Overall Rating: 3.0
The average Ferengi episode is mediocre at best...when you tack on a message that completely clashes with the rest of the series, you get a rather negative outcome in the mind of this reviewer.
Plot Synopsis:
Zek: Quark's life is suddenly interrupted by the arrival of Grand Nagus Zek - he unceremoniously moves into Quark's room and kicks him to the curb. Rom offers to share his tiny quarters in the meantime, leading to some rather silly sibling battles. When Quark gets fed up with Zek and demands to know what is going on, Zek presents a completely rewritten version of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition. Not only are they rewritten...they're...NICE!! Quark desperately tries to figure out why Zek would write something so heinous, but can't find a single logical explanation...panic sets in - the Nagus has gone MAD!
It gets worse when Zek appoints Rom to be the chief operating officer of a new charitable organization he's founding called the Ferengi Benevolent Association. As Ferengi everywhere are no doubt lining up to execute Zek and his associates (including Rom), Zek is tossing money around and not looking at the books for one second. He makes several generous gifts to the Bajoran people...the coup to gras comes when he reveals that he has come into possession of one of their missing orbs and plans to make a gift of it at a ceremony in two days.
When Quark has had enough of this, he does a little digging and determines that before Zek's bout of insanity, he took a trip into the wormhole with the orb. Quark concludes that the wormhole aliens must have changed Zek after he has his own orb vision. He takes Zek back into the wormhole and interrogates the Prophets themselves, demanding to know why they changed him. They insist they made him a better person and threaten to do the same thing to Quark. Quark, in a desperate attempt to scare them into back off, points out that if they keep changing Ferengi, more Ferengi are going to show up demanding answers. The Prophets decide to change Zek back to the way he was and all goes back to normal. All, that is, except for Rom, who winds up significantly enriched for his efforts...it turns out he embezzled massive capital from the Ferengi Benevolent Association - Quark is proud.
Bashir: Meanwhile, Bashir is nominated for the Carrington Medal for his work in exobiology and genetics. He spends the entire episode annoyed that everyone on the station is making a big deal about his nomination because he is convinced he's not going to win and doesn't want to get his hopes up. The Carrington is typically awarded as a means of recognizing a lifetime of good works in medicine and Bashir is just a baby, professionally. He turns out to be right - the award goes to a man who is over 100 years old - but everyone on the station has him so pumped up about his work and his chances that when the news comes down, he is inevitably crushed that he didn't win and comforted only by the knowledge that he's got a long career ahead of him and is the youngest Carrington nominee ever.
Writing: 3.0
Meh...there's not a lot to love about the script from a technical or entertainment standpoint. The side plot includes a couple of nice moments between Bashir and Dax, and I enjoyed the battle between Quark and Rom in Rom's quarters on a juvenile level, but on par, it's just average fodder. In terms of continuity, respect for canon, and general plot construction...this script gets a big fat ZERO. The way Wolfe and Behr treat the Prophets is appalling - capricious, petty beings who interfere in interstellar politics as if it were nothing...take away a man's free will and change his identity, and respond to the idle threats of another similar man? What Prophets are these? In the REST of the series, the Prophets claim not to care about corporeal matters and only act when it is necessary for the good of Bajor - their chosen people. So average the average technical writing with the dismal plot dynamics and continuity and you get the score I gave it.
Acting: 6.0
Wallace Shawn - best know for his role in "The Princess Bride" (Inconceivable!) - gets more and more annoying with every appearance. It's partially the way Zek is written and directed, and partially a failure of imagination on Shawn's part, I think. But Zek is supposed to the be the ultimate pinnacle of ruthless Ferengi cunning and acquisitiveness, not a lovable little teddy bear with a little quirk for being chauvinistic and greedy (and kind of a moron). This is partially the writers' fault (more on that shortly), but I think Shawn is quite overrated as a DS9 guest star. Zek was so bad in this episode that it offsets whatever positive gains were made by Armin Shimerman and Alexander Siddig.
Message: 0.0
Every species must have a reason their adaptations work...a reason they become successful enough to reach the stars. The Ferengi are written with less and less respect and three-dimensional history and more and more foolishness every time they appear in a prominent (central) role as this series goes along. The writers' caricaturization of capitalism does no one any favors and teaches no lessons worth learning. "Oh horror of horrors, Zek has become GENEROUS!" *sigh* Here's a hint...capitalism and generosity go hand in hand statistically (in the real world...not the one Hollywood writers see). Come up with a list of the nations who give the most money to charity and to other nations in the face of crisis...or even make your list in the form of PERCENTAGE of net worth (per capita) and the nations that rise to the top will be the ones that favor free market economics - STARTING...with America.
Even more disturbing is the complete lack of respect or understanding of DS9 canon shown by Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe regarding the behavior of the Prophets. I mentioned how grossly the "character" of Bajor's deity was assassinated. I would just like to call attention to it again here for another reason. If this is the way Behr and Wolfe view OUR God...(and that's certainly how it feels in this episode)...then they're certainly not getting my vote on the message front. The rest of the series is so fair to peoples of faith and balanced in its' presentation of the possibility that there is one truth out there and clear good and evil that episodes like this really stand out (and not in a good way). When you have your explicitly defined Gods acting like petulant 10 year olds...there's a BIG problem.
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