“I hate Ferengi.”
Keevan
Humour has always been a critical part of Star Trek, one that can make, or break, entire productions with a single line, and often provides some of the most memorable parts to an episode or movie, by giving us moments that make the characters seem more real, or more ‘human’.
This can sometimes go horribly wrong, such as Scotty banging his head off a beam in Star Trek V just after saying “I know this ship like the back of my hand.” I’m sure the writer thought this was a brilliant piece of irony, and yes, audiences did laugh, but the key component here is that they are laughing at Scotty, and not with him. I believe this is partially because the humour is out of character, a scene that is contrived and awkwardly placed in the film in order to break tension and give a chuckle at the expense of a then secondary character.
However, this is not the story with the “Magnificent Ferengi.”
For those not familiar with this episode, Ferengi barkeep Quark is informed that his mother is captured by the Dominion (Re: Bad Guys), and now has to put together an inept band of incapable idiots together to take on these highly trained, genetically engineered, super soldiers, and save his mother, Moogie. This takes any of the classic underdog heroic adventures, Star Trek's it, and makes it comedy, while still delivering a good episode on the whole.
"A child... a moron... a failure... and a psychopath. Quite a little team you've put together!"
Brunt
One of the best parts of this episode is how it ties so many disparate pieces together: the leftover prisoner Keevan from “Rocks and Shoals”, Quark’s cousin Gaila from “Business as Usual”, Brunt, from pretty much every episode where Quark gets into financial trouble, plus many more are meshed together in a semi-believable scenario where they need to rise above their inabilities, work together as a team, and succeed in their mission. These episodes have taken very humorous characters and placed them in a situation where they cannot help but be funny.
“I took her out of the equation.”
Leck, upon begin accused of killing a simulated Moogie
Leck, upon begin accused of killing a simulated Moogie
This, to me, is Star Trek humour at its best - when established characters are acknowledged for their abilities and failures - and given a man versus nature kind of story where they can be allowed to be themselves. They maintain their characters the entire way through, no heroic rush against the highly trained soldiers, no massive combat scenario (despite their best efforts), but instead they blunder their way to eventual victory, saving Moogie and taking the Vorta Yelgrun, (played by Iggy Pop) as a replacement prisoner for the one they accidentally shot.
In the end I highly recommend this episode, not only as a prime example of how comedy can be used successfully in Star Trek, but for 45 minutes of pure amusement!
WHAT WAS YOUR FAVOURITE PIECE OF STAR TREK HUMOUR?
WRITTEN BY KAINS
EDITED BY McCLINTOCK - UFP.MCCLINTOCK@HACARI.COM
