back in their heathen lingo to the leader of this thing, Ulis, played by Ethan Phillips, whom you'll likely recognize as Neelix. As I've said before, Phillips isn't a bad actor, so since he's not playing Der Sheistkopf, he isn't annoying for once. Anyway, his expression changes slightly at the news, but it's hard to tell how and since we've no idea what was said, I suppose speculation is pointless.

Meanwhile, over five minutes into the episode, someone finally starts speaking a real language. Unfortunately, that someone is Tucker, who's lying in decon wondering what the hell's going on. He's lying there on the floor, the camera lovingly showing his bulging underwear as it does in many an episode - I think that stats are something like one out of every six episodes he's in his underwear this season, showing that gratuitous crap isn't just limited to T'Pol, all though she's still in a tight suit in every single episode this season. Anyway, as we'll later discover, the pod with the gas was picked up by Tucker on a moon, and he went through decon just to be safe. The pod did the same thing, but apparently much faster and with much less security, since it may be alien and all, but it's at least unlikely to pick its nose and fling it at people. So, with nobody answering, Tucker breaks out. Now, the decon area exists to ensure the safety of the entire crew, as it's the only line of defense between them and possibly fatal infection, like we will eventually see in The Observer Effect. Making sure the people inside cannot get out should be a significant part of that - after all, delusional behavior is certain possible when dealing with the unknown. So I think it's actually a good thing he can't just issue an override and let himself out. However, I also think it's a bad thing that he can just open a panel with his fingers, twiddle something with his fingers, and in seconds have the door open. Between this and the gas distribution, I've decided to create a new category: Unsafe At Any Speed, for those times when the ship has clearly been designed with the kind of disregard for safety that goes into mechanical bulls. I'm also adding to the list of charges the fact the decon room doors have nothing to seal them, the two metal frames just bump up against each other. You see better air seals around a window-unit air conditioner.

Well, after sighting a few people passed out in the halls, Tucker puts on his confused face and heads to sick bay, finding Phlox passed out on the floor. Tucker looks him over a bit; I know if he was my doctor I'd be tempted -based on his behavior- to see if he was flying high on some really potent stuff ("That eel is for bullet wounds, this bird is for blood thinning, and this bat... that's for personal use... just stay the hell away from it!"), but the Ferengi show up, still speaking gibberish. This begins the... *sigh* You know, sometimes it's just so hard to list all this shit, because I just can't believe it got this far without someone pointing out the idiocy. We see the Ferengi swiping anything that isn't nailed down... actually, scratch that, they start swiping the most worthless shit possible that isn't nailed down. In some cases, not even that much is true, as they start stealing the frickin' chairs! Seriously, they unbolt them from the floor and try to swipe 'em! Ulis himself pries the plaque off the wall with a crowbar and takes it - what the hell is he going to do with that?! Their thieves, we get it, you don't have to show them stealing literal junk to get that point across! God!

And the worst part of all this? There was actually a germ of a possibility that the Ferengi might actually be something to take seriously. Instead of being the charicature they were, the Ferengi have an aura of menace about them, they really felt like that description of the worst aspects of Yankee capitalists described way back in The Last Outpost. If it wasn't for the fact that the Ferengi have once again been played to be so goddamn clumsy and stupid, this episode could have turned out a lot better. Instead, they remain the eternal punchline that it is to be a Ferengi. There was a brief glimmer of hope, a spark there showing the potential that could have been there, but then someone pissed all over it. And so the Ferengi exit the franchise as they entered, making us roll our eyes at how moronic these guys really are.

Anyway, back to the episode, this bullshit continues for several minutes. The only high point was the sight of Krem making a girl pile, because it just fit that creepy vibe he had. I got the feeling when he was done he was going to run back and jump into it like kids do in autumn. Ulis sets his sites higher and drags Archer down there, handcuffs him, and wakes him up. With a little work from their universal translator, we can finally understand them. This, by the way, happens more than a quarter of a way into the episode, how's that for quality entertainment?

So, now that we have someone awake, actual shit can happen. Unfortunately, said shit is a lot of, well, shit. The Ferengi, who have spent their time unbolting useless junk, are asking about where the vault is now that they've gotten the important stuff out of the way. It also shows great foresight that they never considered that they could maybe just steal the ship instead of taking a lot of stuff that will be little better than scrap metal. You might say that they figured it was too big to try, but with all the absolutely stupid things they've suggested or done, the most obvious is never given a moment's lip service? Finally, wouldn't you think things that are locked be the first thing to check, like Daniels' quarters which have that special seal on it? Shouldn't you be trying to get in there rather than breaking out the socket wrench?

Meanwhile, Trip has been watching the whole thing from a screen in Engineering. I loved his nonchalant walk to get there - no matter how dire the situation, Trip walks in style, never runs man. In fact, if you happened to miss the two very brief scenes where he examines unconscious people -something which might happen given it's maybe twenty seconds out of the ten minutes we had of the Ferengi swiping pies from the mess hall- you'd just have further reinforcement of how clueless he is, strolling through Engineering in his underwear like this kind of thing happens every day. "Hi-ho, hi-ho, let's check the warp core flow..."

So he goes to check out Archer in person after the captain's had his ass kicked for a while, insisting they have no valuables on board. Krem suggests they just leave with what they've got, but Ulis thinks there's more. At the suggestion of selling the contents of the girl pile into slavery, though, Archer let's his shock at the idea show through, and Ulis uses it to twist the knife. So Archer figures he'll need to convince them there's gold, so he says he'll show them where it is if he can keep a percentage. After arguing a while, Ulis falls for it and decides they'll stay and look for themselves. Krem, being clearly the dumbest of them, is by narrative law placed on guard duty over Archer, who will be given the job of loading the crap on the ship. He banters with Krem, who lays some Rules of Acquisition on him, thus allowing Archer to Spread The Starfleet Gospel:

KREM: I've memorized all a hundred and seventy three, including the most important one: "A man is only worth the sum of his possessions."
ARCHER: Back on my home world that kind of thinking almost destroyed our civilization.

Which is why they've instead embraced: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." That philosophy has never caused any problems. Still, Archer plays up the idea of Krem being crapped on by Ulis (who's his cousin), until he spots Tucker and cons Krem into going to get him some water. Krem at least has the sense to lock him up, and we discover that as dumb as the Ferengi are, they've still outsmarted the Enterprise crew - all the weapons are already gone, and Tucker can't use his sonic screwdriver to rescue Archer, so they decide to go get the hypospray with the antidote and use that to wake people up. There's only enough for one dose, though, so Tucker figures he'll pick T'Pol, as the one who's most logical and likely to realize the seriousness of the situation. However, apparently a side effect of the gas is turning Vulcans into idiots too, because rather than recognizing something bad must have happened, she looks like Tucker like, well, she would have at Krem if she'd seen what he was doing earlier.

Oh God, speaking of which, Archer and Krem come back in here, and Krem begins gushing with creepy all over her as she feigns unconsciousness. Archer starts saying things about her to discourage him from wanting to make her his sex slave until they leave, letting T'Pol and Tucker get away to work out their strategy. First step: a jumpsuit for Tucker. As for the rest of the Ferengi, they're engaging in Ferengi Antics™! They're thinking maybe the body scanner is actually the vault, and there is a great deal of surprise when it's opened just to reveal a bed. They start going through the rest of sickbay, and an argument breaks out between Ulis and Muk when the latter discovers a medical tool that looks like it's used to impregnate cows, and Muk decides it's so valuable he's keeping it for himself. This was the same asshole we saw stealing boots and test tubes earlier, so it's not as if he's got a lot of room to complain about the quality of what they've been getting. It gets worse when they get to the bridge and we see he's now staked a claim on a few scanners, thus allowing T'Pol to trick them, first with a high-pitched noise for distraction, then slipping them into Ulis' bag. On the whole, these counter-measures are proving even beneath the level of Home Alone; in fact, they really only exist so that we can see the Ferengi be greedy. It seems to me the far more logical move in all this would have been to have T'Pol nerve pinch Krem and then just go through the cargo to get the missing weapons, but then, I suppose if I was a highly-logical genius I might just resort to acting like I was in Revenge of the Nerds too. (In fact, with these kinds of antics, I was afraid that when we saw Tucker cover up the "Bio-Resequencer" label on a door, I thought for sure they were going to be tricked in there and have disgusting stuff dumped on them for our wah wah wah!, but thankfully that didn't happen, stopping them from going from juvenile to infantile).

Meanwhile, Archer continues trying to get Krem to betray the others. In typical Trek style, Archer's conniving of a stupid character is represented by the oboe. Tempted though he is, though, Krem doesn't fall for it and Archer gets back to work. On the other end of the spectrum, the next scene shows two of the Ferengi trying to get Porthos to spill where the vault is. If you don't remember, Porthos is a f*cking dog. Muk decides that Porthos doesn't know, but plans to steal him anyway, thus bringing his grand collection to a pair of boots, three scanners, a mutt, and that frightening medical tool. And to ensure his investment is properly preserved, he wisely puts Porthos in an airtight storage container, to lock in freshness!

That little bit of forward thinking out of the way, he catches a glimpse of Tucker, and after a chase and a fight, Tucker gets hold of his weapon, but Ulis proceeds to kick his ass with the return of the Ferengi energy whip. The image of Ulis coming up the hall with one of those is surpisingly potent, and what I mean when I said earlier this could have helped set the Ferengi back on the path of being at least something to be taken seriously some of the time, rather than being a complete joke at every opportunity. It might have worked too, if the rest of the episode didn't show they're complete idiots.

Speaking of which, they drag Tucker into the room with Krem and Archer and a disagreement breaks out. Ulis tells Muk he's got to leave, and that all he'll get for his part is a shuttlepod and the girl pile. Tucker acts outraged, saying Hoshi's his wife. He and Archer ham this scene up until they get into a fistfight, then Tucker leads all but Krem off through the bowels of the ship. Meanwhile, Archer fakes a back injury so that Krem has to haul the stuff, allowing him to run into T'Pol. She pretends to be a slave and comes on to him in a scene that goes on uncomfortably long before she finally, after rubbing his ears, gives him the nerve pinch and puts him out. She gets the key and, in a scene I can't believe, she toys with unlocking Archer because of the things he said. Oh please. "Gee, I'm sorry I said bad things about you to try to rescue you from a life of sexual service." That'd be a petty waste of time for anyone, but that she's supposed to be a Vulcan of all things just further shows no one is escaping this episode with their dignity intacted.

So Tucker leads the Ferengi in circles for a while, then to the fake vault he set up earlier. Once he tricks them inside T'Pol uses a phase pistol she took from the container on their ship to stun them all. With that done, they make the Ferengi put everything back. Now with everyone awake and the Ferengi helpless, Archer demands to know who they are and- Oh, no wait, he instead locks them up on their ship (except for Krem) and tells them to leave and never come back, without asking to learn anything about them.

In any logical universe, the Ferengi should have been arrested as pirates and probably brought to the Vulcans to be dealt with. One need only look at recent real world events to know how serious this kind of shit is, and even though the Ferengi were once again played for laughs, that doesn't change the fact they were thieves and slavers. Yet, Archer decides (no doubt setting future Starfleet policy) to send them on their way with a warning. He doesn't bother finding out who they are, he doesn't impound their ship, he just forgets it all ever happened. Continuity is maintained, if you assume that both sides decided to just call the whole thing off and pretend this thing never happened. The real ending was obvious: that the Ferengi should escape, not be captured and released like this was a fishing show. If continuity is important, than you can't have people act like idiots to maintain it.

Next time, more continuity issues rear their ugly head.

Rating: 3

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