“Profit and Lace”
Written by Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler
Directed by Alexander Siddig
Season 6, Episode 23
Production episode 40510-547
Original air date: May 13, 1998
Stardate: unknown
Station log: Under the cover of a good employee evaluation, Quark indulges in some significant sexual harassment of his newest dabo girl, Aluura, trying to convince her to give him oo-mox in exchange for not getting fired. He’s interrupted by Rom, who tried to contact Ishka, and can’t get through. Nor can he get through to anyone on Ferenginar: not the Tower of Commerce, not Gaila, not Leck—nobody. They’re convinced that the Dominion has invaded Ferenginar, but there’s no evidence to support it.
And then a Ferengi ship approaches the station, containing Zek and Ishka. Ishka is wearing clothes, which concerns Quark and Rom—only to learn that Zek has given females the right to wear clothes. Unfortunately, there were so many more financial transactions, it crashed the Ferengi communications grid, which explains why there was no contact.
However, there’s more dire news: Zek has been deposed, and Brunt has been declared Acting Grand Nagus. They have three days until the FCA confirms him, so they’ll be inviting FCA commissioners to the station to meet with Ishka, see her financial acumen, and come around to the notion of females earning profit.
Unfortunately, Quark, Rom, and Nog contact all 420 FCA commissioners on Zek’s list and 419 of them said no. The only one who agrees to come is Nilva, the chairman of Slug-O-Cola. However, Nilva is a very conservative voice—Slug-O-Cola hasn’t changed its jingle in three centuries. (Everyone then sings it.) And then, to make matters worse, Acting Grand Nagus Brunt shows up (complete with his very own Hupyrian bodyguard). Zek regrets reinstating him as a liquidator, and Brunt threatens to liquidate Zek and is generally very Brunt-like until Quark kicks him out.
Ishka goes to Quark’s quarters and they get into a massive argument—and then Ishka has a major cardiac event, collapsing. Bashir is able to give her a new heart, but she’ll need several days of complete rest. Brunt comes by the bar to gloat that they no longer have a financially clever female to meet with Nilva. So, since they can’t get another female from Ferenginar fast enough, they have to make a female.
So Bashir operates on Quark, making him female. Because this is the Quark-is-a-woman episode and they have to do this. Sigh.
Leeta, Rom, and Zek help Quark get ready to meet with Nilva—who, of course, arrives early. Leeta and Rom help him walk and sit like a woman while Zek gives him Ishka’s notes. Brunt intercepts Nilva, letting him know that Ishka’s infirm, and Nog informs both Nilva and Brunt about “Lumba”—Quark’s new female identity.
Upon Nilva’s arrival, he declares Zek to be either the greatest visionary in Ferengi history, or just an old crazy person who’s inhaled too much beetle snuff. He also insists on meeting with Lumba right away, as he has to be back on Ferenginar for a stockholder’s meeting. But he’s willing to have dinner with Lumba in public in deference to all the latinum Nilva and Zek have made together.
And so they have dinner. Lumba convinces Nilva that letting females wear clothes will give them pockets. They’ll want to fill those pockets with latinum, and so they’ll need jobs so they can earn latinum, which they will then want to spend. It’ll expand the workforce and the customer base at the same time. Lumba also suggests that Nilva change Slug-O-Cola’s slogan to something that will appeal to the new female demographic.
Nilva then offers Lumba dessert—in his quarters. He never thought he’d find a clothed female so enticing. He literally chases Lumba around his quarters. They’re interrupted by Brunt, who exposes Lumba’s true identity as a post-operative Quark. However, Lumba then grabs Nilva and kisses him, and then opens her dress. Brunt insists that’s still not a female, and Nilva declares it’s close enough for him. It’s possible there was other dialogue, but I was in the bathroom throwing up at this point.
Nilva throws his support behind Zek, to Brunt’s horror.
Odo finds Quark, now back to being male, looking at the ring Nilva gave Lumba as a gift. Quark also apologizes to Aluura, who reveals that she actually doesn’t think oo-mox sounds that bad. And whatever good might have come of this episode is flushed down the toilet as Quark chases after Aluura some more.
There is no honor in being pummeled: Worf gets by far the best line in the episode with his response to Rom’s hysterical concern of the consequences to the Alpha Quadrant if Ferenginar falls to the Dominion: “I cannot think of any.”
Preservation of mass and energy is for wimps: When Quark is having conflicting feelings toward Nilva, he asks Odo for a hug, which proves to be the single most awkward moment in the changeling’s life.
Rules of Acquisition: For obvious reasons, the one (and surprisingly only) Rule this episode quotes is #94: “Females and finances don’t mix”—though Nog at one point says that Rule is open to interpretation.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet: Zek is very taken with Leeta, but Ishka warns him off her, because she’s Rom’s wife—which means she’s broke. Meanwhile Nilva is so taken with Lumba that he asks her to marry him—Lumba’s reply that his wife wouldn’t approve is met with the response, “She hasn’t touched my lobes in months.” Lumba’s reply to that is, “I can tell.”
Keep your ears open: “Moogie! I was so worried!”
“You’re a good son.”
“I was worried, too!”
“And you’re a good liar.”
Rom, Ishka, and Quark greeting each other.
Welcome aboard: Back for more are the usual Ferengi suspects: Cecily Adams (Ishka), Jeffrey Combs (Brunt), Aron Eisenberg (Nog), Max Grodénchik (Rom), and Wallace Shawn (Zek), plus Tiny Ron as Maihar’du and Chase Masterson as Leeta. Sylvain Cecile plays Brunt’s bodyguard and Symba Smith plays Aluura.
And our Robert Knepper moment is the great character actor Henry Gibson as Nilva. Gibson is best known for his facial expressions, but with that taken away from him in Ferengi makeup, he turns in an uncharacteristically physical and bombastic performance.
Trivial matters: The episode title is a play on the second-season episode “Profit and Loss.”
For the first time, we get the full name of Quark’s Bar: “Quark’s Bar, Grill, Gaming House, and Holosuite Arcade.”
Brunt was reinstated as a liquidator by Zek in gratitude for helping rescue Ishka in “The Magnificent Ferengi.” That enabled him to bribe his way back to a position of influence and then be named Acting Grand Nagus. Brunt previously angled to be made grand nagus in “Ferengi Love Songs.”
Your humble rewatcher had Nilva appear in Satisfaction is Not Guaranteed, the Ferenginar portion of Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Volume 3 as a member of the grand nagus’s economic council.
While they don’t appear, both Gaila and Leck, last seen in “The Magnificent Ferengi,” are mentioned.
Walk with the Prophets: “Acting Grand Nagus!” There is absolutely nothing redeeming about this episode. Every bit of humor is obvious and forced, additional “funny” bits are inserted for no other reason except this is a comedy episode and they should be there, like Nog chasing Nilva breathlessly around the station, or half of Nilva’s chasing of Lumba around his quarters being behind a curtain with goofy sound effects being heard, or Rom being such an expert on female walking and sitting.
Worf has one funny line, the bit where Quark, Rom, and Nog contact the commissioners is hilariously written and filmed, and the look on Rene Auberjonois’s face when Quark hugs him is epic, but otherwise this is an attempt to show how important it is for women to be treated equally by indulging in every sexist stereotype in the book, culminating in Quark learning absolutely nothing by still going after Aluura. To make matters worse, Aluura actually gives in to the stereotype, her response to Quark’s sexual harassment forcing her to read up on oo-mox is to actually say that oo-mox doesn’t sound that bad. It’s impossible to convey just how despicable this is, and whatever good the episode might do—and it does almost none anyhow—is flushed away by the ending.
An absolute blight on the entire Star Trek landscape, is this.
Warp factor rating: 0
Keith R.A. DeCandido has now only watched this episode three times. Once when it first aired, once when rewatching Ferengi episodes in preparation for writing the Ferenginar half of Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Volume 3, and once for this rewatch. He really really hopes this is the last time he has to do so.
Almost fell behind – rewatched it this morning. It was worse than I remembered.
God, first “The Reckoning” now this? And this season has good episodes like “Far Beyond the Stars” and Oh Yes even “In the Pale Moonlight”.
Ugh
First of all, kudos to you for making it through this one, and I found myself snickering all through the reading of it.
You touched on one of my two huge complaints about this episode: the sexual harassment in the opener, and its reappearance at the coda. I rewatched this episode myself last week, and I was distinctly uncomfortable watching that opener. I suppose that speaks to Armin Shimerman’s acting, and I understand that it was a setup for what was to befall Quark in the episode, but I could hardly look at the screen as he did it. And then to have “I just like to be nice” Aluura go for it at the end – could they not even admit to the viewers that maybe sexual harassment is a bad thing? Throwing the padd at him at the end would have redeemed a tiny portion of the episode, but no, we’re left with “actually, women like sexual harassment if you push them hard enough!” Thanks a lot, guys.
The other word that ran through my mind throughout the episode was “transphobic.” Now, a man in a dress (or a jumpsuit that looks like a clown threw up on it) doesn’t have to be transphobic. Drag queens play caricatures of women all the time, and that’s a specific role in the queer community; it may not be the wisest thing, but it’s got a place – people who see drag queens understand what they’re seeing. But Quark-as-Lumba just horrified me, because they tried to make it funny in all the wrong ways. There’s laughing with someone – owning the humor, as drag queens do – and there’s laughing at them – as we saw here. Not to mention the room’s reaction to Rom being more of an expert on female bodies than Leeta – everyone is clearly alarmed that he knows this. Maybe Rom likes to dress up sometimes, who cares? Why does it have to be a thing that we all point and laugh at?
Really, the entire episode was intensely disconcerting, and I was quite disturbed while watching it. I distinctly recall, toward the end, feeling physically nauseous. I know I said in the comments on the “Valiant” rewatch that an episode that makes you feel something can’t be 100% bad, but I take that back. This is a case study in how not to do television, and if the Men in Black would like to wipe it from my memory, I wouldn’t say no.
I seriously wanted to vomit after watching this episode (so, it didn’t dissapoint?)…like you said, it’s one thing that we have the ridiculous trans humor (to say nothing of how offesnsive/insensitive THAT is to the realities of people struggling with gender identity, surgery, etc. Oh, and offering up Quark – as despicable as he is – for rape and assault and everybody laughing about it. Even if it kind of is ‘turnabout is fair play’ or something. But I really didn’t find that funny at all). But from the first scene with Alura, which had me squirming and feeling incredibly akward, I was just like, “oh holy shit is this actually supposed to be FUNNY?” (and I know it’s not the first time we’ve seen Quark pull this shit). And like you said, the end is just the capper on a horrible episode with horrible implications. Not only did we have to go through the horror of watching Quark forced into being a woman and groped/harrassed and who knows what else…nothing changes anyway, any ‘wisdom’ he does gain is written off as ‘female hormones’ or blah blah blah.
When we watched Far Beyond the Stars, I was angry after watching it because it seemed like we had made so little progress. But after watching this I thought, “Wow, we’ve come a long way”. There are still serous issues in the way women are treated and viewed but I can’t imagine any show having a scene where a title character (that is generally one of the ‘good guys’, even if a little rough around the edges) is blatantly sexually assualting/harrassing his coworkers and having that be played for laughs, with a reset button at the end, and said victim deciding, ‘actually, that sounds pretty neat!’. Jesus.
Maybe Rom likes to dress up sometimes, who cares?
@@.-@
Rom becoming a woman alongside Quark was actually part of René Echevarria’s original pitch, but Ira Behr nixed it.
In fact, the whole episode was supposed to be different, tackling the issue Ferengi women and their right to vote and wear clothes. For whatever reason, Echevarria steered the plot to the whole sex-change, cross-dressing angle.
I was half expecting the summary of this episode to just be “Quark is a woman and it’s bad. Just don’t watch it.” with nothing else. Kudos for making it through.
First (and only) zero score?
I’d think of myself as somebody who hates this episode less than the average viewer. (The fact that that is the best to be said about it tells you something right there.) In that context, I’d like to ignore the horribly offensive bits for a moment and just anazlyze why the actual plot is stupid. Here’s the story:
1) Zek intorduces new reforms in the area of women’s rights. This makes sense; we know from the past that Ishka believes in these things and that he cares for and trusts her. It’s logical enough that eventually she convinced him.
2) Ferengi society reacts poorly to this. Again, logical. We know that as a society they tend to be pretty conservative about these kinds of social issues, so a backlash to major reforms was pretty much inevitable.
3) They decide to have Ishka convince Nilva. Smart enough plan. Presenting Nilva with a Ferengi woman we know to be economically savvy could go a long way toward convincing him that women could be an asset to the economy as a whole. If nothing else, it disproves the assumption that women with “the lobes” don’t exist.
4) Quark and Ishka argue, Ishka has a heart attack. Very plot inconvenient, but believable. She’s an older person and this is an emotional, stressful time.
5) Make Quark a woman instead. This is where it all goes to hell. OK, we need a smart Ferengi woman, and Ishka is no longer available. Well, first, if she is the ONLY business savvy Ferengi woman, that doesn’t much argue for these reforms. But let’s ignore that; let’s say they just didn’t have time to get another one. The plan still makes no sense. You’re telling me cosmetic surgery can make Sisko look like a Klingon but can’t make Quark look like a female of his own species?!? Did these people never see “Some Like it Hot”? The idea that they actually had to do gender reassignment surgery is beyond dumb.
So there we have it. Even if we’re willing to ignore the stereotypes and offensive jokes, this episode just doesn’t make sense.
@7: TNG’s “Shades of Grey” got a zero, but this is DS9’s first.
@9: At least “Shades of Grey” had the excuse of being a clip show. No such excuses here.
@6: Ah yes, I’m seeing some of that in Memory Alpha. There appears to be no shortage of disappointment – and, perhaps, shame? – in the episode, even from those involved in its production.
@@.-@ – oh yeah, I forgot about all the weird Rom related humor.
On another note – a friend of mine on Facebook (again with the Facebook arguments) recently posted some thoughts on Obama’s recent speech that had basically been reported as saying this: “President Obama called for more taxpayer-spending on pre-school in order to “make sure that women are full and equal participants in our economy” and said the following: “Sometimes, someone, usually mom, leaves the workplace to stay home with the kids, which then leaves her earning a lower wage for the rest of her life as a result. And that’s not a choice we want Americans to make.”
Now, a few things – I am completely aware that the article she had linked to and the way it is quoted was purposefully out of context because it comes from a very conservative source, I don’t actually oppose subsidizing day cares/pre-schools and I myself am a working mother and have chosen to work instead of stay at home with my kids, and not just because I feel like I have to, but becuase it’s what I prefer to do. So I’m all about working mothers and finding ways to encourage women to be engaged in the professional world. My husband stays at home though, so in a way it applies to me ;) I also don’t think Obama literally meant this as a slam on stay at home mothers in general.
That said, I also found it off putting along with my stay at home mother friends (many of whom are also well educated), because even knowing the whole context and speech there are some assumptions there (when taken to an extreme) that I’m not a fan of, and it kind of reminded me of this episode and their motivations for getting women clothes – not because of their inherent dignity, but so they could contribute to the workforce/economy (although, I suppose in Ferengi culture, that IS kind of like inherent dignity and the highest good one can attain). Like, the worst choice they could make is something that leaves them with a lower earning potential and not contributing to the economy. Many of my friends felt personally offended because they had knowingly given up a measure of wealth because they wanted to stay home with their children, and it wasn’t just because there aren’t enough day cares available. Although in some ways I don’t know that they are living the reality he was speaking to, which is families where the income is really needed but they are unable to seek it out. I’m aware of that reality too which is why I repeat, I’m not opposed to the funding of day cares, schools and the like, although I’d like to see other things too (such as increased minimum wages, less dependence on a dual income for those in two adult households so that if a parent wants to stay home they can, less stigma for people that take time off to care for children or want to have a flexible work/family balance, etc). I just hate the way he worded it.
Okay, first let me make it clear that I did not “enjoy” this episode. However, I did see exactly where it was coming from, and I think to an extent that the vitriol poured against it is a cultural thing.
I’m British (as is Alexander Siddig, who directed the episode), and my formative years were the 70s (as were his, we are close to the same age.) In Britain in the 70s, we pretty much grew up expecting to see men who should never be dressed as ladies, dressed as ladies. It’s a staple of British humour. We grew up going to the Panto, a major part of which is the Dame, a man, dressed as a woman, in the most garishly outlandish clothes. We grew up watching Carry On films, where they would never miss the opportunity to put the hulking giant frame of Bernard Bresslaw into womens clothing as often as possible, and then some authority figure would always fall madly in love with him and chase him around the room very much the way that Nilva does with Quark here. There are countless other examples. It’s part of our culture, it’s part of Alexander Siddig’s culture. It’s not part of most of yours.
So, while this wasn’t very well done, I didn’t find it at all offensive. Or at least, apart from that opening scene which made Quark a sleazy sex-pest after all the hard work they had done turning him into an at least somewhat sympathetic character. Certainly it has the redeeming feature that it was at least played for laughs, unlike my own personal least favourite episode Move Along Home which I think fails on every level mainly because you are supposed to take it seriously.
And there are others I could name. This is not a good episode. But it’s not the worst Star Trek episode ever, and not even close to it.
Ashcom: I’m fully aware of British cross-dressing humor — perhaps most famously seen in Monty Python’s Flying Circus — but that isn’t the part I found offensive, it was the beginning and ending I found offensive. The “cross-dressing” part I just found stupid and unfunny.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@13: I’m not at all sure this is cultural. Alexander Siddig directed the episode, he didn’t write it or perform it (much). In fact, according to Memory Alpha, he’s one of the reasons the episode takes itself seriously instead of being deliberately campy.
I am an American, but I appreciate British comedy. And as I mentioned, there is a place for gender-bending comedy along the lines of Monty Python or Dame Edna (or even Mr. Humphries)…but that’s not the vibe I get from this episode. As a queer person, and as a woman, the episode is offensive to me. It’s simply not funny. Sexual harassment isn’t funny, and a man being forced into performing as a woman against his nature isn’t funny. There’s no cultural trappings here, in my view – it’s just badly done sexual comedy.
Added: I feel like I should clarify that plenty of things about queer people and women are funny to me. I’m not a stick-in-the-mud, far from it. But this is offensive and not funny.
Well, thank God that’s over.
They couldn’t even have Nilva’s reaction to the reveal of Lumba’s true identity be “Nobody’s perfect,” reflecting the end of Some Like It Hot. So they even missed out on the most obvious reference they could have made.
@14 – but that is my point. I also found the beginning and ending offensive. But those were two (spectacularly) misjudged scenes in an entire 40 minute show. The rest wasn’t great, but it wasn’t the worst thing ever. There have been many other ST episodes where almost every scene is misjudged. I don’t see how two poor scenes make it “the worst ever.”
To me, Profit and Lace can be summed up by the 3rd screenshot on this page. Atrocious.
I can forgive a lot of the episode’s faults, but that scene with Nilva chasing Lumba in his quarters is beyond appalling. No amount of directing or acting choices could save that turd of a scene. It was broken on page, riddled with outdated stereotypes. I think Krad’s description sums it best.
It’s possible there was other dialogue, but I was in the bathroom throwing up at this point.
End of story. It’s sad that this was essentially the last Ferengi show (not counting The Dogs of War), and it pretty much killed any hope for Siddig having a successful directing career, following on the footsteps of Frakes, Burton, McNeill and Dawson.
Actually, one redeeming quality – I thought the costumes were actually pretty fantastic. Garish, yes, but I liked Ishka’s sparkly cape :D
I get that the writers of this thought they were being clever, but we should all remember John Scalzi’s advice on the failure state of clever.
As for the episode itself, it introduces one good concept into the Trek-verse. It establishes sex changes are available on demand, no questions asked and no judgement given. I’m just going to assume Julian isn’t very good at doing them, which is why (in the words of SFDebris) Quuark is “a nightmare made flesh”. I like the idea that I could go down to my local FHS (Federation Health Service – like the British “National Health Service”) center and say “I want to be a guy this week”, and they go “yeah, okay, step this way. Are you making an appointment for a change back next week too or do you want to leave it open ended….sir”. That is the one sole piece of Gene’s enlightened Federation in this utter wreck of an episode.
Not much to say about this one. I remember finding it awkward and unfunny, and I’ve given it very little thought since then. Although, for me, one of the stupidest and unfunniest bits wasn’t about gender — it was about the Ferengi having a beverage called “Slug-O-Cola.” That’s just dumb. It makes them cartoon characters rather than aliens.
I’ve never seen this episode. Somehow I missed it. And now I’m going to continue not seeing it.
Oy…
@19: Okay, I will grant you on the costumes….I still think the fabric looks like a clown threw up, but I really like Ferengi jewelry. Even Lumba’s underboob fringe. :)
@21 Slug-o-Cola, really? Was this a backdoor pilot script for Futurama or something? Actually, strike that, when Futurama did the sex change episode, their’s was watchable. DS9’s version was as bad as TOS’s Turnabout Intruder for offensive stereotypes, only without the excuse of it being the 60s.
I don’t know what the point of this episode was supposed to be. It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t serious, it wasn’t campy, it wasn’t entertaining.
I’ve never seen this episode. And it sounds awful and I believe everybody. But I want to watch it just to see how awful it is. That’s not crazy, right?
#21
To be fair, we have drinks like Bacon Soda, Hubba Bubba, and Leninade. We humans are pretty cartoonish too.
@27: But it’s reasonable that we could have a drink named Slug-O-Cola because we speak English. The Ferengi shouldn’t. The word “cola” was coined in the 1920s as a brand-name variant of the name of the kola nut, which at the time was the source of the caffeine in the beverage. Slug-O-Cola is supposedly a Ferengi brand name but it’s structured like an American English brand name, not only in etymology but in stylization, the use of the hyphenated “O.” Plus it sounds like a reference to the Sluggo character from Nancy. It’s a silly name to use for an alien product that should be named in an alien language.
#28
But you’re forgetting the Coca Cola company merged with the All Ears Beverage Corporation of Ferenginar. Hence the name.
As a queer folk, and a genderqueer folk, I agree with absolutely everything MeredithP has said about this episode. I don’t buy that the fact it is Brit directed has anything to do with the insulting humour or harassment. It’s pure American writers who blew this one, and badly. I won’ t comment on the acting, because they had this load to work with.
Oh. Dear. God. As for Alexander Siddig being British and making this okay, he’s half Sudanese so he should know better… Anyway, cross dressing comedy was always considered rubbish in the U.K. anyway: a cheap trope used when the writers had run out of ideas. (70’s comedy was never much cop).
“Nilva declares it’s close enough for him. It’s possible there was other dialogue, but I was in the bathroom throwing up at this point.”
you and me both…. this episode starts off so promising and then just goes off the rails so fast, culminating in this scene where I was left saying to myself WTF just happened here.
I suppose I watched this one when it aired, but other than a vague memory of “another crappy Ferengi episode that tried (and failed) to amuse me” I don’t have any memory of it. This is a good thing. Moving on …
It really is a shame that you don’t give out negative scores for episodes.
It does give “Spock’s Brain” a run for its money as the worst of the bunch.
@35: Oh, “Spock’s Brain” is far from the worst. It’s silly, but it’s entertainingly silly, which makes it enjoyable (plus it has good production values and one of the best musical scores of the series, and is one of the few episodes where the supporting ensemble really gets to shine). The really bad episodes of TOS are the ones that aren’t even fun, the incoherent, tedious slogs like “The Alternative Factor” and “And the Children Shall Lead.” As for worst of the franchise, TNG’s “Shades of Gray” is a leading contender.
Also my third, and hopefully last time seeing this one. And I think the second time was only because I was being particularly open-minded while in a state of extreme boredom. Or perhaps I was trying to rewatch the whole season or something. This time was obviously for the rewatch.
I just…I don’t even…I mean, why do we even have to talk about this episode? It shouldn’t be talked about…and yet, I feel like I have a need to discuss this horrible experience that happened to me as though the rewatch thread were some kind of group therapy. Watching this just made me have an intense uncomfortable feeling in my chest the entire time. I was in this weird state of limbo where part of me wanted to laugh because of the societal expectation that these were jokes, but also not laugh because it’s not at all funny. It doesn’t help that a lot of the humor was intentional uncomfortable humor–that is, uncomfortable situation humor, which doesn’t sit too well with me. The end result is just this intense feeling that I need to get out of here. Schroedinger’s Cat is probably also an apt analogy, as although I was a living being watching this, I must also simultaneously be dead because how could this episode be happening?
The thing that I think bugs me the most about the sex-swapping (aside from the body suit, which Mrs. Doubtfire pulled off way better), is all the stereotype jokes–does this make my hips too big?, my hormones are raging and I’m all weepy, etc.
Oh, and perhaps it’s a good time to say that the comedy episodes don’t sit too well with me anyway because it’s out of context. In a movie like Dumb and Dumber, you can make the over-the-top jokes work for a willing audience, because it’s expected that the movie is going to be like that. But in a show that’s otherwise very serious, and has episodes like “In the Pale Moonlight” and “Duet”, the comedy episodes just don’t fit. Lighter episodes are fine, but the comedy needs to make practical sense.
OK, there’s obviously no arguing that this episode doesn’t have loads and loads of flaws. The coda is particularly unfortunate; as KRAD says, it undoes any good that the episode might have done for Quark’s character. So I just pretend the coda doesn’t exist.
The teaser, the other scene with Aluura, is of course offensive, but it’s SUPPOSED to be. (And it’s nothing worse than the other low points we’ve seen over the years for Quark’s Ferenginar-raised misogynistic behavior.) I wouldn’t mind the beginning if the end didn’t ruin it. (Maybe if Aluura had said, “Actually, oo-mox doesn’t sound so bad … just not with a creep like YOU.”)
Certainly the “Nilva’s quarters” scene was barf-worthy all around, even putting aside its offensiveness, for its cinematography and out-of-genre slapstick style.
But I really enjoyed the episode’s few truly funny moments (Worf’s line, Odo’s face, the “Keep Your Ears Open” quote … and I think there were a few others, but I’m not willing to re-watch the episode to remember them).
More importantly, though, I appreciate what this episode does — mostly off-camera — for the ongoing feminist progress of Ferenginar. It’s terribly ironic that the on-camera stuff is so utterly opposed to true progress, yes, but still, I’m sort of glad this episode exists as opposed to just leaving Ishka’s feminist movement where it left off previously.
So I’d have rated this episode a 1, MAYBE even a 2. At least I still like it better than “He Who Is Without Sin …”
Yes, IF the horribly offensive beginning had some kind of payoff, it might have been worth it – where Quark realizes he was wrong and it’s basically a moment of growth. But he doesn’t, which leads me to believe maybe we’re really supposed to think it’s funny? Or at least throw our hands in the air and say, “Oh, that Quark! He’ll never change!” (Not to mention the total disgust of Aluura deciding to go along with it…if a woman says no, it just means she doesn’t realize what sex is and how awesome it is, I guess).
I’ll be honest, I don’t actually understand the Shades of Grey hate at all. I’d probably give it a 2 or 3. Yes, clip shows are lame. But it’s not offensive and painful like this is. Plus, I think the actual premise regarding the memories was at least somewhat interesting.
On one hand, I am almost tempted to give this a 1 instead of a 0 because as you say, it does show progress being made on Ferenginar and the feminist Ferengi movement is actually an interesting concept. But on the other hand, that just makes the rest of this worse by comparison and even more dissapointing.
This actually did remind me of another episode I totally hated in TNG though, and that was Menage a Troi. I totally forgot about that episode until I watched this one. Barf.
I might hate this one equally with Let He Who is Without Sin, and maybe only slightly more than Change of Heart.
Oh, and if they’re looking for a smart Ferengi woman (and I suppose the logistics/timing would be difficult), whatever happened to the cross dressing Ferengi from some other episode (was it Profit and Loss? I don’t remember what that one was about)? I feel like she would have at least fit in with the general feminist Ferengi theme in some ways.
LOL @@@@@ the group therapy crzydroid mentions. Very true.
I read back over the “Shades of Gray” rewatch; a commenter there noted that more than half of the episode was new material, and another pointed out that the new material actually contains some potentially interesting stuff, in the form of “psychic war” between Riker and the bacteria.
So if “Shades of Gray” has redeeming value, so must “Profit and Lace” – and as we’ve now found, it’s the advancement of feminism on Ferenginar. But I would say that the sexual harassment and transphobic elements are far more off-putting than throwing together bad clips. If anything, I’d rather leave “Shades of Gray” at 0 and demote this to -1.
@40: Oh Lisamarie, you had to mention “Ménage à Troi,” didn’t you? I’m noticing that all my least favorite episodes involve the Ferengi…sigh.
Yeah, I never really had a problem with Shades of Gray. If you accept the conventions of a clip show, that is. Not particularly good, certainly the wrong choice for a season finale, but hardly an atrocious entry. The clips are a nice enough method to bookend the first two seasons, and there’s at least some attempt at drama, in this case revisiting the Riker/Troi romance, and the fear of loss.
And there are quite a few worse episodes in the Original Series. As CLB pointed out, The Alternative Factor is one of the worst offenders in this regard. Bland and boring, to the point where you check your watch every couple of minutes.
Maybe that’s the problem. A cross-dressing comedy trying to hit you over the head with a particularly self-righteous feminist point about a society that treats women in a way unlike any real society in human history… maybe we should not be surprised it goes wrong.
Just remembered one more thing about this that perplexed and disgusted me: the description of Ferengi ear anatomy at the end.
Aluura refers to “the tympanic tickle, the eustachian tube rub, the auditory nerve nibble” – we know about the first one from “Afterimage,” but what the hell is going on with the eustachian tubes and auditory nerves?! That…that…that stuff’s internal! What the hell are you doing?!
@41: Yeah, bringing Pel back would have been a great idea! From the standpoint of continuity and advancing the Ferengi Feminist Movement, at least. Not sure how they could have done that and still made it a comedy episode, or how Quark could have learned a lesson in that case, but … eh. At least it would have turned out better than what we got.
(Pel was from Rules of Acquisition, btw. Profit and Loss was where Quark was in love with his Cardassian ex.)
@43: Boringness is the primary sin of Shades of Gray, in my book. It’s in the proud tradition of the more dreary TOS episodes.
I couldn’t bring myself to rewatch this episode. The first time I watched it, my jaw started to drop at the mention of Slug-O-Cola, and when the crossdressing began, I found myself in shock that this was actually happening. This episode has no meritorious aspects, and watching it is almost physically painful.
Other than the time they got stranded on Earth in a time travel episode I’ve not really enjoyed any of the Ferengi episodes even though I quite like Quark, Rom and Nog as secondary characters.
Nothing to say about this episode that hasn’t already been said.
But @@@@@ 31. Zoidberg ” (70’s comedy was never much cop).”
Not even Fawlty Towers? And that’s assuming you exclude the radio broadcasts of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
When DS9 was coming to an end, Scott Edelman asked me to do an article on the ten best and worst episodes. On an Internet survey, this episode was ranked the worst of all DS9 episodes by the fans. Later on, in the DS9 Companion book (if that’s what it was called), the creators talked about the article. To their credit, they thought this would be funny, and they admitted that in the end, it was not. All it is, is offensive.
— Michael A. Burstein
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I’d still take this over the trash known as “Valiant” any day.
@51: “- i disagree completely that Henry Gibson as Nilva is a ‘Robert Knepper moment’, i think that he does a great job.”
I think you’re misconstruing the meaning of that phrase. When Keith says “Robert Knepper moment,” he’s not criticizing the performance. It’s more about the surprise of seeing a big, important actor in an episode — generally someone who wasn’t famous at the time but has become a much bigger name since, like Knepper in TNG’s “Haven,” but sometimes someone who was famous long before and thus is surprising to see, like Gibson.
I’d still rather re-watch Valiant.
And CLB, isn’t Eelwasser at least as offensive as Slug-O-Cola?
Christopher is correct in that the Robert Knepper moment has nothing to do with quality of acting (in any direction). In fact, it’s when I’m surprised by the appearance of an actor in a role. I had honestly totally forgotten that Gibson played Nilva.-
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
My favorite Robert Knepper moment of all time? It may surprise you to know that it isn’t a Star Trek episode at all, but a Babylon 5 episode. Remember Bryan Cranston as the soon-to-be-ill-fated Captain Ericsson in The Long Night, next-to-last episode of the Shadow War arc…? :)
@54: Good point. “Eelwasser” sounds like an English-German hybrid, which isn’t very Ferengi. But it doesn’t sound quite as stupid to my ears. For one thing, “Slug-O-Cola” sounds like it’s referring to Sluggo from the Nancy comic strip.
I like DS9 Ferengi episodes. They are goofy and satirical, but one line from Quark to Sisko explains every Ferengi episode, their motives, their expressions, and why some viewers dislike these episodes.
“You know, Commander, I think I’ve figured out why Humans don’t like Ferengi…The way I see it, Humans used to be a lot like Ferengi: greedy, acquisitive, interested only in profit; we’re a constant reminder of a part of your past you’d like to forget…But you’re overlooking something. Humans used to be a lot worse than the Ferengi. Slavery. Concentration camps. Interstellar wars. We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We’re nothing like you. We’re better.”
He ignores the way male Ferengi culture treats women. Many men in our culture mistreat women without even realizing it! We think it’s just normal – as does Quark. This episode highlights this while putting it in an intentional tongue-in-cheek context – you’re SUPPOSED to think it’s ridiculous. How could people REALLY feel like this about other people? There are plenty of examples on screen of Ferengi treating women like property, without even realizing it’s wrong. Rom is the counter-example. There are plenty of examples in real life of human men treating women like property also, without even realizing it’s wrong. I believe this is the point of the episode, and whether or not the brand of humor used to show this fact actually has an effect on the viewer, I believe that was the intention. The prevalance of ‘that was uncomfortable and icky’ comments in this thread proves that the point was made – Trek isn’t famous for promoting inequality and misogyny, part of it’s influence is how it brings attention to those undesirable parts of humanity through the story and characters.
@58: That’s a nice way to read it, but in this case I think the lesson was far too subtle. You don’t have to beat someone over the head with a lesson for it to have an impact – witness “The Outcast” and “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.”
But you have to make sure there is enough clarity to the message that it can be seen. If the vast majority of viewers find this episode nothing but a gross misstep, then I think it has failed to impart a lesson.
I have to agree with you.
(Comment#2 deleted by its author)
@56
I had the same reaction when I rewatched DS9’s Battle Lines. I had no idea Breaking Bad‘s Jonathan Banks had done Trek (or 24’s Gregory Itzin, for that matter).
@51 You’re not the only one who liked this episode. I, too, found it quite funny. The cross-dressing stuff is, of-course, stupid and unfunny (is that a word?). But some of the other gags and jokes were certainly worth a laugh. I would rate it as a 4 or a 5. As for Slug-O-Cola: I really liked that name… until CLB eloquently explained why it makes no sense. :-(
BTW, how do you guys (and gals) make those neat paragraph breaks in your posts?
@64: For me it’s as simple as hitting “Enter” twice. Is there some reason that doesn’t work for you?
If IE is in compatibility mode it doesn’t work (or maybe it’s if it’s NOT in compatibility mode?)…at any rate, if there is an icon in your URL bar that looks like a little broken piece of paper, try clicking on that.
@65 Hitting Enter twice works fine in the editor, but for some reason it doesn’t show in my final post.
@66 Thanks for the tip. I’m trying it right now – with this post (hope it works).
Looks like it did :)
Horrible. That’s it.
Angry.
I am angry that this was allowed to happen.
Let’s start with the rapey opening. Not cool. Not allowed. Not my Trek.
Aaaargh. I can’t even be clever here…it infuriates me that this was allowed to happen. The transphobia, the homophobia, the sexism, the turning the sexual harassment into a joke, this is in no way my Trek. Committing all of these crimes under the guise of “it’s o.k. because we are really talking about women’s rights” is bullsh&t. There were 1000x ways to make a funny script that would have worked within the confines of the original idea but the staff, all the staff, missed all of them. All of these issues are important to talk about, but if you are going to move the discussion backwards 20 years, then just don’t bother. grrrrrrrrrr.
@70/doompaul:
That’s an excellent figure, actually. This episode would be far more understandable coming out of 1978 than 1998. Not better, mind you, but more understandable.
The episode, followed by the discussion in the comments, actually reminded me not of other Ferengi episodes, but of some Klingon/Worf episodes. The Klingons have a culture of honor and violence, the Ferengi have a culture of exploitation and sexism – that’s supposedly the way their civilizations have developed. So if you’re OK with Worf refusing a blood donation to save a Romulan, because a Klingon doesn’t have to act like a Human – you should be OK with Quark’s sexual harrassment in the workplace, because a Ferengi doesn’t have to act like a Human either.
Theres a big difference, really.
I guess I’m turning into a contrarian with these reviews. I generally find the consensus “great” episodes like “In the Pale Moonlight” to be underwhelming, and silly inappropriate romps like this one to be mildly entertaining. That may be because I’m annoyed by different things than other viewers when it comes to what the characters do. I get annoyed when a supposedly respected Starfleet captain like Sisko goes off recklessly and puts others at risk for his obsessions, or when Odo neglects his duty and puts the entire station at risk to go off and get gooey with a Founder (or wipes out the existence of 8000 people for the love of Kira), or when Kira interferes with official serial murder investigations and takes an unborn child in her womb – that isn’t even hers – into dangerous situations, or when I find out she was a terrorist who killed innocent people, or when Jake (in what is supposed to be the greatest episode of the series) wipes out a lifetime of reality for who knows how many people because he wants his Daddy back…… I like my DS9 heroes to be flawed. I prefer that they not be hopelessly selfish, murderous, criminally negligent or reckless to the point that they would place their happiness over the lives of countless others.
So when Quark, who we already know is a cad, engages in some despicable but ultimately unproductive sexual harassment, I just can’t get all that upset about it. While he was leaning on Aluura, who knows how many Romulans died because Sisko took it upon himself to bring them into a war because he wanted it so?
As for the rest of the episode, I can’t see giving it a “zero” rating with Worf’s “I can’t think of any” one-liner and Moogie’s “You’re a good liar” comeback to Quark. Small simple pleasures. And while the sex-change stuff was silly, I though Shimerman did a great job when he was allowed to be subtle with it early on. I was actually fascinated watching his/her first moments as a woman, learning to inhabit a different body. Yes, the portrayal of the hormonal crises was over the top and insulting from a certain perspective, which might have been tempered if the writers had thrown in a line or two emphasizing that the histrionics were the result of Quark trying to adjust to a female physiology, instead of this being the norm for all females. And it got way over-the-top once the Slug-O-Cola magnate showed up. By then it was paint-by-numbers chase-her-around-the-table mayhem we’ve seen a thousand times before in movies and TV shows.
Anyway, it was a stupid, silly episode that I enjoyed watching a lot more than at least a season’s worth of other DS9 offerings…
There is one good thing that comes from this episode. It establishes that the Federation’s attitude towards gender transition surgery is “sure, when can we book you in” without any of the bullshit that trans* people have to put up with these days. It makes sense they have the technical abilities, they alter people’s species on almost a daily basis it sometimes seems, but establishing Bashir’s social attitude of Quark wanting a sex change as just being another tiresome thing in a tiresome day and not something out of the ordinary is very important. Gendertransition is routine to them.
To quote some self-important douche: That’s gotta be worth a couple of pages in somebody’s book.
That is pretty much the only silver lining from this episode.
I always thought the Quark trans episode was based up on bugs bunny not 70’s UK TV.
I found this pretty offensive as well although the actors did as much as they could with it. Part of the offensiveness my brain wrote off as the time period. I was thinking on the same lines as one of the other commenters (crzydroid I think), it would have been a nice wrap if Aluura had said “oh thanks for the book loan, oomax sounds wonderful, just not with you!” and walks off. There could have been so much done with this plot line about empathy and understanding with the experience in a character like Quark who has shown growth and reluctant willingness to consider other viewpoints massively out of sync with his own culture. I didn’t understand the need to physically (surgically) change him to female though (hormones and all) outside of changing his lobe size. Nice that they have that option as others mentioned, but seemed unnecessary.
Given all the offensiveness, what I found most offensive was the hormone jokes. Oh silly women. Now that I’m stuck with their hormones I can’t function. I must weep and hug and talk about my feelings and worry about if I look fat and can’t run my bar. Wow was someone not in the know. Yes we deal with hormones. Yes we still talk about…rocket science and other such topics.
We had a few good moments.
The costuming of the Ferengi as always. Ishka was out of this world. Literally. Given what the men wear, I could see this being put together by a woman who had never been allowed to wear clothes and was now doing it with full gusto.
You really get a sense of Shimmerman’s talent as an actor when he first starts trying to impersonate a female (the subtle stuff before it goes over the top). Rom’s comments were so sweet, and might have been funny if handled differently (like, why does this person suddenly know so much about x (insert, gemstones, physics, the lifecycle of the uclarion beetle) with a different, suddenly meaningful ending. Like maybe he’d read books to better relate to and understand parts of Leeta, or maybe loved to dress up as a kid but was never allowed to by society). I knew a guy who wore hose and heels for a day to understand what was expected of his girlfriend by her regular job. He was really pissed! (At expectations).
The first ever television scene transition with beetlesnuff.
Ishka calling Brunt “limp lobes.”
Wish Pel could have shown back up!
Bashir probably should have asked a few questions as Quark’s motives bordered on fraud.
It almost seems like the writers wanted to make sure every season has the same average critic score. For every “In the Pale Moonlight” there has to be a “Profit And Lace” to even out the score.
“Be nicer to me or I’ll fire you” is taken straight out of “Sexual Harassment 101”, and “ohhh that sounds like fun” is a response taken straight from a writer’s wet dream.
Quark being chased after as a female is funny because… It’s more sexual harassment but this time a harasser gets to experience it first hand himself? Yeah, that’s not really funny either.
And of course Quark has to act all touchy and crying after he got transformed back because that’s what women do, right guys??? *wink wink, nudge nudge*
Just imagine writing an episode about the emanzipation of female Ferengi and then include about any sexist stereotype and stupid joke you can think of…
@78 That is not Bashir’s place to act as a gatekeeper, deciding on whether a person’s motives are pure enough or not. No, if there is fraud after the fact, then that is Odo’s job to investigate and press charges. That is if Odo can tear himself away from learning showtunes long enough to do some policing. Then again, we’ve seen what Odo considers policing; and it is straight from the Judge Dredd’s Handbook of Policing, so maybe Odo should stick to the show tunes after all.
Out of some 320 episodes and reviews between TNG and DS9, I don’t know why I am responding to this, of all terrible episodes. I just have to ask, is it that much worse than Code of Honor?
vcupav: Yes, because “Code of Honor” is misguided, and a lot of its problems are due to a casting choice, making a dumb script into an offensive one. “Profit and Lace” started out life offensive and went downhill from there.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@82/krad: I don’t know that I’d agree about “Code of Honor.” Even before the decision to cast the Ligonians with all black actors, the writing of their culture was steeped in a hodgepodge of cliched Orientalist and “tribal” stereotypes (specifically based on samurai culture, I think, but with references thrown in to dynastic China, Native American counting coup rituals, etc.). So the script was already problematical; the casting and directing just added one more layer of racial condescension to what was already there.
After watching “What We Left Behind” in which Ira and another crew member make a comment about this episode being “reevaluated” or some such, I had to check out this page to see if there was some reflection of that. There is not, so I can only wonder what on earth Behr was talking about with that comment in the doc.
If anyone was curious (big If here), there are no less than eight “Acting Grand Nagus”‘s used throughout the episode, most of them in the first half just to drive home how unfunny it is.
Lockdown Rewatch.
Yeah awful awful awful, nothing is funny not even the punning title. I can think of a couple of more appropriate punning titles for this abomination of an episode, “Some like it Not”. Or the “Crying Shame”.
0 out of 10 is generous by the way. I would put this in minus figures, Hideous episode.
This was jaw-droppingly bad the first time I saw it. But somehow I had forgotten the Aluura bit, which may be the worst stuff in any Trek ever.
I have to hold my hands up and admit I pretty much enjoyed this episode and found it amusing. I should add it’s not normally the sort of comedy I like and it is crassly done but besides all that I very much enjoyed.
That said. There are some deeply flawed bits of it especially the opening and coda (although I find the coda less offensive as it least it was consensual at that point even though I do agree it undermines anything Quark may have learned in the episode). Also the part where Quark disrobes to prove he is a woman I feel is pretty crass as well.
But despite all that I pretty much enjoyed it. To be clear though I fully understand why others didn’t and why it is viewed by most people as one of the worst episodes ever.
Long, long after everyone else, I want to mention two unabashedly good moments in this episode. The first is actually two different mini-scenes where the servants of Brunt and Zek confront each other nonverbally in the background. It’s very well done. The second is the scene where Nog, Rom, and Quark are calling all the members of the Council to meet with Zek and Moogie. I loved the fast intercutting of shots and the overlapping dialogue. Both of these would have been director’s decisions, and I thought they showed creativity. Too bad everything else was so terrible.
The whole idea of presenting this as farce was a mistake.
It says there are 88 comments on this episode but I got only as far as 50. Where are the rest of them?
I count 90, including yours (but not this one), though two have been deleted by their author. Usually later comments show up automatically if you scroll down; not sure why that wouldn’t be happening for you.
2: Even? 10: It’s telling that Profit and Lace didn’t wind up as a clip down memory lane in What You Leave Behind. 18: Why didn’t Tim Russ build on the success of Living Witness into a fruitful directing career? 21: The Ferengi have always been cartoonish and I think it works better in smaller doses, not when it’s allowed to thoroughly take over as in Profit and Lace. 29: “You’re going to have to answer to the Coca-Cola company!” 39: “Keep your ears open” was first heard in the S1 finale In The Hands Of The Prophets.