“The Price”
Written by Hannah Louise Shearer
Directed by Robert Scheerer
Season 3, Episode 8
Production episode 40273-156
Original air date: November 13, 1989
Stardate: 43385.6
Captain’s log: Troi comes back to her quarters after a long day. She’s tired and cranky and in the mood for some chocolate. Picard invites her to come to Ten-Forward for an impromptu reception. Several delegates have reported on board to negotiate with Premier Bhavani of Barzan II for control of an apparently stable wormhole that has been discovered in Barzan space. Barzan’s atmosphere is inhospitable to most lifeforms, so the Enterprise is hosting negotiations. The Barzan don’t have the ability to exploit the wormhole, so they’re taking bids for various nations to take control—in this case, the Chrysalians, the Caldonians, and the Federation.
The wormhole becomes visible every 233 minutes for a few seconds¸ and everyone watches it from Ten-Forward—except for Troi, whose crankiness has been replaced by intrigue regarding Devinoni Ral, a hired negotiator for the Chrysalians.
As the negotiations commence, a delegation of Ferengi arrive, to Picard’s annoyance. However, Bhavani doesn’t wish to refuse anyone a place at the table, so the Ferengi are beamed into the meeting. DaiMon Goss takes his place at the table while his two associates are escorted to guest quarters.
Ral wastes no time hitting on Troi, the Ferengi waste no time trying to sabotage the negotiations by poisoning Mendoza, the Federation representative, and Data wastes no time in volunteering to go through the wormhole to make sure it’s all the Barzan say it is.
When Mendoza takes ill, Picard asks Riker to represent the Federation—he’s the designated host, so he can’t do it. Ral and Riker do a good deal of verbal fencing, and then when the negotiations are in recess, Troi and Ral do some more physical fencing. Ral also reveals that he’s a quarter Betazoid and somewhat empathic as well, which gives him an edge in negotiations.
The Barzan probe showed that the other end of the wormhole is in the Gamma Quadrant. Both the Enterprise and the Ferengi send shuttles through—La Forge and Data on Shuttle 9, Dr. Arridor and Kol, Goss’s aides, on a Ferengi pod. They arrive to discover that they’re in the Delta Quadrant. It’s possible the Barzan probe’s reading were wrong—and also possible that they were right, and the wormhole’s terminus has shifted. La Forge and Data try and fail to convince the Ferengi to go through the wormhole before it becomes visible for fear that it will shift location again. Sure enough, it becomes visible and then shifts position, leaving Arridor and Kol stranded 70,000 light-years from home.
Meanwhile, Ral convinces the Caldonian negotiator to withdraw, with the Chrysalians absorbing their bid. Troi expresses discomfort at Ral’s keeping his empathy a secret, though he points out that she does likewise—she never, for example, tells the Romulan commander they’re facing that she senses he’s bluffing, she just tells Picard. After that argument ends, Ral shares a drink with Riker in Ten-Forward. He claims he’ll make a preemptive bid before Shuttle 9 returns through the wormhole. He also tries to manipulate Riker by throwing his relationship with Troi in his face—which backfires rather spectacularly, as Riker feels that if Ral can make Troi happy, that’ll make him happy.
DaiMon Goss then leaves orbit and fires a missile at the wormhole. Worf destroys it with phasers, and Riker is summoned away from negotiations to the bridge as the ship goes to red alert. Once Riker leaves, Ral points out to Bhavani that the Barzan should not be caught in the middle of the conflict between the Federation and the Ferengi. As Goss and Picard face off, Ral and Bhavani come to the bridge. Ral announces that the Chrysalians have come to an agreement with the Barzan, and he offers Goss Ferengi rights to the wormhole. Goss accepts and stands down.
Troi then points out—to Ral’s agitation—that neither Ral nor Goss were tense during the confrontation. Troi believes that the scene was staged by Ral and Goss to convince Bhavani to go with the Chrysalians.
Right after that, Shuttle 9 comes back, and Data and La Forge report that the other terminus is unstable, and the Barzan end of it will be unstable before long as well. That leaves the Chysalians with a dry well. Ral is recalled, and he asks Troi to come with him—she’s exposed a side of him he doesn’t like, and he wants her help to make him better. She says she already has a job as a counselor, thanks, and off he goes.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity?: La Forge’s VISOR can see the wormhole before it’s visible to others, and he recognizes the fluctuations that will make the terminus change again. The Ferengi ignore his technobabble to their regret.
Thank you, Counselor Obvious: Troi finds herself in a pickle when she has to balance her responsibilities to the ship against her relationship with Ral, though she settles it nicely, to Ral’s disappointment.
If I only had a brain : When La Forge expresses concern that, if something happens, he’ll be stuck in Shuttle 9 for the rest of his life, Data points out the bright side: “You will have me to talk to.” La Forge is not entirely buoyed by this notion.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet: Troi and Ral waste no time knocking boots. This being commercial television, it consisted of him giving her an oily footrub, and her mounting him and massaging his barely existent chest hair. Hot stuff.
Much hotter is Crusher and Troi’s girl talk in the gym. Crusher talks about a previous love: “I fell in love in a day, it lasted a week—but what a week!”
Welcome aboard: Matt McCoy is more smarmy than charming as Ral. Scott Thomson and Dan Shor are delightful as Goss and Arridor—Shor in particular has excellent body language. Castulo Guerra is very charming in a very small role as Mendoza, while Kevin Peter Hall and Elizabeth Hoffman are perfectly adequate as the Caldonian negotiator and Bhavani.
Most amusing of all is that Colm Meaney gets guest star billing for saying “Aye, sir” over the intercom. (The script called for another scene with him, but it was cut.)
I believe I said that: “We’ll need chairs.”
“I am Captain Picard of the Enterprise. I am serving as host for these proceedings.”
“Good, then see to it that we get some chairs.”
“Let me explain…”
“Fine, fine! Just have your Klingon servant get us some chairs.”
“I’m in charge of security!”
“Then who gets the chairs?”
“DaiMon, due to the delicate nature of these negotiations, all parties have agreed that one representative will suffice. Now, I will be happy to provide your counsels with accommodations, and you may have my chair.”
DaiMon Goss obsessing over chairs, Picard (and Worf) trying and only partially succeeding in setting him straight
Trivial matters: This episode firmly establishes that the Milky Way galaxy is divided (by the Federation, at least) into four quadrants, with the Federation occupying a portion of the Alpha Quadrant.
This is the final script by Shearer, pretty much the last holdover from the first season’s writing staff. She would later contribute the story to Deep Space Nine‘s “Q-Less.”
This episode served as a preview, in many ways, to the next two spinoffs. DS9 would center around a truly stable wormhole, and Voyager would have its main characters trapped in the Delta Quadrant, just like Arridor and Kol. The final fate of the two trapped Ferengi will be chronicled in Voyager‘s “False Profits.”
This is the only episode where Ferengi are sensed by telepaths—in “The Last Outpost,” Troi was unable to sense anything from them, and “Ménàge à Troi” will establish firmly that Betazoids can’t read Ferengi, but here, Troi senses Goss’s deception and lack of tension.
Make it so: “Who needs rational when your toes curl up?” Back in the rewatch of “The Emissary,” I pointed out that episodes like this succeed or fail on the backs of their guest stars. Suzie Plakson was perfection in the role of K’Ehleyr. Matt McCoy, though, not so much. He’s slimy when he should be charming, scuzzy when he should be charismatic. He has no chemistry with Marina Sirtis whatsoever.
And if the episode was only about the two of them, it would be a disaster, but luckily the sheer charm of Shearer’s script overcomes this. The Ferengi are a nice balance of comical and dangerous, the Crusher-Troi girl-talk scene is one of the best scenes in Trek history, Picard’s exasperated reaction to the Ferengi is priceless, and the dialogue generally just crackles. (“You’re better than you realize.” “Well, I hope I’m better than you realize.”)
The episode could’ve been a lot better than it was, but is still a great deal of fun.
Warp factor rating: 6
Keith R.A. DeCandido has written many books and comics and you can get autographed copies of several of his novels and comic books directly from him. Autographed copies of the print editions of his fantastical police procedurals SCPD: The Case of the Claw and Dragon Precinct (the latter a trade reissue of the 2004 novel) are also available for preorder. Find out more about Keith at his web site, which is a portal to (among many other things) his Facebook page,his Twitter feed, his blog, and his podcasts, Dead Kitchen Radio,The Chronic Rift, and the Parsec Award-winning HG World.
The love story is terrible. Most TNG-romances were of the 42-minute varitey, and with a few exceptions, they usually stunk. No different here.
The rest of the show is pretty good (the chairs dialouge, Riker asking if poker was a game of some sort, Picard telling Worf to tell Goss to “head for the Delta Quadrent, he may see them again in 80 years”).
I would like to have seen more of the Federation diplomat after the Ferengi poison, and injure him. Crusher indicates that he will make a full recovery, which makes you wonder if the Ferengi are developing more of that stuff, and building up it’s effectivness to be deadly to humans, and take over the Federation one day. As it stands in this episode, it just seems like the type of thing the writer forgot to follow up on.
Because of Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, this episode has aged better then some of the others, but it’s still really not that good, IMO.
This episode as always been a mixed bag for me, and you pinpointed exactly the reasons why. Ral is smarmy, not charming, so the romance just makes Troi look remarkably . . . naive somehow. That scene between Troi and Crusher totally saved the episode, though, and I wish there had been more of that sort of girl bonding seen in the series. I would love to have been a fly on the wall for conversations between the two of them about Riker, especially in the wake of “The Host.”
Certainly a pivotal episode for reintroducing the concept of wormholes to ST — or perhaps introducing them as the kind of interstellar shortcut we know them as now, rather than an unexplained type of warp malfunction as in ST:TMP. At the time of TMP, wormholes were an obscure solution of General Relativity that physicists and writers alike paid little attention to, so it’s a testament to TMP’s technical advisors that the film even mentioned them. The wormhole concept was popularized by Carl Sagan and Kip Thorne in 1985; Sagan asked physicist Thorne to devise a plausible FTL mechanism for his novel Contact, and once Thorne figured out how to make wormholes viable for the book by postulating “exotic matter,” it spawned a whole new field of theoretical physics. This episode was only 4 years later, making it pretty cutting-edge for TV science fiction. We never really saw wormholes as a concept in SF film and TV prior to “The Price,” at least not under that name (Buck Rogers in the 25th Century had “stargates” for FTL jumps long before Devlin & Emmerich came along, for example), but they became increasingly commonplace afterward, and we even got whole shows built around them — DS9, Sliders, Stargate, Farscape to an extent. It goes to show how influential TNG was.
I think this episode was also significant in that it helped define the way the Ferengi ended up being portrayed. The original idea of playing them as a serious threat didn’t pan out, so here’s where we see them evolve into their more successful role of comic antagonists, more wheeler-dealers and con artists than military opponents.
When VGR: “False Profits” brought Arridor & Kol back, they fudged the numbers a bit to make it happen. From what Data said, A&K were stranded no more than 200 light-years from the Gamma-Delta Quadrant border, but Voyager‘s course through the DQ at that point would’ve put it thousands of light-years from the GQ. They also cast a different actor as Kol, who was a nonspeaking role in “The Price.”
I think Caldonians are an impressive species (and I included one in my TNG novel The Buried Age). It’s too bad we didn’t see more of them, but there aren’t many actors that tall. The late Kevin Peter Hall was, of course, best known for playing the title creature in the first two Predator films and Bigfoot in Harry and the Hendersons.
The “quadrant” division irritates me. What is it based on? What volume does Federation + bordering spheres of influence occupy? Not large, galactically speaking, and it feels like a kid playing on the beach dividing the unknown Pacific Ocean into unknowable partitions.
Voyager would build on this crap foundation and make it worse.
Maybe it’s just me.
By the way, on the bit about Deanna reading the Ferengi, all she said was that she sensed no tension from Goss. She didn’t say that was a telepathic perception; it could’ve just come from reading his body language and vocal cues. After all, he was on the viewscreen, transmitting from another starship. I’ve always assumed that Deanna’s “reading” of people on viewscreens has more to do with body language, microexpressions, the sort of cues that any trained observer can pick up on, rather than with psionic senses, because I have a hard time believing that starships’ transmitters, receivers, and display equipment are built in such a way that they can pick up and rebroadcast psionic emanations.
sps49 wrote: “The “quadrant” division irritates me. What is it based on? What volume does Federation + bordering spheres of influence occupy? Not large, galactically speaking, and it feels like a kid playing on the beach dividing the unknown Pacific Ocean into unknowable partitions.”
I don’t see it as being any more arbitrary than dividing the Earth into hemispheres. And it certainly makes it more convenient to talk about DS9 and VGR. Imagine if, instead of talking about DS9 stuff in the Gamma Quadrant and VGR stuff in the Delta Quadrant, we had to talk about “way over on the other side of the galaxy” versus “way over on the other half of the other side of the galaxy.”
Dividing the galaxy into the four quadrants was a map making tool – nothing to do with who owns what. Of course, our divisions and thenames we gave them would be meaningless to members of a race living in a system on the other side of the galaxy. Just as beings evolved and living on a planet circling Alpha Centauri would not call them selves Alpha Centorians.
This is one of the episodes where I’m proud to say that Riker is my favourite TNG character.
One scene I really like in this episode is the scene where Ral tries to make Riker jealous about his relationship with Troi, and Riker doesn’t take the bait. Riker and Troi’s relationship is supposed to be loving but not possessive or jealous, and I think this episode got it right. A lot of other episodes try to shoehorn into a more traditional romance, especially in later years, which always disappoints me because it doesn’t fit the characters, and because their relationship is so unique among television couples.
“Then who gets the chairs?”
I laugh at that line just reading it, don’t even have to pull out the DVD to watch it. Pretty funny scene.
My favorite part of this episode is the look on the face of the Ferengi when they realize they have been stranded at the wrong end of the wormhole. Absolutely priceless.
Matt McCoy played Lloyd Braun on Seinfeld; it’s all I can think of when I see him in this episode now.
Funny how the events of this episode would end up having seismic repercussions on the future of the Star Trek franchise, and yet all I have to say about this episode is…Serenity Now!!!
I like this one. Perhaps it’s Ron Jones truly masterful soundtrack, but this one resonates nicely. The Ral/Troi relationship doesn’t make sense as he’s a scumbag and you’d think she’d have better taste, but perhaps it was completely physical for her. Troi obviously had little respect for him as a person as she got to know him better. This is one of the few bottle shows that doesn’t feel constricted as it makes good use of the ship’s many sets and the multiple plot lines intermesh well. Blooper note: watch Ral as he puts an empty fork into his mouth…
I felt like Troi’s facial expressions at the beginning with Ral were pained, not suddenly enraptured with this guy. Maybe I just caught the awkwardness of the Ral character and couldn’t see why Deanna would be so intrigued. I also kept expecting her to come up with some instance that she had met him before…
Aside from the great points in the plot you mentioned, I HATED this episode, when I watched it when I was younger and even more so today. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what Troi saw in that guy Ral, who came off as manipualtive and skeezy. The other parts of the episode were great, but as the whole Ral-Troi relationship was at the center, it sank the whole episode. Overall a terrible episode that made Troi look easy and naive.
I will say additionally, my favorite scene, and the saving grace of the episode, was when Riker turned the tables on Ral in Ten-Foward, deflating that stupid smug grin on Ral’s face. Very satisfying!
The problem with Ral, which was not evident during the series’ first run, is that he looks, sounds, and acts too much like Steve Carell. This is the third episode in a row that underwhelmed me, and the main reason is the lack of chemistry between Ral and Troi. It’s almost creepy to watch them together. By the way, Sirtis is a lovely woman, but I hope that was a body double during the oily foot fetish scene. That was not a good looking foot, lol. On the other hand, watching Troi and Crusher bending at the waist with a mirror placed strategically so we can watch the fabric strain against their rear ends was… umm, fun. Respectfully, a Neanderthal TNG fan.
It’s not only the lack of chemistry or charm, Ral is shown to be an arse right away, by how he treats his female companion. Troi gets her warning what happens when the next plaything comes along proudly presented by himself. Or does this work for anyone as showing him meeting his “one true love”?
His lack of charm and that weird blank stare made me expect him to be revealed as the really bad baddy the whole time.
@14. Exactly what I thought. The first scene where she sees him in 10Foreward, I thought she sensed something ominous from him or she was under some kind of subtle psychic attack. The way he was shot and the music felt nothing but creepy to me. It seemed telegraphed that he was bad news.
Then when he crowds her in her office and says he was hoping she was thinking about him, I was certain they had to have a history together. He could not possibly be acting that way towards her when they were complete strangers without Troi calling him on it.
The fact that they haven’t met before and it was supposed to be a sincere, appealing romance the whole time is just mind-boggling. High up the considerable list of worst Trek romances.
Two things that made this episode weaker for me:
– The schmalzty 80’s romance music that, when combined with the sleazy crap that due passes off as seduction, made me almost gag
– The doctor’s cameltoe in that unitard
Other than that, great character moments all-around. In particular, Troi, Crusher, and Riker felt like real, breathing people which was an unfortunate rarity up until this point. Riker and Troi both backhanding Ral was good fun, in particular.
Krad, Troi has sensed Ferengi deception before now, in the S1 episode The Battle from Daimon Bok.
Troi’s attraction to Ral is explained in the episode. He’s empathetic and uses that to his advantage not just to read minds but to subtly control them. He immediately recognized Deanna as both an empath and an extremely beautiful woman. Since he’s only 1/4 Betazoid it’s harder for fellow empaths to detect his abilities, and when he communicates telepathically it’s equally difficult for others to determine it’s source. When he first saw Troi in Ten-forward, he began sending her messages of longing and desire which she gobbled up like a real non-synthesized chocolate sundae.
You captured exactly how I felt about this episode. What it had was good, but it could have been better if the love scenes were more convincing. I do think he was supposed to be slimy, but he needed to be charming with Troi, too. Instead, you just got the feeling of “why would you be so stupid, Deanna?”
I think it might have worked better if his quarter Betazoid nature actually let him turn her empathy off. Then maybe she was a bit out of her depth. But that isn’t the way they sold it.
I actually did like the foot massage scene, though. But I also really loved the scene in STIII where Saavik just caressed Spock’s fingers. I like how understated it is. Bare feet are often used to symbolize nudity. Too bad the dialog that follows is so awkward.
@rj The problem with this interpretation is that the episode has him admit to being quarter Betazoid. If that ability is there, why wouldn’t Troi have known about it?
Even if Troi isn’t that familiar with these sorts of things, why would Roi assume she wasn’t? It seems foolish to admit it if it can be used to trick her.
It would make more sense if it wasn’t trickery at all. It’s just a natural thing that happens to Betazoids. They feel the feelings of other Betazoids as their own, and often get trapped in these romantic flings. Troi didn’t think much of it, because it was just normal.
I’ll agree that the romantic chemistry isn’t great but I do like that it functions on actual drama rather than some zinger like the subtle brainwashing that #22 suggests. Troi develops a problem with this guy and makes her choices.
By the way, doesn’t Ral better fit the original concept of the Ferengi than the Ferengi in this episode do?
I don’t like this episode much. For a start, the characters should have been more intrigued by the first stable wormhole ever. Aren’t they supposed to be explorers? Then, I would have preferred it if the wormhole had looked more like the wormhole in TMP. Also, shouldn’t the Federation be interested in making it available to everyone? Perhaps they are, but then why do they never use that as an argument in their negotiations with Bhavani?
Deanna Troi has a terrible taste in men. I didn’t like Riva, and this guy is worse. What bothers me most, though, is that she’s always so passive in her relationships. I thought Betazed was some kind of matriarchy, and even if she disagrees with her society’s views, it should have shaped her behaviour to some extent.
It’s nice that the alien leader of the week is an older woman. And in next week’s episode too!
I agree with just about everything in the article. One additional thing is that perhaps the little sequence at the start with Troi getting annoyed by everything is meant to be a context in which her desire for Ral makes more sense. He was perhaps meant to be a breath of fresh air for her. Life on the Enterprise was getting to her and along came something new that was separate from all this stuff. It’s even got a bit of connective tissue in that you could say it was her role on the ship and the Federation rules (no chocolate!) that were getting to her, and Ral actively encouraged her to stop being “Counsellor Troi”, to leave all that behind. It further makes sense since he’s an empath and so could detect that frustration and her fantasy of escaping it.
Other than that I don’t think it was done very well, and that segment at the start seemed poorly linked to the rest of it unless you really think hard about it, undermining its potential function as something to explain her attraction to Ral.
I didn’t much remember this episode or like it originally, and it was even worse on rewatch! I think it’s because I have a lot more experience in life now than the first time around and I recognize creepy more quickly. I never understood the attraction to Ral or why the character was played that way. It’s not that I disliked the actor, it’s just the character wasn’t a baddie attractive, he wasn’t a decent person attractive, and he wasn’t even a fun loving womanziner like Okona who you know will leave in the morning but is full of love and fun with no intention of causing hurt and just presents himself exactly as he is. Ral was just sleezy. At least with a bad boy who pilots up on his fast flying solo rogue fighter you can ask the female character what the heck she was thinking and then you’re like “well, yeah…” This episode just made me uncomfortable and the actors had no chemistry. I also squirmed uncomfortably during the Crusher Troi scene. Sorry guys, I have no issue with beautiful women in tight clothing (consent, actual purpose, etc etc, 7 of 9 was cool) but something about the outfits just seemed embarrassing and the speech not realistic (although Crusher’s “what a week!” was quite fun). Maybe because it was so jarring in its blatancy. “New idea! Mirrors on tight clothing on their rears while they stretch those rears and talk about…some sort of sexy stuff!” – in a show where that doesn’t happen. I mean, we rarely get men’s shirts off. Maybe it was a just a brief guy fantasy so I’m out of the loop.
Saving scenes were the musical chairs with Picard and the Ferengi, the Caldonian in general, and the scene where Ral tries to get Riker to take the bait on jealousy. Ha! Riker’s response was a welcome surprise and a casual but assertive slam dunk. Nice writing. It’s a powerful friendship where there is a history yet the character can not only be ok with what their friend does romantically, but can also throw in a “you should be so lucky” thought. Those are strong relationships because it means truly loving someone for who they are and you know they will be there for each other. I liked that this angle on a couple with a past was included in the show. The premise of a wormhole with only one stable side was also interesting.
I experienced my one and only moment of total sympathy and identification with Troi in this episode. At the line; ‘Is there any chocolate?’
I’m surprised this didn’t score lower, with the sheer grossness of Ral. From his disposing of his traveling friend with benefits, to negging Troi and getting all up in her hair. When I first watched it I thought he was some evil alien working some evil magic like the sub rosa ghost, from his behavior around Troi at the beginning. She obviously, at least from the way she played it, was insulted and turned off, yet he somehow seemed to control her into putting on a nice dress and hooking up? Was this actually considered a deep romantic connection in the 80s? I was so confused when he just seemed to be a regular guy Troi fell for and there was no evil magic going on. I wonder if the actress thought the script was so awful that she didn’t bother to act it more enthusiastically.
serenity now…insanity later
Ral is insufferable — that initial “seduction” attempt in Troi’s quarters was creepy and offensive even by 1989 standards, let alone today. And not just his messing with her hair and trying to caress her face, either, as clumsy and thuggish as he made it look. “My traveling companion is ‘traveling’ — I sent her home” — that’s supposed to be a pick-up line?! A love-’em-and-leave-’em macho jerk who’s not even slick enough to PRETEND he’s something else? That was Deanna’s signal to throw his a$$ out of her quarters and maybe even off the ship. (Cue Ruby Andrews: “Casanova, your playing days are over!”)
Oooh, how I wish he’d tried that schitt on Guinan! They’d be wiping him off the floor for WEEKS.
My thoughts here pretty much fall in line with everyone else: everything but the Troi love story stuff works great but the actual “romance” at the center of the episode weighs everything down unfortunately. Matt McCoy really does come across as sleazy when he’s supposed to be charismatic and how dare he put his hands on Troi uninvited and she acts meek in response instead of kicking him in the nuts like he deserves. When I first saw Ral, I was like “Hey, it’s the guy from the Police Academy movies!” At least the actor was likable there whereas here he had a very punchable face.
I really liked the scenes revolving around the bidding and investigation of the wormhole. The FX were pretty bad so thank god the wormhole on DS9 was a substantial improvement. This was also a great and effective re-introduction of the Ferengi as comic adversaries/relief. I loved the chairs bit as well. The Troi-Crusher scene was good too because it’s always nice to see the senior officers in their down time and the girls having their bonding time. Incidentally, I recall reading somewhere many years ago that Sirtis and McFadden were feuding with each other during the filming of this episode so the writers or maybe it was the director found it funny that they were being forced to work together for that stretching scene.
Who would have ever thought that this overall mediocre episode would serve as a basis for a sequel in that much worse VOY episode, “False Profits”?!
Star Trek: Discovery brought me (back) here. Now not only does this very mediocre episode’s themes and story elements tie directly or indirectly into Voyager and Deep Space Nine but into Discovery as well what with the deeper exploration of Barzan culture and in particular with the latter series’ Lt. Nhan. Well done Discovery writers, well done. “The Price” apparently is the episode that keeps on giving to Star Trek lore. What’s next? Meeting a descendent of Devinoni Ral? Haha.
Rewatched this one again but this time fast forwarded through all of the Troi/Devinoni Ral love and seduction scenes and it was a lot more enjoyable as a result. All of the Ferengi stuff (their first intentionally comic turn on the series) is great as is the Troi/Crusher aerobics scene.
@34/garreth: Following the precedent of Nhan, I included a Barzan Starfleet officer as a bit character in the first draft of my upcoming TOS novel Living Memory. But then Nhan’s big episode aired and her dialogue suggested that she was the only Barzan in Starfleet in the 23rd century, and apparently I’d forgotten her saying in season 2 that she hadn’t seen any other Barzans since leaving her homeworld. So I made the bit character an Arbazan instead, so I didn’t have to change too many letters.
Ral is a sleazebag. But in that scene with Deanna, I think he’s right. He has an empathic gift and is using it to gain an advantage in a negotiation. As he said, he deals in property. Nobody gets hurt. Meanwhile, when she is advising the captain, as she does about 10 minutes later, there are literally people who may live and die based upon what she finds out and discloses. What is the ethical difference?
Love love love Riker’s verbal beatdown of Ral in 10 Forward. The way his face suddenly breaks into that wry smile…. perfect.
This is a good episode . it establishes the 4 quadrants and i love the lore? started here that spills in voyager (love the sequel to this ep in VOY) DS9 and DISCO plus everyone seems less stiff and formal. also Girl Talk Aerobics ftw!!
I just got done rewaching this. Ral goes back and forth between charming/sliming and it was messed up when he tried to use deanna against will but one thing bothers me:
the episode casts him in a bad light at the end. troi tells the premeier like she really cares at the end of the day? she just got hooked up. i dont see anything wrong with using his empathic abilities here. kinda love how he throws it in her face that she does the same thing even if it isnt for profit. a quick search on google doesnt show anyone talking abot this episode and agreeing with my viewpoint. i might feel differently if he were a telepath however; but i know i would want a telepath as an negotiator coming from his employers point of view. empaths too!
@38/Eddie: The problem is that Ral hides his abilities and thus deceives the parties he negotiates with. His objection that Deanna hides her abilities too is invalid; she’s open about being half-Betazoid, and the species is recognizable on sight by their all-black irises.
Wormhole, yay!
Arsehole, nay.
Seriously, ST:TNG cannot do romance. It seems to me that none of the writers and/or directors would recognize a charming man if he ambled up to them with a warm, playful wink (and possibly a French accent — though that might just be me). We get smarm and sleaze every single time. Ral here portrayed the negging pickup artist years before that actually became a thing in the misogynistic “seduction community”. I really dislike how the horrible, no-good, 80s sitcom romances damage characters — just as Geordi’s thing with holoLeah made him look creepy, so does Troi’s fling with Ral make her look terminally naive and cements the idea that she has surprisingly bad taste in men for an empath (Ravi wasn’t anything to write home about either). At least Riker makes a decent friend, even if he is also a smarmy horndog in his romantic endeavours. I did like his smackdown of Ral.
The less camel toe and asscrack in tight spandex, the better. Sorry, horny teens-in-spirit. That wasn’t a girl moment, it was blatant fan service.Y’all are just as naive as Troi. ;)
The rest of it was alright; I was excited by the wormhole and its investigation. When Voyager started I remember wondering whether they’d ever meet those Ferengi; it was pretty hilarious to discover that indeed, the writers would make that happen. Geekdom, yay!
@40/piranha: “Ral here portrayed the negging pickup artist years before that actually became a thing in the misogynistic “seduction community”.”
That was always a thing, long before anyone coined a name for it. Look at ’40s movies or ’50s TV and comics, and there are plenty of examples of men “romancing” women by insulting and demeaning them. The assumption was that women would swoon for a strong man who’d dominate them psychologically.
@40/Piranha – Definitely agreed about TNG‘s romance-of-the-week plotlines, particularly for the women characters. That said, Ral stands proudly out in front of all of the rest of the one-off male love interests for being actively unpleasant, rather than just a blandsome Ken doll type.I was a bit surprised to discover that this episode was written by a woman.