UNCUT - Rules of Acquisition (DS9 S2E7) | Star Trek Journey 291

DS9 sex scoreboard catch up version SHOCKING score from before. Quark pulls Dax. NICE. Quark pulls another gross. The sex score board Quark 3 +2 new Chief 1 Keiko 1 Odo 1 Kira 1 Bashir 1 Jadzia +1 new GUEST: Nagus 5 Pel 1 +1 new DETAILS: okay whatever. Even thinking about ferengi lubing up and lobbing down is just gross

Armin as Quark is excellebt as always and Pell does a great job as a guest. I still hate this episode though.

Oh my god. I can see it now. Wallace and his family, gathered around the TV as you guys say, him excited for the reveal so his family can go crazy. They say the line in the show, and Wallace’s response? Oh yeah. Yeah, you know it. IN. CON. CEIVABLE!!!!!

The first mention of the Domninon

Return of THE NAGUS!!!

Feels like it's preaching to the choir IMO. The real life parallels are obvious, but 50 years too late.

Exploring 'how' is one of my favorite parts of Sci-Fi How would a warrior race look like in a post scarcity future? (Klingon) What would an economy look like in post scarcity? (Federation vs Ferengi) What would a gender dominated culture look like? In TNG they took a swing at that in Season 1 with that Matriarchal Society and they take another swing here in DS9 and the Ferengi. It's fun.

10 minutes in and I didn’t think I was going to like it, but after a while it becomes something like a Ferengi pantomime. I don’t think I’ve laughed as much in an episode of Star Trek as much as this, plus the directing was brilliant

I don’t understand your objection to the Dosi make up . They are not prosthetic but many indigenous people wear face paint. Why would this impact your enjoyment of the episode ? I love this episode because it is so funny , but I agree with Dax. The Ferengi are great.

I never understood why some people hate the Ferengi episodes so passionately. They are mostly fine other than a few terrible ones.

The Ferengi Episodes are such guilty Pleasures for me.

We've explored Bajoran religion, now we get to explore Ferengi religion. The Rules of Acquisition is basically the Ferengi Bible

Now go back and watch the Nagus again. It sets up the ridiculous yet devious nature of the ferengi. Wallace Shawn is a treasure and this role for me makes Vizzini from Princess Bride a distant second.

I have to say it, even though I know it's been said before, and please understand that this is in no way intended as a criticism, but it keeps coming up in a questioning tone (Why would they...? They had to know...?). When these episodes were originally produced the audience's attitude towards "spoilers" was completely different because we didn't have access to the information. At this point, home internet had only been around for a couple of years, completely disrupted your telephone unless you had a separate dedicated line, was extremely limited, and metered by the hour. Similarly, Star Trek was only just starting to gain national recognition. In the early to mid 90s, if you wanted to go buy a sci-fi book or video, often you went to the darkest, dustiest corner of the store, furthest from the entrance (and often next to the curtained door to the adult section). For most people, the only information they would have had was (maybe!) one sentence in TV Guide and the teaser from the previous week. It was viewed as a positive thing if there was going to be a half hour preview of an upcoming movie, even better if it had actual footage. The general reaction was probably closer to: "That's the Grand Nagus' private channel..." (What? The Nagus?) "Hello, Quark!" (Hooray!/Ugh! [ymmv]). They probably weren't fussed about revealing Zek because the actual reval was when/how people learned about Pel. (Most of which, including Quark passing out, would have been in the teaser!) The problem is that, for the most part, marketing strategies don't seem to have changed much in 30 years despite the shift in attitude and studios still release information months in advance to live on the internet indefinitely. (Apologies for the wall of text.)

Armin Shimmerman felt the Ferengi got a raw deal in TNG. (He was one of the original Ferengi encountered.) Part of the reason he took the job as Quark was to redeem the Ferengi, to make them something more than they were, and he does an excellent job of it, in my opinion.

While I agree with everyone that the Dosi are pretty silly, I'll give them credit that everyone's face makeup was different. It did, at least to me, sell the concept that that's just what these wacky alien people do. Maybe each house, clan, tribe, company, or whatever has their own pattern, or maybe it is a personal pattern. So I think that's kinda neat at least. ::shrugs::

I'm really enjoying your DS9 videos and takes. I was 10 years old when I first watched this episode and you are making me remember what I felt so many years ago in 1993. I wanted to say that.

:)

@55:00 Riker and the non gender in The Outcast for "forbidden love".

Regarding Dax, it's FINALLY not a spoiler anymore to say that in the first season, Terry Farrell had a very different take on the character than the writers & producers did. So much so that she had a lot of trouble playing Dax the way they wanted her to, and the writers didn't really know what do with her as a result. What you're seeing now is Farrell & the writers finally figuring out how to synthesize their divergent takes into a coherent (and awesome) character.

The guy who played the giant guy with red makeup also played the vampire Luke in several episodes of Buffy that you guys watched.

Syndicated TV was a whole different animal back then. TNG and DS9 aired on whatever channel bought them in each city. In my city TNG was on the ABC affiliate on Saturday at 6pm. DS9 was on the FOX affilate. They would be pre-empted for any "special" event right down to high school football. You would get a crawl at the bottom of the screen, "Star Trek will now be seen tonight at midnight", etc. You had to work to see these episodes. So not only were they not usually trying to hide guest stars etc, they were promoting them in every commercial, trying to keep people engaged enough to seek out the episodes.

Despite him being the embodiment of the trope of the funny but dirty old man, this episode showed the cunning of the Nagus that keeps him in power and the Ferengi government functioning.

DS9 was already overextended in budget, biggest set in Star Trek so far, the regulars like Quark and Odo with incredibly high makeup prep and they had to dress up a large portion of aliens. Was it lame, yes. Does it matter? No :D The story is good, and yes I fucking love the Ferengi stories

It's the budget, they don't have the money to do extensie prosthetics on a whole bunch of new aliens. You can do Klingons, ferengi, vulcan etc because they can reuse other shows assets. But if the story is good, and this was it does'nt take me out like it does you. Shows with Huge Budgets can do terrific effects and still suck because the scripts are terrible, Yeah Post 2017 I'm looking at you.

There were no jokes because in the Prime trek Universe Homosexuality, and Trangender etc don't matter , nor does Race, however that will be adressed too in a very cleaver way

Name Drop

Quite enjoyed this episode. The Dosi makeup is probably a budget and/or time issue. A lot of Ferengi makeup in the episode and then the scene on the Dosi planet with a large amount of background actors as Dosi. Huge time and expense if the Dosi had a complex makeup design.

As you mentioned yourself we don't have only Quark as representative of the Ferengi. So there is a lot of potenital for evolving the species during the run of the show.

The wormhole is actually a time wormhole going back to TOS era gamma quadrant.

Can I just say that Quark's drip is always immaculate

A gas company? Oh boy..

This is at least the second episode of DS9 that has Pakleds in the background scenes.

Tiny Ron is the actor that plays Zek’s servant.

I finally started liking the Ferengi with this episode.

A world building episode. Although I didn't love the Ferengi - at least at this point - it felt good that they are now more fleshed out. Still kind of a caricature, but now more interesting. Dax seems to have arrived (characterwise) Bashir did last episode. Yeah this aliens haven't been good, but I appreciate that they tried to use the wormhole and the quamma-quadrant in this episode. Hasn't been enough of it so far.

Despite all the good work by the cast this episode always dragged for me. Ferengi episodes are clearly budget saving exercises. I probably would have enjoyed this story if it was one plot thread in a two parter. There are more enjoyable Ferengi episodes to come....as well as a few stinkers.

Five minutes in. "I think that Ferengi waiter is played by a female." Good call! *LOL*

Biggest foreshadowing in the entire franchise.

I'd never thought of comparing Dax to Guinan, but I think that actually tracks pretty well. Obviously there's more to Dax than this, but when she lends an ear and gives advice, it's pretty similar.

Josh knew Pel was a female. PREWATCHED!

Ferengi episode... so I'm already half zoned out. The best part of this episode for me is any time Dax is on the screen

There was nothing forbidden about Quark and Pel's relationship unless they returned to the Ferengi homeworld. Quark could have been with her on the station or anywhere else. Quark actually wants to be with her. But he's so indoctrinated/committed to Ferengi culture, values, and sexism, that he can't accept that relationship for what it is outside of the Ferengi view. He can't accept that it's ok for Pel to be who she is outside of the role that Ferengi society expects all their women to be. So he forbids himself, because he actually thinks that being with her is morally wrong from the Ferengi view. And that's a shame because otherwise, they were probably perfectly matched. Quark had an opportunity to grow here and challenge his beliefs. But he didn't get the message. Instead of learning from this whole situation, he doubled down at the end on what he was originally taught. Tragic. It makes you think about other people who refuse to accept evidence of something that's right in front of their own face, because they CAN'T accept it. Doing so requires throwing away everything they've been taught, and that's too big of a leap.

For forbidden love in TNG -- Masterpiece Society comes to mind -- maybe not the same type of forbidden, but then there is that great turbolift scene with Troi and Picard and the closing line from Picard that they may have been more destructive than the comet (that they were ostensibly trying to stop) could ever have been.

Not one of S2's best, but not terrible either. Ferengi eps in general can be hit and miss. Some I'm definitely not looking forward to, while others I can't wait for. I can respect Pel's tenacity in being able to not only impersonate a man but being able to even get off the Ferengi homeworld in the first place given the restrictions places on women there. I agree that Quark is too attached to the way things are to change overnight, but between offering 10 bars of latinum and going for the kiss at the end, there's definitely a part of Quark that admires Pel. It's just a bridge too far for him to abandon everything he's ever known, especially since he would also have to give up any place in Ferengi society. Hard to say what this "dominion" is about. From the sounds of it perhaps some weird mix of the Federation and the Ferengi. An interstellar alliance more focused on business than exploration, perhaps minus the more unserious elements of the Ferengi. Then again, if the Dosi are any indication, perhaps even more ridiculous. At any rate, even if they're never or barely mentioned again, that sprinkling of gamma quadrant lore is good to see given S1 mostly just sat on this aspect of the show. You've got a wormhole to the other side of the galaxy. You should damn well use it. Also while Odo didn't have much in this episode, I do love that scene where he muses more to himself than anyone else, that even if it were Quark that were his brother, he wouldn't let anyone come between them. It's also understandable given how isolated Odo must feel being one of a kind.

You guys mentioned that it looked like the Dosi just painted their makeup on...I wonder if that was the idea? Maybe they just paint their faces with ornamentation, possible to intimidate their business partners.

Love the perspective on how they didn't use cross-dressing or queer identity as the entire episode. I feel like DS9 does an amazing job of having stuff that should be monumental in the 90s just be quiet backdrop, which changes the accepted norms. "Not in your face about it" as you guys often say, is one of Good Trek's best gifts.

The DS9 guest star credits will not be your friend, boys. Spoilers were just not a big thing in the 90s. I knew so much of what was going to happen in Trek before I actually saw it onscreen. Trailers, books, magazines. Told you everything. No one really gave a shit back then. Weird, because I go fucking ballistic now if someone spoils me 😂

Short answer: DS9 has a huge cast of supporting secondary characters, back then you couldnt look things up as easily on the internet, so they wanted to make it clear the names of certain characters who were part of the "secondary" cast but not part of the main cast so that people wouldnt get lost. This becomes even more important as the show goes on and gets more complex and serialized, keeping track of multiple secondary characters who aren't seen every episode was not something one could expect from audiences back then; in general studios had a very low opinion of audeince inteligence and it wasnt till much later that it was proven that complex serialized storytelling (where characters and threads have singificant breaks before their arcs/evolution pick back up) could find audiences. Studio estimation of audience intelligence was very low back then

Great catch spotting the Ferengi female so early in the episode, Josh.

Watching the discussion after the episode and I just keep thinking, These guys have no idea what they just got into.

Great reaction! Glad you enjoyed this one. The discussion just makes me more excited to see your reaction to future Ferengi episodes! I remember being totally put off the Ferengi from TNG as a child because of their sexism but DS9 really does give them more depth.

I always enjoy the Quark / Rom dynamic in these stories. Some genuine laugh out loud moments. Dax's relationship with the Ferengi is great and one of those moments when the symbiont's age gives her a unique perspective.

Armin Shimmerman and Rene Auberjonois - best two actors in the show 😬

Ah it’s a Ferengi episode with rubbish Gamma Quadrant aliens so by rights it should be a bit naf. But it actually has a really sweet story at its heart and there’s some great scenes with Jadzia, s2 really does start t give her stuff to do!

It's crazy how the Dosi makeup keeps this episode from reaching it's full potential. My head canon is that the Dosi are related to the Move Along Home aliens. In reality, all the Ferengi Makeup probably ate up the budget and time.

The head Dosi is the great Brian Thompson, a.k.a. the Klingon second officer that Riker beats up and then befriends. He was all over Star Trek and '90s TV in general, and he was usually playing that kind of giant intimidating character.

Wow, that flashback! Look how far your set has come! Forbidden love due to society was explore in The Outcast from TNG. Also, something in this episode that seems like a throwaway becomes major for the series down the line... Hope that's not considered a spoiler... more of a tease!

Also, I can't stop laughing imagining Wallace Shawn forcing his family to watch a Star Trek episode without telling them why.

Since network censors were mentioned, it's worth remembering that DS9 (like TNG) was not on a network; it was first-run syndication. Meaning they didn't have to worry about a network telling them what they could or couldn't do - though they would have to worry about local stations being unhappy with an episode and dropping the show.

"Go home." (Morn walks to Quark's)

This is another episode I was dreading to watch, but by the end I was totally touched by it. Really liked it. Like Josh was saying, it didn't play for the obvious gender bender comedy, and that one little exchange between Dax and Pel was actually quite ahead of its time.

I always loved this episode. It's fun and we get some nice ferengi world building. Also, ladies looking to date Alex learned a lot about him in this one lol