DS9 Flashback: Ferengi Love Songs

Deep Space Nine tried its best to circulate around all its many cast members, giving each of them episodes throughout a season in which to shine. In an odd bit of timing, two different Quark episodes arrived in a three-episode span near the end of season five. But where "Business As Usual" had been a dark look at Quark's moral boundaries, "Ferengi Love Songs" was more traditional Ferengi comedy.

Quark has the blues -- and when his bar is closed for days on end for pest control, he has nothing to take his mind off it. He takes his brother's suggestion and visits home, where he learns that his mother has secretly become romantically involved with Grand Nagus Zek. Quark's rival Brunt then arrives with a proposition: break up the happy couple, and Quark's business license will be reinstated. But there's more to the relationship between Zek and "Moogie" than first meets the eye. Meanwhile, Rom and Leeta have decided to get married. But when Rom begins to fret about losing his Ferengi culture, he asks Leeta to sign a prenuptial agreement... and risks destroying the engagement.

This is an episode about two loving relationships that almost get sabotaged by outsiders. That they could be sabotaged so easily suggests maybe they're not quite solid relationships, but hey -- that's one hour television. Both story lines are comedic, but let's start with arguably the lighter of the two, the "B plot."

Though the story of Rom and Leeta's rocky engagement is played only for laughs, it actually speaks to some fairly serious issues with Rom, if you stop to think about it. For all the abuse Rom takes from his brother without apparently internalizing any of it, it takes just a couple of stray comments from O'Brien (that it's great Rom is changing for Leeta) and Dax (that Rom is the least Ferengi-like Ferengi she's ever known) to send him into a major shame spiral. Rom's ex-wife clearly left some emotional scars, and it seems he'd rather hurt himself than risk letting another woman hurt him again. This could be the stuff of serious drama.

But we're talking about Rom, of course -- in an episode that generally has the tone of a cartoon. (Directing yet again on a Ferengi episode, Rene Auberjonois literally used the word "cartoon" to describe this one.) So we get Rom wailing so loudly in public that he attracts notice from Sisko. We get him impulsively giving up his (meager) life savings as though that's somehow the answer to his troubles.

Leeta gets similarly broad treatment. Being asked to sign an offensive prenup could be the inciting incident of a dramatic story, but instead Leeta huffs around for a while, eventually unburdens herself to a smirking Kira, and finally makes up with Rom. I don't suppose I actually want the serious version of this story. And the actors are fun in this silly take. (Nana Visitor in particular seems to really enjoy having something light for a change.) But it is sort of odd for Deep Space Nine, the show with the reputation for being "dark and serious Star Trek," to deal with such potentially deep material in this way.

Things get broader still in the A plot. It's a door-slamming farce without the slamming, as characters actually hide inside Quark's closet. Here, people are trying to break up a happy relationship, Quark with modest goals, and Brunt with the hopes of becoming Grand Nagus. It's a plot that gives us plenty of sight gags, from towering Maihar'du bending almost in half at the waist to get through Ferengi doors, to Quark basically playing with Star Trek action figures.

The writers had apparently imagined putting Zek and Moogie together from her first appearance on the series. But when Andrea Martin refused to return to the role (and its extreme makeup demands), it took a while for them to decide it would be okay to recast. Cecily Adams does a credible enough impression of Martin that between it and the makeup, you might well never notice the difference.

As in the B plot, there is the potential in the A plot for a more dramatic angle that the show isn't interested in. But at least here, the themes are voiced, sort of slid in under the audience guard amid the zaniness. As always when dealing with Moogie and Ferengi society, there's commentary on sexism. Even her own son is blind to it, with Quark complaining at one point that she can't know what it's like for him not to be able to earn profit. The financial advice she gives to Zek initially has to be given anonymously, as if from a man.

Then there's the whole idea of a powerful leader in growing cognitive decline, propped up by people around him. Plus the politics not just of equality but of capitalism. The episode casually drops in the scathing idea that a leader's personal greed is okay, so long as it also reflects the public greed. But mostly, it's really just quite silly. You could argue that Star Trek -- even Deep Space Nine -- does get this silly on occasion. (Say, when tribbles are involved.) But I'd say this episode is trying to be funny more than it's actually being funny. Some of the jokes land; many don't.

Other observation (just the one this time):

• In the opening scene, it seems they're using phasers to go after the voles in Quark's bar. I mean, I guess those can be set for stun, but it still seems surprisingly inhumane for the enlightened future.

Among both lighter episodes and Ferengi episodes, "Ferengi Love Songs" is not my favorite. Still, it's fun enough in moments to deserve perhaps a B- overall.