“Body Parts”
Written by Louis P. DeSantis & Robert J. Bolivar and Hans Beimler
Directed by Avery Brooks
Season 4, Episode 24
Production episode 40514-497
Original air date: June 10, 1996
Stardate: 49930.3
Station log: Quark is back from two weeks on Ferenginar with some pretty awful news from his annual insurance physical: he has Dorek Syndrome, which is incurable, and he’ll be dead in a few days. It’s very rare, afflicting only one in five million Ferengi—Quark comments morbidly that he finally beat the odds. Rom is beside himself, suggesting he get a second opinion from Bashir, but Quark dismisses the notion. How good a doctor can he be when he doesn’t even charge?
Quark’s biggest concern is the paying off of his debts so he can get into the Divine Treasury after death. Rom suggests selling his vacuum-desiccated remains on the futures market. Quark doesn’t think anyone will buy, as he considers himself a joke. Rom’s assurances that he’s a pillar of the community and an important businessman on the station fall on deaf (if very large) ears, because the only opinions Quark cares about are those of other Ferengi. To them, he’s just small-time, but he doesn’t have any other way of paying off his debts, so he goes ahead and puts his body up for sale.
Keiko has gone on a botanical survey to the Gamma Quadrant, accompanied by Kira and Bashir. O’Brien is beside himself with worry, and that concern metastasizes when the Volga returns early from its mission badly damaged. They had a collision with an asteroid, and Keiko was badly hurt; Bashir had no choice but to transfer the baby from Keiko’s womb to Kira’s. It was the only way to save them both. However, because Bajoran gestation periods are only five months, the ties between mother and fetus are stronger, so removing the child from Kira and putting him back into Keiko would be too risky for both Kira and the kid. So Kira must carry the child to term.
Quark is suffering considerable anguish, as there’s only one bid and it’s from Rom. But even as he bemoans the entire course of his life, a massive anonymous bid comes in: five hundred bars of gold-pressed latinum for the entire set. Quark thinks it was Grand Nagus Zek who made the bid, and while Rom suggests that he use that to stimulate further bidding, Quark doesn’t want to risk offending the nagus, and so accepts the bid as final. Then, while he and Rom are making funeral arrangements and disbursing the five hundred bars to his creditors, Bashir interrupts with a message from Dr. Orpax, the physician who diagnosed him: Quark doesn’t have Dorek Syndrome.
This news has several consequences. The first is that Quark is going to live. The second is that Quark has a great case for malpractice against Orpax. But the third is that the anonymous bidder wasn’t Zek—it was Brunt, who shows up at the station demanding his merchandise. He paid for a dead Quark, and he wants a dead Quark. He’s fully aware that Quark doesn’t have Dorek Syndrome, and isn’t willing to accept a refund, not even one that Quark sweetens by twelve more bars. This isn’t business for Brunt, it’s personal. He’s disgusted by Quark’s entire existence, at one point accusing him of philanthropy (an insult that cuts Quark to the very core of his being). The only alternative he’s willing to consider is Quark breaking the contract. If he does, the FCA will declare him an outcast. All his assets will be seized and sold to the lowest bidder, no Ferengi will be permitted to do business with him, and he’ll be shunned from Ferengi society.
Keiko is recovering slowly. She’s incredibly grateful to Kira for what she’s done—but she also misses being with her son. She hates having to make appointments to see her child. At one point, when Kira’s over—and after O’Brien has provided her with a back pillow that’s presumably left over from when Keiko was pregnant with Molly on the Enterprise—they invite her to come live in their quarters until the baby is born. Kira agrees, getting her own room in the O’Briens’ cabin. Molly immediately wants to play in “Aunt Nerys’s” room.
Quark goes to Garak to hire the former Obsidian Order agent to kill him. Rom is aghast, but Quark can’t be like his mother, or Rom, or Nog, who all defied Ferengi tradition. He’s a Ferengi businessman, and he can’t violate his contract.
Unfortunately, hiring Garak to kill him has just made Quark completely paranoid, expecting to see Garak around every corner. When he goes to sleep, he dreams that he’s in the Divine Treasury and is lectured by Gint, the first-ever Grand Nagus, who wrote the Rules of Acquisition. Gint (who looks a lot like Rom) tells him to break the contract because his life is at stake. Sure, it violates a Rule, but so what? They’re just guidelines—signposts, as it were. He just called them rules because no one would buy a book called The Suggestions of Acquisition. Brunt also appears in the dream and reminds him of the consequences, and then tries to strangle him. Quark wakes up, relieved to be alive, and immediately goes to break the contract. Brunt announces to the bar that Quark’s Ferengi business license is revoked, no Ferengi may be employed by or do business with Quark, and he places a seal of disapproval next to the door. Within a few hours, the bar is completely empty, cleaned out of all items. Quark doesn’t even have his jacket anymore, and he tells Rom that Brunt will be back shortly for his shirt. (When Rom offers his own shirt, Quark replies, “I’d rather be naked.”)
Then the parade starts. First Bashir brings in a case of brandy that a patient tried to give him as payment. Then Dax provides some hideously ugly glasses her sister sent her. Then Sisko announces that they’re doing some restructuring on the habitat ring and he needs to store some furniture. Quark now has the space, after all. However, Quark can’t allow it—at least not without a storage fee. Sisko just says, “Send me a bill.”
Quark realizes that Rom was right at the beginning of the episode: his being a pillar of the community is an asset.
Don’t ask my opinion next time: Kira is remarkably okay with carrying the O’Briens’ baby and moving in with them. It’s a massive disruption of her life, and it’s a testament to the strength of Kira’s heroism that she doesn’t even bat an eyelash at any of it.
The slug in your belly: When O’Brien complains about how active Keiko has been during pregnancy and declares, “It’s as if I have to remind her she’s pregnant!” Dax—who has been pregnant while in previous female hosts—has a magnificently sarcastic response: “Yeah, I guess the extra weight, the morning sickness, the mood swings, the medical examinations—they aren’t reminders enough.”
Rules of Acquisition: For the first time, we get the latinum scale: one bar is twenty strips, which is in turn two thousand slips. We also get two more Rules: #17 (“A contract is a contract is a contract…but only between Ferengi,” which is pretty much the plot in a nutshell) and #239 (“Never be afraid to mislabel a product”).
Plain, simple: Garak is still, for whatever reason, trying to maintain the pretense that he wasn’t with the Obsidian Order. When Quark says that he wasn’t always a tailor, Garak’s reply is that he used to be a gardener. However, once Quark makes it clear that he wants to hire Garak to kill Quark himself, Garak is more than happy to take the commission.
What happens in the holosuite stays in the holosuite: Garak demonstrates several methods of killing Quark on the holosuite, none of which are satisfactory to Quark. It’s either too loud, too messy, too savage, too ineffective (poison won’t work because he just won’t eat or drink anything), or not useful because there needs to be a mostly intact body left behind to provide for Brunt. Eventually, they agree that Garak should just surprise him with something out of the blue.
Keep your ears open: “I’m a businessman—and more than that, I’m a Ferengi businessman. Do you know what that means? It means that I’m not exploiting and cheating people at random, I’m doing it according to a specific set of rules—the Rules of Acquisition. And I won’t disregard them when I find them inconvenient.”
Quark showing his Ferengi orthodoxy.
Welcome aboard: It’s all recurring regulars this time around: Andrew J. Robinson as Garak, Rosalind Chao as Keiko, Hana Hatae as Molly, Jeffrey Combs as Brunt, and Max Grodénchik doing double duty as Rom and the image of Grand Nagus Gint.
Trivial matters: The O’Brien baby being placed in Kira’s womb was necessitated by Nana Visitor announcing she was pregnant (with a child conceived with Alexander Siddig). They didn’t want to make Kira pregnant when Keiko was already established as being so back in “Accession,” and they didn’t want to just shoot her from the chest up, as they did with Gates McFadden on TNG (and would do again for Roxann Dawson on Voyager), due to Kira’s more physically active role on the show.
Rom mentions that Quark was grand nagus once, albeit only for a week, which occurred in “The Nagus.” That episode also established the Ferengi practice of vacuum-desiccating remains of the dead and selling them.
Dr. Orpax will be seen in your humble rewatcher’s Ferenginar short novel in Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Volume 3, where he cares for Leeta when she’s pregnant with her and Rom’s baby. That novel establishes what this episode implies but never comes out and states: that Brunt bribed Orpax to misdiagnose Quark.
Among the sins Brunt enumerates against Quark are his covering for his mother’s FCA audit in “Family Business” and his secret settlement with the union of his bar workers in “Bar Association.” (Surprisingly, he doesn’t mention Nog joining Starfleet, though he does accuse Quark of practically having joined Starfleet for being so Federation-like.)
The seal that Brunt places on the bar will remain there until “Ferengi Love Songs” next season, when Brunt will restore Quark’s business license.
Quark is now the second opening-credits regular (besides Worf), and third regular character (besides Garak), who has been exiled from his own people.
Walk with the Prophets: “For a man who wants to kill himself, you are strangely determined to live.” It’s becoming increasingly obvious to me that the bad reputation the Ferengi episodes get is almost entirely an artifact of the depths of awful that “Profit and Lace” and “The Emperor’s New Cloak” sink to. Because honestly, you look at what we’ve got so far and we’ve got solid episodes like “The Nagus,” well-meaning episodes like “Rules of Acquisition” and “Prophet Motive,” and really excellent episodes like “Family Business,” “Little Green Men,” and “Bar Association.” I really think those two stinkers from the sixth and seventh season have had a warping effect on the view of Ferengi episodes as a whole. Certainly my own memory of such were tainted by those two for a long time, at least until I spent a week in 2004 re-watching the Ferengi episodes.
This one is also quite excellent, as it plays up the complexity of Quark as a character. On the one hand, he wants to be the ideal Ferengi. On the other hand, he really can’t be, because he’s on a Bajoran station run by the Federation in one of the biggest ports of call in the galaxy. Half his employees aren’t Ferengi, almost none of his customers are Ferengi. He’s not really going to be able to be the ideal Ferengi, particularly while being so proximate to the Federation and on a station administered by Starfleet.
Of course, both Brunt and Quark himself view this as a failing on Quark’s part, but Brunt takes it to an extreme. And ultimately, Quark has one instinct he simply cannot overcome: he doesn’t want to die. The scene in the holosuite with Garak is priceless, as Quark has an excuse ready made for why every possible way Garak could kill him doesn’t work, and then when he agrees to be surprised, he goes into full-on paranoia mode. He wants very much not to die, and that’s leaves him with only one choice: to break a contract.
Quark is, in many ways, the exact opposite of Worf. By living most of his life outside the Klingon Empire, Worf has been able to be the perfect Klingon, not affected by the necessary compromises to the ideals of honor that everyday life in the empire force upon one. But Ferengi ideals are ones of compromises and deal-making, and by living outside the Ferengi Alliance, Quark has been unable to live that ideal.
In the end, they both wind up in the same place: exiled from their people.
A lot of why this episode works is some superb acting by Armin Shimerman, Andrew J. Robinson, Jeffrey Combs, and especially Max Grodénchik. Rom has really grown as a character, and it’s been fun to see him crawl out of Quark’s shadow. In particular, what’s notable is that most of the interactions between Quark and Rom have been colored by the fact that Rom was also Quark’s employee. The only time that dynamic really changed was in “Family Business” when they were on Ferenginar and truly were brothers rather than employer and employee. With Rom’s shift to engineering, he gets to be in that role again, and Grodénchik makes Rom a good sounding board for Quark. (He also does an amazing job as Gint, the first grand nagus, just a hilarious performance.) And the banter between Shimerman and Grodénchik is simply superb, with the former doing such a stellar job as the latter’s straight man, from the opening where Quark pretends like he’s in a good mood to the conversation in the empty bar at the end.
Not much to say about the O’Brien-Kira subplot, as you can see the wires on that one. This is What They’re Doing To Accommodate Nana Visitor’s Pregnancy, and I’m glad they made it real rather than limit what Kira can do on the show with trick camera work, but the subplot itself was very obviously there to service a real-world need. Luckily, it didn’t take up much time. (And Molly asking if she can play in Aunt Nerys’s room was just the cutest damn thing…)
Warp factor rating: 8
Keith R.A. DeCandido’s birthday is today. Please congratulate him on another successful trip around the sun!
Congrats on the trip ’round the Sun. Many happy re-turns. (Heh-heh.)
I agree, this is another really good Ferengi episode, even if it is basically “Quark gets discommendated.” The irony of it is that Brunt, the one accusing Quark of being a bad Ferengi, is himself the worse Ferengi by far, because he’s putting personal feelings above business considerations. Rather than making a deal with Quark that will bring him profit, he puts out a considerable amount of his own latinum (both the price for Quark’s remains and, implicitly, the bribe to Orpax) and passes up a bribe offer from Quark, costing himself money, in order to pursue a personal vendetta. He refuses to compromise in his hatred, and that’s more a Klingon value than a Ferengi one. So he’s a hypocrite for calling Quark a worse Ferengi.
But then, isn’t it always the case with people like that? Like the people who insist that anyone who doesn’t persecute gays and condemn liberals is a bad Christian, even though Christ taught love and acceptance toward all. Hate and hypocrisy have a way of going hand in hand.
Happy Birthday! I think I’ll take
themy wife and kids out to dinner to celebrate.This was a case where I found the B-plot to be too much to overcome. I really enjoyed the Ferengi focus, but the whole transferring the baby thing was too much. I know I’m not providing solutions, but just about anything would have been better. You know what – it wasn’t even the transferring. It was Bashir’s reasoning for why he couldn’t transfer the baby back. Egads, that was painful.
I might be in the minority but I liked the baby storyline more than the Quark storyline. For once, Star Trek actually came up with a unique biology rather than generalizing human biology. The details were interesting, and they way they built this into the season-long story arc was also clever.
As for the other story in this episode, it doesn’t really make much sense. How exactly would an FCA Liquadator have the authority to sell off the posessions of a Ferengi on a Starfleet-run space station? Wouldn’t he have to file a petition with a magistrate?
I would think that at the least he would need the permission of Sisko, who would have told him no.
Happy Birthday!
I agree. The Ferengi episodes do get a bad rap. Even if the stories fall short (no pun intended), I’ve always enjoyed the satirical digs at ultra capitalism, going all the way back to “Yankee traders.” And what’s not to like about the end of this episode? Pure Frank Capra.
Re Garak’s remark about having once been a “gardener,” seeing as how one task of a gardener is killing weeds, he may have just been waxing metaphorical.
Here’s to another orbit of the Sun!
I do wonder how quickly Quark cancells the contract on him with Garak and the potential of an assasination during contract cancellation. But this wouldn’t happen due to the caracter’s name in the credits.
@5: IIRC, there’s also a certain time he spent on Romulus as a such…
I’m slightly less enamored of this episode than many of the other commenters. It isn’t bad, really, just nothing to write home about.It might have been better if they’d explored the fact that Brunt is essentially throwing Ferengi values out the window here. Or at least followed up on that thread later.
Looking at it now, I am amused by the name of Dr. Orpax. Oropax is the standard brand of earplug in Germany, practically a generic name along the lines of kleenex in the US. Anything with Ferengi and ears has room for humor.
Given how the Ferengi were supposed to be the “Klingons of The Next Generation,” one has to love how the development of the race over the course of Deep Space Nine — especially in the character of Quark (oddly enough, as compared to Worf, as you point out) did turn out to be in many ways as developed, with a parallel code and unique government that comments on humanity, especially society in the time of the show(s) in question (Cold War conflict/post-Cold War detente conflict vs. hypercapitalism/hegemonic commercialism). Certainly a far cry from “The Last Outpost” by the time these episodes came around!
Happy birthday, feliz cumpleaños, joyeux anniversaire, and boldog születésnapot.
As far as the baby plot goes, I was okay with it up until the point where we had Kira moving in with the O’Briens. As a kid during the first run, that part made me uneasy. As an adult and knowing a little more about the issues with surrogacy, I like it even less. One of the big problems is the “biological parents” being too controlling of the surrogate, and it seems like that’s exactly what’s going on here. Kira is an independent woman who values her privacy, and now she has to move in with a couple from a different culture basically so that Keiko can stare at her stomach whenever she wants. It wasn’t like Kira was living in Siberia before, just a different part of the same station, but they still had to drag her into their quarters. Boundries, people: respect them.
“Kira is remarkably okay with carrying the O’Briens’ baby and moving in with them. It’s a massive disruption of her life, and it’s a testament to the strength of Kira’s heroism that she doesn’t even bat an eyelash at any of it.”
Whenever you type stuff like this I wonder if – just for a moment – you forget things like a bunch of writers trying to handwave Nana Visitor’s bump.
Happy Birthday.
And Brunt probably didn’t blame Quark for Nog joining Starfleet since (if anyone) that would be considered Rom’s fault.
Quoth Warren: “Whenever you type stuff like this I wonder if – just for a moment – you forget things like a bunch of writers trying to handwave Nana Visitor’s bump.”
Given the last paragraph of the review, I’m not sure why you would think that. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Interesting that Max Grodénchik played a Nagus in this episode (albeit an illusory one) and that Rom at the end of the series would go on to become a real one. Not sure if they planned it that way.
Well I liked both the A and B plots. Sure the womb reassignment was contrived but I thought the writers plumbed that situation for some interesting and amusing character work later in the season.
@10: I never thought of it that way Lsana but I suppose the sexual tension that develops between Kira and Miles later in the season is a good example of negative fallout from Keiko’s lack of respect for boundaries. The same thing happened with Ellen Page and Jason Bateman in “Juno”!
@1: Christopher you make a very intriguing point about Brunt himself subverting Ferengi ideals by placing personal vindication above profit mongering. In fact way back in the first season of TNG didn’t DaiMon Bok lose his captaincy for that very offense?
Happy Birthday Krad!
Yakko: That was actually the second Ferengi episode, “The Battle.”
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I always thought that the first thing Quark should have done the moment he woke up from his Gint dream would have been to call Garak shouting “Abort! Abort! Abort!” After all, Garak doesn’t know that Quark has changed his mind.
As you say, Quark, Worf and Garak are all exiled from their people and culture at this point. And many other characters have been near-exiles or odd-ones-out too – Sisko is half-Prophet, Bashir is *redacted for spoilers*, Dax nearly reassociated, Odo is already self-exiled and will soon be more than that, Nog is the only Ferengi in Starfleet… I know one standard way of creating character is to put them in conflict with their culutre, but DS9 seems to take that to extremes sometimes.
“After all, Garak doesn’t know that Quark has changed his mind.”
I wondered about that the first time I saw this episode. Granted, the final scene implies pretty much everyone on the station knows what happened so at that point Garak *probably* wouldn’t go through with it, but there really should’ve been a line or two of dialog to at least address the hit Quark put out on himself.
Personally, I’m not totally sure Garak ever intended to actually kill Quark. I mean, that would be a good way to land himself in serious hot water, especially since Sons of Mogh a few episodes ago made it clear that the station administration is defiantly not cool with assisted suicide, which is essentially what this is. I don’t think it would be out of character for Garak to be doing this whole thing to screw with Quark for his own amusement.
Beware spoilers for later seasons:
@17: Sisko is not “half-Prophet.” Whatever creepy Prophet possession or mind control Sisko’s mother was under at the time of his conception, she was still biologically human. So he’s not half-Prophet, he’s just a human whose birth was arranged (in the most disturbing and rapey way imaginable) by the Prophets.
And why would you redact the spoiler about Bashir right after blowing the spoiler about Sisko?
You know, it has been known for a transporter accident to produce an exact duplicate of someone. Quark could simply have copied himself and had one of the copies killed to give Brunt what he bought…
@17 I agree– I remember being dissapointed when I saw this episode for the first time, thinking here is another Worf and Odo situation.
@21,
“Killing your own clone is still murder.”
It makes for an entertaining story, but I’m pretty sure the reality of this situation would have been that Quark could have tied the whole process up in legal appeals for literally decades. The Ferrengi are bound to have a whole series of legal rules and precedents regarding compensation should a product become unavailable for whatever reason, and the process would undoubtedly be unbelievably expensive. But that is the point of Ferrengi society, as long as everyone is making more profit from Quark being alive than from Quark being dead, the lawyers and judges and other legal system professionals would all make sure Quark remained alive right up until the point when that particular well of latinum ran dry.
Thinking about the Brunt undermining Ferengi values line a little more, I disagree. Brunt appears to be working under the impression that Quark and his activities are both deliterious to Ferengi society as a whole and to his personal ability to earn profit. It would be difficult for me to speculate on how he comes up with the latter, but he doesn’t exactly have the biggest lobes.
While the expectation is that you work to earn profit, you are under no obligation to be a good businessman. Otherwise Quark’s father was just as much a deviant as Brunt is accused of being.
@25: I’m sure Brunt believes that he’s standing up for the good of Ferengi society, but that’s just my point: Fanatics always believe they’re serving their cause even while their actions and methods directly betray their cause.
@19 – That’s exactly what I thought. Not that Garak would have any moral qualms about killing Quark, but neither would he have any problem with breaking the contract. Just for giggles. I doubt he’s worried at all about getting in trouble though. If he did decide to go ahead ank kill Quark, he’d make sure there’s absolutely no way anyone could prove that he was involved.
@27: Although I think it’s in Garak’s best interest not to kill Quark. Consider: If Odo didn’t have Quark to be obsessed with, he’d have more attention to devote to other resident scoundrels, and Garak wouldn’t be able to get away with nearly as much.
Happy late birthday, I guess. I always forget those. Of course, being offline for an extended 4 day weekend doesn’t help either…
It’s becoming increasingly obvious to me that the bad reputation the Ferengi episodes get is almost entirely an artifact of the depths of awful that “Profit and Lace” and “The Emperor’s New Cloak” sink to
That’s partly the case, but I think it’s more than that.
Looking back to reviewers like Tim Lynch (who have always scored Ferengi episodes poorly), and certain segments of Trek fandom, I think there are fans who have never warmed up to the Ferengi at all. The fact of the matter is, when you remove the satire, the character work, all you’re left with is a bunch of goofy looking aliens with big ears…
There are people who will never be pleased. They’re too shallow to see past the visual look. Or there are people who take their objection of affection too seriously, and there are certain elements they find to be too nauseating to be a part of their universe. I think the Ferengi remind these people that this is a fantasy universe, something they don’t like to be reminded of.
I mean, look at Wesley, to take a different example. There are fans who wanted Wil Wheaton dead, because the very notion of a teenage boy driving the Enterprise was an aberration to their minds, even if the character developed over time. And now look at Homeland and 24 fans. They despise the concept of a teenage character being prominent in an adult spy drama.
True, the Ferengi didn’t start all that well, back in TNG’s first season. It took time for them to develop into proper characters, beyond the caricatures. And it’s thanks to people like Behr, Wolfe and Beimler who made them three-dimensional, and actors like Shimerman and Grodénchik who embraced these characters and took them seriously. They saw the value in what writers like Herb Wright and Gene Roddenberry were going for, taking the greedy capitalists angle to the next level.
You have the same problem in Star Wars fandom. People who despise Jar Jar Binks. Ask any of them to give a proper reason for the hatred. They won’t give a good one.
As a character, Jar Jar became a valuable politician, able to rally his friends around a noble and worthy cause, which led them to victory. A character who values peace, friendship and understanding, who sadly became the perfect pawn to bring about the Empire. But of course, the fans who complain about him can’t see anything past the rabbit ears and the bumbling Buster Keaton-esque comedy.
Having said all of this, I loved this episode. In many ways, I see it as part of a trilogy, with part one being Bar Association, where he lost control over his brother. In this, he loses his license, and his respect with Ferengi society. Part three, Ferengi Love Songs, although the weakest, is where he at least gets something back.
Happy Belated!
Also enjoyed this ep quite a bit.
I hated the Ferengi in TNG, but I find them a lot more entertaining/interesting here and some of the DS9 ‘Ferengi’ episodes have been some of my favorites. I really enjoyed this one too – and I think CLB makes a good point in number 1 that is sadly too true. As a religious person myself, I was definitely reminded of certain types of people that can frequent the circles I am in (in real life or online) in Brunt’s behavior.
Also, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ is one of my favorite movies, so I loved the ending. That was the first thing I thought of when I saw it. No man is a failure who has friends ;) Was the ending meant to be a deliberate homage, or did it just happen to fall on the same themes?
Happy birthday!
Oh, and the B plot, I totally forgot about that. I think Keiko’s behavior was just really weird and intrusive. Plus, they were acting like the idea of somebody carrying somebody else’s baby was just so totally unheard of. Don’t they have surrogates or adoption? I have some friends who have adopted two children and they would never act that way towards the birth parents, nor did it interfere with their ability to bond with/love the children either. Certainly it would be a bit of a shock for something like that to happen so suddenly, and I’d miss the closeness of having my baby in my womb…but on the other hand, I’m not one of those women who really enjoyed being pregnant, especially towards the end. Intense back pain, and no sleep because I had to get up and pee every hour!
It was still a pretty cool thing for Kira to do (writer hand waving aside ;) ).
Lisamarie: Yeah, but surrogates and adoptions are planned. This wasn’t. I think that has a lot to do with how Keiko was responding.
And thanks, everyone, for the birthday wishes!
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
“Would you buy a book called “The SUGGESTIONS of Acqusition?” Funny Ferengi episode. Not terribly serious, despite Quark having to fulfill a contract by killing himself and ending up being cut off from his people (He already self-imposed exile when he set up business on a Bajoran space station run by Starfleet). I liked that they incorporated Nana Visitor’s pregnancy into the plot rather than putting her on maternity leave or shooting her from the waist up.
I also somewhat disagree with people who criticize the O’Briens for inviting her to live with them. Of course she’s a surrogate and has her own life but the O’Briens didn’t intend for this to happen; Keiko was injured, a womb was needed and Nerys’ was the only one available. Keiko was already at least four months’ pregnant, given that she announced the pregnancy to Miles in “Accession,” which was broadcast in February and this came out in June (obviously airtimes and stardates aren’t exactly compatible, but it’s close enough). To have your child inside of you, nuturing it, etc. and then it’s suddenly removed from your body without you even knowing it and transplanted into another woman’s body, one whom you barely know, must be very, very traumatic. Nerys had the opition to say no; I think it was a very interesting, creative decision to have her live with the O’Briens. If a surrogate mother wanted to smoke cigarettes and drink like a fish during her pregnancy, would she be allowed?
When Quark puts his thumbscan on that device, he sets in motion a chain of events that will dog him right up until Ferengi Love Songs. Being ostracised from Ferengi society didn’t affect Rom is like Worf not being that affected when he was discommentated because neither lives in the Klingon Empire or the Ferengi Alliance but Quark is affected because he wants in the Alliance even if he doesn’t live in it. How does Quark know that what Garak surprises him with will be an acceptable death? 25: “Brunt undermining Ferengi values”; don’t you mean Quark? Isn’t that what Brunt was accusing him of?
I’m sort of assuming Rom said something to Garak, in his own special Rom way, that made him decide not to do it. Or perhaps he was just messing with Quark in the first place. Or both. But given the fact that Rom and possibly Morn were witnesses to the conversation he’d have a hard time claiming innocence…
The episode was decent but the ending in which the Ferengi government restricts Quark’s ability to conduct business doesn’t make sense. The bar is on a Bajoran station overseen by the Federation so Ferengi laws should have no impact on the ability for a business to open. I guess the episode tried to imply this by having Federation and Bajoran representatives bringing all the furniture and drinks back into the bar, but the Ferengi shouldn’t be able to shut down a business located under someone else’s jurisdiction.
I’d give it a 6.
@37: I don’t think it is so much that the FCA can actually shut the bar down but more that they can cut Quark off from the entire Ferengi economic system. Under the FCA interdiction no Ferengi would be able to lawfully work for Quark or even be a customer at his bar. He wouldn’t be able to do business with Ferengi controlled businesses or borrow money from Ferengi banks. Any stocks, bonds and real property he had in Ferengi space would be seized (and thus unable for Quark to use as collateral to secure loans from non-Ferengi banks). And any funds Quark had in Ferengi controlled banks would be frozen. The cumulative effect of all that would be devastating on Quark’s business.
@38: Even if his assets were seized, it’s irrelevant because the Federation is a moneyless society and people under Federation policy can still operate businesses without money. They wouldn’t make profit but they wouldn’t have to pay for anything either.
@39/RMS81: But DS9 isn’t a Federation station (except in the post-finale novels) — it’s a Bajoran station being administered by Starfleet. And it’s entirely relevant to Quark, because his ability to make profit is at the heart of his identity and value system.
One thing everyone seems to have missed here:
In Garak being hired to kill Quark, is this not a bit of a throwback to Andrew Robinson’s role in Dirty Harry where he pays a guy under a bridge to pound the snot out of him so he can say Harry beat him up?
I just find the parallel interesting.
Doesn’t Quark offering a refund break the first rule of acquisition? Once you have their money, you never give it back?
Apart from that I don’t know what to make of this episode Okay, they needed a way to make Kira pregnant. But robbing Keiko of her baby? That’s just terrible! She must feel like she has had a miscarriage or even worse! Hell, some women even get depressed when they have to give birth via a c-section. How must Keiko feel like now? She can’t give birth to her baby at all now! I really can’t put in words how terrible I think this plot idea is.
Edit: And think about Miles, too. His wife suddendly isn’t pregnant anymore, so he can’t enjoy the pregnancy as he would like to, either. I mean, he hardly can cuddle with Nerys and lay his hands on her belly? This is just terrible!!
@42 They are more like guidelines. Plus Quark is actually the Ferengi version of a liberal, a moderate liberal, but still a liberal nonetheless; bordering on even a progressive at times, in Ferengi culture. He sold refugees essential supplies at just above cost (possibly even at cost).
I won’t remember to come back on April 18th, 2021 to wish you a happy birthday, so I’ll just do it 2,289 days late. Happy birthday KRAD!
TA: thank you!
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
#29: I think you’re exactly right. Until recently I have been following Jammer’s reviews while rewatching DS9, and he and some commentators make their distaste for Ferengi episodes clear. He also rates them lower. But now that I’m finding myself in more accord with Keith, I’m going to go back and rewatch some I skipped.
When I watched this episode, it seemed more to me like the O’Brians were welcoming Kira into their family with open arms, which was amazing and rather wonderful to Kira. Look at her expressions during this scene; her reaction is very much a “Really?? Wow.” For a while she gets to be a close part of a family, and how long has it been since she had that? Molly’s easy acceptance of her as an aunt seals the deal pretty effectively.
Lockdown Rewatch. Appreciation for Jeffrey Combs, as Brunt, it is one of the great comic villain characters and his portrayal is always entertaining especially here. If you didn’t know the cast list of DS9 you would never guess Brunt and Weyoun were played by the same person and to me that is the mark of a great actor.
I think Keiko was rather reckless to go into the GQ (where the Dominion rules) for three whole days and then into an asteroid belt while halfway through her pregnancy. She’s surprisingly ungrateful upon her return to the station that her baby is in a safe place (no longer her own womb). And I love the title “Signposts of Acquisition”.
@49/David Sim: The Dominion doesn’t rule the entire Gamma Quadrant, any more than China rules the entire Eastern hemisphere. It’s just in the Gamma Quadrant. It took nearly a year after the wormhole was discovered before explorers started encountering Dominion clients, so its territory is clearly some distance from the wormhole. All you have to do is avoid going in that direction. It’s space — there’s a ton of other directions to choose from.
51: And yet they keep encountering either the Dominion or someone who’s had dealings with them. The Federation foolishly provoked the Dominion for years until things finally erupted into open warfare.
@51/David Sim: Fiction has a selection bias in favor of dangerous or unusual situations. There may be quite a few routine, trouble-free Gamma Quadrant missions, but we don’t see TV episodes about those because it would be boring.
@51 The Dominion is an expansionist, conquering, empire. We actually see the progression of that, distant rumours, distant refugees, closer refugees, client states, and conquered peoples, all getting nearer and nearer DS9. The Dominion is coming, like it or not, and running from them sets a terrible precedent. Eventually, long way around or short cut, the Dominion was gonna conquer all the way to Earth’s doorstep one way or another. The Changelings laid claim to all the worlds in the Galaxy.
@53/kayom: Rome was an expansionist, conquering empire, but there was still plenty of Africa, Asia, and Northern Europe that it never conquered. Just because an empire is growing doesn’t mean it controls everything. And the galaxy is gigantic. No matter how large the Dominion is on a humanoid scale, it’s a tiny smudge on the Gamma Quadrant as a whole. There are plenty of places to go that aren’t under their control.
“The Changelings laid claim to all the worlds in the Galaxy.”
So what? Wishing doesn’t make it so. They can’t reach every world in the galaxy. There are 400 billion stars in the galaxy, and there may be planets around every one of them. Even if only one in a hundred planetary systems has a habitable world, that’s 4 billion such worlds in the galaxy. If an empire somehow magically conquered one per day, it would still take over 10 million years to conquer them all. So any “claim to all the worlds in the galaxy” is nonsensical bluster. A claim that can’t be enforced is just that, an empty claim.
@54 – I think their point was more that the Federation shouldn’t just kowtow to those claims just because they say it is so, or go out of their way to avoid the Gamma Quadrant just because the Dominion says so.
@55/Lisamarie: No, that’s my point. Unless you were responding to #53 instead.
Precisely. Remember Worf mentions that the Romulans claim all in their sight. It would be paralyzing to simply accept some nation’s claim without some evidence that they actually control a location; and when that nation claims everything, the validity of the claims should be downgraded, not promoted.
@56 – I know that’s your point, but I got the impression kayom was more or less agreeing with you. I hay have totally misread this, but I figured they were responding to @51’s argument that the Federation shouldn’t go into the Gamma Quadrant with the counter argument that the Dominion isn’t an entity that the Federation should respect, and should in fact challenge. I didn’t think they meant that the Dominion *literally* had claim to all the galaxy, just that they claimed to.
But maybe they can clarify, heh.
@58/Lisamarie: I think the crux of kayom‘s argument was “The Dominion is coming, like it or not, and running from them sets a terrible precedent.” And that’s what I disagree with. It’s assuming that anything in the Gamma Quadrant is automatically about the Dominion, that any exploration of the GQ in a direction other than toward Dominion space is “running from them.” And I’m saying that’s not the case, because it’s misunderstanding the sheer scale of things. I’m saying that it’s perfectly valid for DS9 to tell stories in the GQ that aren’t about the Dominion one way or the other, because the Dominion is not the only thing there. Exploring in other directions is not “running from them,” it’s just not about them. A whole quadrant of the galaxy is bigger than just one thing.
@31:
Also, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ is one of my favorite movies, so I loved the ending. That was the first thing I thought of when I saw it. No man is a failure who has friends ;) Was the ending meant to be a deliberate homage, or did it just happen to fall on the same themes?
Given Behr’s love of classic movies, very possibly.
The part that always gets me about the ending is when Quark starts to make an announcement and you expect it’s going to be Quark being Quark (like charging Sisko for rent space to save Ferengi face moments earlier).
But it’s much more emotional and interesting that he doesn’t, because for once he’s just so overcome with emotion at how DS9’s residents are helping him. It’s one of my favorite Quark moments of DS9.
This might not be the best episode of Deep Space Nine, but I honestly think that it’s my favourite.