Unfriendly Ferengi

Episode Title:  The Last Outpost
First Aired: October 19th, 1987

Summary
While pursuing a vessel of the mysterious Ferengi, the Enterprise is held captive by a mysterious force which drains its power. The crew discover that this same force is draining the Ferengi ship and coming from the planet below. When they attempt to team up with the Ferengi, whom they compare to "Yankee traders," they are betrayed almost immediately. However, when the away team regains consciousness after falling to blows from the Ferengi energy whips, they encounter Portal, the last of an ancient civilization. Portal sees that Riker, specifically, is no barbarian, and releases the Enterprise.




At Least We're Not Like Those Guys!

This entire episode felt like it was trying to show how incredibly advanced humankind is through showing how unlike the Ferengi they are. Specifically, with the Ferengi lines about how humans "force" women to wear clothing, there was a sense of the writers gloating about how advanced humanity is in terms of gender equality. However, as you can see from my previous posts, this gloating is not entirely merited.

Boys Will Be Boys

There were even a couple of scenes within this episode that debunked the gloating, both of which were completely unnecessary. The first is when Riker notices a couple of young boys in a restricted area and shoos them away, laughing a little as he tells Picard that "boys will be boys." The young boys are not scene again for the rest of the episode, nor is whatever they were doing relevant aside from leaving behind a Chinese finger trap which becomes a running gag in the episode.

The second is when those aboard the Enterprise are dealing with the gradual loss of life support systems. Doctor Crusher tells Picard that she almost gave Wesley a sedative but decided against it, to which Picard remarks that Wesley "has the right to meet death awake." Crusher then asks, "Is that a male perspective?" I genuinely have no idea what purpose that little exchange served, except to ever so slightly undermine the message of the rest of the episode.

Both of these scenes are nothing compared to other episodes, but I still wonder what the writers were thinking when they included them.

That's All, Folks!

For better or for worse, there isn't much more to say about this episode. At least this one wasn't racist!