Opinionated Voyager Episode Guide returns to season 3 as we answer what finally happened to the lost Ferengi from The Price. An answer to a question no one cared enough to ask.
"Greed is eternal." "Wizards of the Coast has a new slogan!" As someone who works in the tabletop RPG industry and after the events of this past week...ouch.
At least we still get to see restored/remastered versions of previous Voyager episodes come out. 😎 That final STV review kinda hit me in the heart and it still aches a bit... 🙁
Agree and he would have been loved by them as well there was an episode were Brunt was giving Quark judgement because he sold medicine at discount because the Bajorans needed it at the time sure Quark is an opportunist but he usually pick the option that benefits everyone
I believe in the original review, Chuck said a similar joke but with “Channel Awesome” as the punchline, referring to the then recent reveal of the aggregate site’s mismanagement. Updating to refer to WotC and the whole DnD debacle makes sense.
Anyone else think “the crew visit a planet that is being uplifted by a retired Ferengi as a hobby” sounds like a really great premise for an episode? Explore the ethical conflict between keeping the people from being exploited and the fact that the people are better off with post-industrial technology than they were before. It could be an opportunity to hold up a mirror to the Prime Directive. Picture the 24th century version of Quarks “hoo-mans suck” speech.
Sounds like an interesting idea. They could even have it be questionable if the people actually are being exploited or even reveal they somehow managed to turn the scam around on the Ferengi.
Imagine, if you will, the Ferengi done correctly: The Ferengi would have the ability to see things from multiple sides, but a sense of how to personally gain from it. Instead of this slap stick we have an empire that is run by a bunch of rich families scratching each others backs because it is making them all richer. Using methodology that would make present day humans a little uncomfortable, such as putting in place the concept of a court system to enforce fair trade acts, but only to have the laws written so exploitable by the wealthy that they actually suppress any worker uprisings. Have the signs of the damage this system causes 'out of sight and out of mind' to those who profit the most off, to the point I wouldn't even show the audience this damage till the federation is already doing trade deals with them. The first interaction would have felt like it was pure business, just imagine the threats of legal action taking place.... The worse part: It works just as well as the Federation. That ability to see multiple sides has already created the Ferengi Trade Alliance, to the benefit of four or five dominate species. Ferengi space would consist of several groups, such as the Cardassian's who are the backbone of a merchant military, working towards the greater profit of the sector. Sure that benefit is determined by a handful holding power and wealth at the top, but that chain of command can be quite strong should the economy flourish and everyone is getting paid on time. In possession of multiple developed world, and a score of exploited ones, it shouldn't be hard to make sure the sector stays profitable. For the Ferengi are as open to working with others as Humans are, and can make you see it their way too... you benefit, after all. A strangely rare trait, even in a Universe with technology as advanced as magic, to make others want to work with you.
Sounds like a good idea, and you wouldn't need to stretch the imagination for it to work since that's more or less the way a lot of Italian cities worked during the Renaissance, as opposed to the Klingons which makes very little sense working as a functioning society.
@@mikegates8993 well on ENT they make a small reference to that in Judgment, where Archer's lawyer says "you didn't think we were all warriors did you"? Archer replies that he more or less did and the lawyer clues him in that that's only their elite class, the rest of their society has people in all functions like most anywhere else. It was a good scene actually.
Part of the reason the prime directive makes no sense here is the writers forgot the planet is bigger than a sound stage. Just beam up or destroy the tech. The ferengi have no way to rebuild it, the locals certainly don’t. Any period of sadness will have less effect than a plague or famine. It’ll have less effect than the destruction of Pompeii and that doesn’t matter to any culture much in the long term. Also time. The people will reinterpret the sages leaving within a decade. Letting the ferengi stay messes things up worse. TLDR; please just use the transporter Janeway
The locals even seem to believe things have gotten worse since the Ferengi arrived, they just follow them because they see them as prophets. I think a little bit of intervention is justified in this case ... They could have made way more interesting scenarios: Let's say for example Kol and Arridor arrived on a planet in the midst of an energy crisis. They helped the people by using their knowledge and tech to create antimatter-reactors. Of course this came to a price and now they run a company that basicly controls the whole planet. The locals understand the science behind the generators but cannot create some of the parts themselves (which were made by the replicator). So the Ferengi can do whatever they want. And now Voyager shows up ... Janeway wants to stop the Ferengi, but she can't just remove Kol and Arridor and their replicator without causing even more problems. So what to do? Give them replicator tech?
I really hate how they included the wormhole potentially getting them home angle of the show its just so aggressively stupid that Janeway blew a ticket home for her crew on something this small and petty. I mean if the Farengi had subjugated the entire planet that would one thing but was one freaking village. Seriously look I know the format of the show obviously wasn't going let them get home but to just throw such a golden opportunity out there and have the crew waste it like morons, come on they didn't need to do that.
And even if she had to do something about the Ferengi: Hey, they found out that the other end of the Barzan wormhole re-opens frequently in the same region of space. So fly back home and tell Starfleet about it, and then they could send a ship to capture the Ferengi later ... there is no need to hurry! But yeah, from the moment they found the wormhole it was just a question of "how will they screw it up?" instead of "will they get home?". So many early episodes with the same premise and we know it won't happen - like the one where they contact the Romulan, the one where they meet the Sikarans ...
@@lordmontymord8701 exactly they could of left a probe on this side on the wormhole transmitting and gone through themselves then starfleet could send a ship back through next time the wormhole opens once they detected the probes signal again
@@Gaggle_of_gays This should have happened long before anyway - after the events of TNGs The Price. The Ferengi might not have been interested any longer after they discovered that the other side of the wormhole is not stationary, but the Federation - and especially Starfleet as an organization dedicated to exploration - should have seen the enormous potential this wormhole still has. You could send probes through and get a lot of data every time the wormhole changes its position. Then of course Starfleet would already know that the wormhole reappears in a certain region after some time. Come to think of it this could have even been a longer story-arc: The Voyager-crew realizes they aren't that far away from one location the wormhole frequently shows up and so that's their new target. This way they are not just stumbling on the wormhole and the Ferengi by accident, because the Delta Quadrant is just that small ... But of course things are not that easy and in the end Voyager can't use the shortcut - just have a better reason than the crew getting tricked by two idiotic Ferengi.
Imagine if Voyager came across a part of space ruled by a hyper-capitalist civilization that seemingly came out of nowhere, and was actively researching wormhole technology. They could have done a story of the two Ferengi's greed, a potential way home (except that would mean collaborating with capitalists), and pose a danger to Voyager because the Ferengi would know of the Federation.
What always drove me nuts about this episode, is how they catch the ferengi in a tractor beam to keep them from going through the wormhole, instead of just going through the wormhole after them.
Hey, that would have made sense - and brought them home really fast, so nooooo! I really hate all these season 1 & 2 episodes where the crew thinks they found a way back home: Thanks writers, we knew this wouldn't happen, because Voyager being stranded far from home is the premise of the show! So it's like all those episodes with a guest star as a love interest - we know they won't stay, so the only question is why they will leave ...
5:02 Hey hold up, that’s definitely a different joke from the original video. Not that I disagree with the slam against Wizards of the Coast, but any particular reason why it was changed from the original joke against Channel Awesome? Gonna guess timeliness because of how the original review came out at the height of the CA split and controversies.
Not that I want to jinx Chuck since he's had so much issues reuploading his videos already. But it would be kind of funny if he just redid this video every few months and changed the greedy corporation each time.
Remember how the Kazon broke a replicator and it turned all of their cells into a slurry of blood and metal? Chakotay would have been a carbonite chunk.
Imagine if they had successfully captured the Ferengi but their plan with the wormhole had failed because by getting control of the moving end they'd made the other one unstable instead, because one end or the other has to move for it remain open. So now you have a situation where Voyager are illegally holding them and their shuttle, because they feel morally obligated to do so to stop them pulling the same scheme elsewhere. It could be a whole season (or more) long thing. Maybe they meet some friendly aliens down the line who become very much less friendly when they find out Voyager are holding foreign nationals without trial or there's an episode where they need to fix some alien tech which is remarkably similar to something Ferengi ships use and oh, what's that? One of the Ferengi they're illegally holding spent seven years as second engineer on a ship using that tech? Now you've got a situation where they have to a) decide if they can trust him to work on it and b) convince him to help them in the first place.
Honestly i'm ok with the Ferengi disappearing at the end of the episode - Neelix alone was annoying enough, we didn't need two Ferengi on board ... But your idea is very interesting - too interesting for Voyager.
"when they find out Voyager are holding foreign nationals without trial" Who in the Delta Quadrant would give a flying f---? Also, "foreign nationals", what are you on about? And Star Fleet is still a military arm of the Federation. They can apprehend interstellar criminals just fine and also put them on trial if you get hung up about a trial. And it doesn't matter if the Ferengi are not part of the Federation. If you think "but the Ferengi would have to be tried under Ferengi law", no, sorry, but no. Unless you want to claim that after WW2 the Alleis should have not been allowed to arrest Nazi war cirminals and try them unless they tried them under the laws of the Third Reich (which the Nazis themselves had written) where mysteriously everything the Nazis did was legal under Nazi laws.
@@TF2CrunchyFrog The Ferengi are not federation citizens, are not military enemies, haven't committed any crimes against the federation or in federation territory and possibly haven't committed any crimes on that planet either as we don't know (and the Voyager crew never bother to establish) whether there are any local laws against anything they did. An otherwise sympathetic government could absolutely object to what they see as a rogue warship whose captain considers her own morals above not just the laws of other cultures but also her own, passing through their space. A race that us particularly focused on legality over morality could easily come down on the side of the Ferengi and consider any crew willing to breach their own laws as no better than pirates, and a bit of digging into their logs would reveal just how willing Voyager have been to bend the rules.
Say what you will about the TNG Ferengi....but DS9 gave them nuance and fleshing out. Voyager pissed on that, and we got this. It's got a lot of the DS9 trimmings, but none of the substance, to say nothing about Ira Stephen Behr on hand to help this dead story out.
(5:02) In light of recent events involving WotC, that's pretty funny. Hey... I wonder if Chuck is going to have to make a bonus update video for his Time of Dragons series... 🤔 😜
The replicators throw a lot of screws into the idea of ferengi. What good is being rich if everything you might use the money for can be reproduced infinitely? Granted, economics in star Trek in general has never been looked into well, but It's why I look at this episode as probably the only time the ferengi made actions I bought as they get to a root of the desire for wealth: to lord it over the poor. No, that's not all rich people, but the negative type the ferengi are supposed to represent, it makes more sense then acquiring latinum to buy stuff an industrial replicator could just create.
There are some elements and materials that can not be replicated Latinum is one such. The Gold containing it can, but the Latinum can not. Dilithium is another non-replicatable substance. As are many elements needed for colonies and starships.
@@lynngreen7978 Fair, though it's one of those tools not consistant enough to make real claims (ds9 had infinitely replicating mines while voyager kept Neelix because they couldn't feed 150 people regularly)., and even then, a rare substance on its own has no value if you can't say it's rarity equates to value of other things because they can just be replicated. And yeah, I know I'm treading into areas even trek writers didn't understand, but Roddenberry said "it just works that way".
@@chrisw207 I always figured the Ferengi rigged their replicators to be something like iTunes. You can replicate anything, but if some bast- er- business has a trademark or license or whatever, you have to pay a small fee every time you replicate their product. Given their obsession with cash (I've never seen a Ferengi credit card) there's probably a slot in every replicator for you to insert latinum. Honestly, its not the worst idea I've ever heard. The creators are still rewarded for their efforts, and you get what you want for much less than you would if it were manufactured.
@@chrisw207 The replicators and what they can an cannot do are one of the great mysteries of Trek. These mines from DS9 were a really bad idea - they wanted something different than just closing the wormhole by technobabble, but this solution creates so many problems the writers just didn't think about. A lot of good SciFi stories are focused on an invention and the implications that arise from this technology - like Arthur C. Clarkes "The Trigger". If you instead only want to have a certain tech in the background as an easy explanation for certain things, you probably shouldn't bring it up in the way DS9 did with the mines or VOY with the energy shortage (speaking of, the replicators aren't the worst things - that price goes to Voyagers holodecks, which use a totally different form of energy that cannot be converted to power the rest of the systems).
I think it would have been preferable for the Ferengi to have reworked a struggling world into an economic powerhouse where they are ruthless businessmen, but still looking out to make the planet as a whole rival the economic empire of the Ferengi homeworld. I guess it was just 'better' to the writers to continue making them walking jokes.
Because no one else in the galaxy but the Federation ever invented replicators. WotC reference seems either oddly timely, or a new addition to an old episode.
Well we know the Delta Quadrant is a little bit backwards technology-wise - if you don't count the many species we see that are on par or have even better tech than Starfleet 😁
And here we have a perfect example why many people see Voyager as a continuation of TNG: They even continued a TNG-plot! And of course the Ferengi are as annoying as they were on TNG, without DS9's good work with the terrible concept of this species 🤢 Quark would be ashamed. This wormhole-idea here is just as bad as in the original TNG-episode: Yes, the wormhole is only stationary on one end, so sending ships through is way too dangerous. But it is still a great opportunity for exploration - just send probes instead of manned ships and collect as much data as you can. Geordi and Data figured out what was going to happen because of the sensor readings, so program the probes to return before the wormhole changes its position. When the truth was revealed at the end of "The Price", the Federation should have been still interested in making a deal with the species that controls the system with the wormhole. And if Starfleet continued exploration this way, they would have realized that the other side of the wormhole re-opens in the same region of space after a while. And they would have restored contact with the Ferengi ...
11:43 oh you just gave me a few new lines to use if someone messes up 😀😃😄. This is why I love your channel for Star Trek reviews, you're the only one I watch for this content, your honest and I agree with you 😎.
When I saw the Ferengi in the title card, I gotta admit I thought this was going to be a DS9 review. Oh well, now I know & knowing is half the battle!... Whoops, wrong franchise!
@@Philistine47 True that - when looking at the Ferengi and also other species like the Klingons they don't even have an idea how their societies would work. The Ferengi for example are ALL capitalists, everyone has the goal to make as much profit as possible - and if you are not successfull, you are deemed unworthy from a religious viewpoint. What Roddenberry and others seem to forget is that the "Yankee traders" they based the Ferengi on were only a small group and not the whole society. And the Klingons are even worse: Glory in combat is the only thing that matters - so everybody wants to be a soldier - no even must be a soldier, because every other job is deemed unworthy. Yeah, totally believable that they were able to create spaceships ...
Elon Musk, Jeff Bezo. Both are rich because they exploit their workers to build their wealth and give their workers peanuts. Sound like they understand how capitalism work to me. But for some reason, you guys love to move the goalpost and talk about *economics* and not capitalism. If people don't have the money to spend (because their wealthy boss don't want to give them pay rise), then the economy goes into recession and some of those people will get made redundant.
@@Renegade2786 Corporations exploiting their workers is not a new thing. And you using the popular examples doesn't make you right about it. I work at UPS in management and it's a non union job. The ones I supervise are unions and I can't touch them. Meaning the UNIONS actually exploit workers upward some of the time and it only works the other way when upper management figures out how to cut costs. That's how businesses work. You start a business and see how far you get with paying your employees so called "living wages" when you aren't making enough in profits. Is capitalism actually? No it isn't. Ask any small business owner the struggles. You want to lump ALL business owners to the massive corporations. I bet you LOVE twitter and the billions it makes until ANOTHER billionaire came by and bought it. You think this platform, RUclips, is some symbol of socialist equality that you obviously want?
This is one of the most mishandled episodes IMO and not one of my favourites. Janeway threw away another opportunity to get home just because she was too fixated on those damn Ferengi. It's a wonder the crew didn't erupt into mutiny afterwards and throw her off the ship in an escape capsule. If the wormhole had already become unstable at both ends for some reason, the episode would have worked better.
Harry is a horrible character, hes the dog tail jainway was talking about as well.. You would think after the first time he got all excited about a "quickfix" home he would learn to check hes estrogen everytime a possible way home is mentioned,
God there was so much stupid in this one. There was some unnecessary goofiness on TNG (I chalk it up to the time period) but never VOY's level of consistent intentional dumbness. Overall TNG was smart - or it at least tried it's best to be so. That's why it bored so many people, it wasn't there to be flashy but cerebral and philosophical. (Still, can't deny later VFX on DS9 and a few on VOY were pretty sweet) They could have done something actually cute with this one if they wanted to and they just made it dumb. Fehhhh Not surprising this was a Biller production. Maybe he tried his best but if this is it, than he doesn't have the chops.
Like Chuck always says, his scores are relative to the show. This episode is stupid, but at least not insulting or boring like so many other episodes of VOY. And at least the comedy was intentional this time ...
BTW the ear that the Ferengi land in is not by any stretch Bronze Age but Medieval. Just look at the buildings. They look like 11-16th century England. While you have your opinion, I don't necessarily agree with it.
Yes, this might be wrong. But i think it's pretty amusing that we only see so little of the locals and their tech level even though the episode is about the impact of the Ferengi on their society and developement ...
I was fixing audio glitches anyway, so I updated this and the Steve Jobs one. It was originally Elon Musk, but obviously if I left that in the comments would be thousands of people saying that Elon Musk is the Elon Musk of screwing up.
Reuploaded. He's got several which he wants to move over to RUclips because Daily Motion has adds way to frequently and he gets no returns on said adds, the episode was taken down for copyright claims, or it was on a site that doesn't exist anymore since he's been doing this that long.
@@DeconvertedMan Than to properly answer your question, he's still got plenty of episodes to reupload. I can think of three episodes off the top of my head that aren't available to watch at all and plenty that need to be moved over here.
@@mikegates8993 fair enough :D heh. I cant wait to hear his thoughts on the final of the Mahoromatic series. I thought it was so - disconnected from the rest of it.
Maybe they are just considered to be bad businessman by Ferengi-standards, which is why they were sent on this mission anyway 😉 - DS9 showed us Quarks and Roms father and of course Rom himself as loosers in the art of success (hell, DS9 even had cowardly Klingons). I love the idea that Kol and Arridor might know all the Rules of Acquisition, but they are too stupid to use them. And so every "good" Ferengi would have the same criticism as SFDebris ...
Chances are high he already made one, but it's not available right now before he uploads it on RUclips. You can see everything he has done on his own site, just search for SF Debris.
Greed is Greed, there is no satisfaction, Hoarding is greed. Greed is not enough, no satisfaction because why its eternal. It is an evil in itself, one of the seven deadly sins. We are not talking of Philosophy, belief, religion here.
"Greed is eternal." "Wizards of the Coast has a new slogan!" As someone who works in the tabletop RPG industry and after the events of this past week...ouch.
Attacking creativity doesn't seem like a good way to earn more money.
Yeah I had to stop and laugh at that part
I mean not so much ouch, but truth... seriously
I guess you might say you are TAPED OUT? :D :D :D :D :D
Paused video to make a comment on this - saw that someone has beaten me to it. Very proud that someone did. resumes video
At least we still get to see restored/remastered versions of previous Voyager episodes come out. 😎 That final STV review kinda hit me in the heart and it still aches a bit... 🙁
"Wizards of the Coast has a new slogan I see", too fucking accurate.
I was like "ah, a very timely joke . . . that was written years ago."
If Quark had found that planet, he'd own the entire thing within the month. Those Ferengi aren't fit to kiss his lobes.
Agree and he would have been loved by them as well there was an episode were Brunt was giving Quark judgement because he sold medicine at discount because the Bajorans needed it at the time sure Quark is an opportunist but he usually pick the option that benefits everyone
@@joimumu it wasn't discounted....it was at cost
I was slightly interested... then "Greed Is Eternal" ... then "WOTC has a new slogan". You get a thumbs up right away for that alone. 👍
"Greed is eternal!"
Chuck:"Wizards of the Coast has a new slogan."
Oh wow, that is shockingly relevant right now.
I believe in the original review, Chuck said a similar joke but with “Channel Awesome” as the punchline, referring to the then recent reveal of the aggregate site’s mismanagement.
Updating to refer to WotC and the whole DnD debacle makes sense.
Anyone else think “the crew visit a planet that is being uplifted by a retired Ferengi as a hobby” sounds like a really great premise for an episode? Explore the ethical conflict between keeping the people from being exploited and the fact that the people are better off with post-industrial technology than they were before. It could be an opportunity to hold up a mirror to the Prime Directive. Picture the 24th century version of Quarks “hoo-mans suck” speech.
Sounds like an interesting idea. They could even have it be questionable if the people actually are being exploited or even reveal they somehow managed to turn the scam around on the Ferengi.
This could be a very fascinating episode with the right writing staff.
@@bthsr7113 A shame that means we won’t get to see it.
You can't talk about fetishes and then in the next sentence talk about checking out a worm hole
Perhaps it was too much of its time, but I miss the deserved Channel Awesome jab.
Imagine, if you will, the Ferengi done correctly:
The Ferengi would have the ability to see things from multiple sides, but a sense of how to personally gain from it.
Instead of this slap stick we have an empire that is run by a bunch of rich families scratching each others backs because it is making them all richer. Using methodology that would make present day humans a little uncomfortable, such as putting in place the concept of a court system to enforce fair trade acts, but only to have the laws written so exploitable by the wealthy that they actually suppress any worker uprisings. Have the signs of the damage this system causes 'out of sight and out of mind' to those who profit the most off, to the point I wouldn't even show the audience this damage till the federation is already doing trade deals with them.
The first interaction would have felt like it was pure business, just imagine the threats of legal action taking place....
The worse part:
It works just as well as the Federation.
That ability to see multiple sides has already created the Ferengi Trade Alliance, to the benefit of four or five dominate species. Ferengi space would consist of several groups, such as the Cardassian's who are the backbone of a merchant military, working towards the greater profit of the sector. Sure that benefit is determined by a handful holding power and wealth at the top, but that chain of command can be quite strong should the economy flourish and everyone is getting paid on time. In possession of multiple developed world, and a score of exploited ones, it shouldn't be hard to make sure the sector stays profitable.
For the Ferengi are as open to working with others as Humans are, and can make you see it their way too... you benefit, after all.
A strangely rare trait, even in a Universe with technology as advanced as magic, to make others want to work with you.
Sounds like a good idea, and you wouldn't need to stretch the imagination for it to work since that's more or less the way a lot of Italian cities worked during the Renaissance, as opposed to the Klingons which makes very little sense working as a functioning society.
@@mikegates8993 well on ENT they make a small reference to that in Judgment, where Archer's lawyer says "you didn't think we were all warriors did you"? Archer replies that he more or less did and the lawyer clues him in that that's only their elite class, the rest of their society has people in all functions like most anywhere else. It was a good scene actually.
Part of the reason the prime directive makes no sense here is the writers forgot the planet is bigger than a sound stage. Just beam up or destroy the tech. The ferengi have no way to rebuild it, the locals certainly don’t. Any period of sadness will have less effect than a plague or famine. It’ll have less effect than the destruction of Pompeii and that doesn’t matter to any culture much in the long term. Also time. The people will reinterpret the sages leaving within a decade. Letting the ferengi stay messes things up worse. TLDR; please just use the transporter Janeway
The locals even seem to believe things have gotten worse since the Ferengi arrived, they just follow them because they see them as prophets. I think a little bit of intervention is justified in this case ...
They could have made way more interesting scenarios: Let's say for example Kol and Arridor arrived on a planet in the midst of an energy crisis. They helped the people by using their knowledge and tech to create antimatter-reactors. Of course this came to a price and now they run a company that basicly controls the whole planet. The locals understand the science behind the generators but cannot create some of the parts themselves (which were made by the replicator). So the Ferengi can do whatever they want.
And now Voyager shows up ... Janeway wants to stop the Ferengi, but she can't just remove Kol and Arridor and their replicator without causing even more problems. So what to do? Give them replicator tech?
"Capitalism is bad"
- Multi-million dollar franchise.
I really hate how they included the wormhole potentially getting them home angle of the show its just so aggressively stupid that Janeway blew a ticket home for her crew on something this small and petty. I mean if the Farengi had subjugated the entire planet that would one thing but was one freaking village. Seriously look I know the format of the show obviously wasn't going let them get home but to just throw such a golden opportunity out there and have the crew waste it like morons, come on they didn't need to do that.
And even if she had to do something about the Ferengi: Hey, they found out that the other end of the Barzan wormhole re-opens frequently in the same region of space.
So fly back home and tell Starfleet about it, and then they could send a ship to capture the Ferengi later ... there is no need to hurry!
But yeah, from the moment they found the wormhole it was just a question of "how will they screw it up?" instead of "will they get home?". So many early episodes with the same premise and we know it won't happen - like the one where they contact the Romulan, the one where they meet the Sikarans ...
@@lordmontymord8701 exactly they could of left a probe on this side on the wormhole transmitting and gone through themselves then starfleet could send a ship back through next time the wormhole opens once they detected the probes signal again
@@Gaggle_of_gays This should have happened long before anyway - after the events of TNGs The Price. The Ferengi might not have been interested any longer after they discovered that the other side of the wormhole is not stationary, but the Federation - and especially Starfleet as an organization dedicated to exploration - should have seen the enormous potential this wormhole still has.
You could send probes through and get a lot of data every time the wormhole changes its position. Then of course Starfleet would already know that the wormhole reappears in a certain region after some time.
Come to think of it this could have even been a longer story-arc: The Voyager-crew realizes they aren't that far away from one location the wormhole frequently shows up and so that's their new target. This way they are not just stumbling on the wormhole and the Ferengi by accident, because the Delta Quadrant is just that small ...
But of course things are not that easy and in the end Voyager can't use the shortcut - just have a better reason than the crew getting tricked by two idiotic Ferengi.
Imagine if Voyager came across a part of space ruled by a hyper-capitalist civilization that seemingly came out of nowhere, and was actively researching wormhole technology. They could have done a story of the two Ferengi's greed, a potential way home (except that would mean collaborating with capitalists), and pose a danger to Voyager because the Ferengi would know of the Federation.
What always drove me nuts about this episode, is how they catch the ferengi in a tractor beam to keep them from going through the wormhole, instead of just going through the wormhole after them.
Hey, that would have made sense - and brought them home really fast, so nooooo!
I really hate all these season 1 & 2 episodes where the crew thinks they found a way back home: Thanks writers, we knew this wouldn't happen, because Voyager being stranded far from home is the premise of the show!
So it's like all those episodes with a guest star as a love interest - we know they won't stay, so the only question is why they will leave ...
This whole episode made no sense. At what point wouldn’t you do anything different from how Janeway handled things
5:02
Hey hold up, that’s definitely a different joke from the original video. Not that I disagree with the slam against Wizards of the Coast, but any particular reason why it was changed from the original joke against Channel Awesome?
Gonna guess timeliness because of how the original review came out at the height of the CA split and controversies.
Not that I want to jinx Chuck since he's had so much issues reuploading his videos already. But it would be kind of funny if he just redid this video every few months and changed the greedy corporation each time.
Who needs reminders of such an awful time?
Will you ever do star trek prodigy?
Remember how the Kazon broke a replicator and it turned all of their cells into a slurry of blood and metal? Chakotay would have been a carbonite chunk.
Imagine if they had successfully captured the Ferengi but their plan with the wormhole had failed because by getting control of the moving end they'd made the other one unstable instead, because one end or the other has to move for it remain open.
So now you have a situation where Voyager are illegally holding them and their shuttle, because they feel morally obligated to do so to stop them pulling the same scheme elsewhere.
It could be a whole season (or more) long thing. Maybe they meet some friendly aliens down the line who become very much less friendly when they find out Voyager are holding foreign nationals without trial or there's an episode where they need to fix some alien tech which is remarkably similar to something Ferengi ships use and oh, what's that? One of the Ferengi they're illegally holding spent seven years as second engineer on a ship using that tech? Now you've got a situation where they have to a) decide if they can trust him to work on it and b) convince him to help them in the first place.
Honestly i'm ok with the Ferengi disappearing at the end of the episode - Neelix alone was annoying enough, we didn't need two Ferengi on board ...
But your idea is very interesting - too interesting for Voyager.
"when they find out Voyager are holding foreign nationals without trial"
Who in the Delta Quadrant would give a flying f---? Also, "foreign nationals", what are you on about?
And Star Fleet is still a military arm of the Federation. They can apprehend interstellar criminals just fine and also put them on trial if you get hung up about a trial. And it doesn't matter if the Ferengi are not part of the Federation.
If you think "but the Ferengi would have to be tried under Ferengi law", no, sorry, but no. Unless you want to claim that after WW2 the Alleis should have not been allowed to arrest Nazi war cirminals and try them unless they tried them under the laws of the Third Reich (which the Nazis themselves had written) where mysteriously everything the Nazis did was legal under Nazi laws.
@@TF2CrunchyFrog The Ferengi are not federation citizens, are not military enemies, haven't committed any crimes against the federation or in federation territory and possibly haven't committed any crimes on that planet either as we don't know (and the Voyager crew never bother to establish) whether there are any local laws against anything they did.
An otherwise sympathetic government could absolutely object to what they see as a rogue warship whose captain considers her own morals above not just the laws of other cultures but also her own, passing through their space. A race that us particularly focused on legality over morality could easily come down on the side of the Ferengi and consider any crew willing to breach their own laws as no better than pirates, and a bit of digging into their logs would reveal just how willing Voyager have been to bend the rules.
@@wendyheatherwood that would require janeway to be allowed to be wrong.
@@bthsr7113 a non-starter naturally
Say what you will about the TNG Ferengi....but DS9 gave them nuance and fleshing out. Voyager pissed on that, and we got this. It's got a lot of the DS9 trimmings, but none of the substance, to say nothing about Ira Stephen Behr on hand to help this dead story out.
Does Neelix's idea of a balanced breakfast include a glass of warp plasma?
Sounds more delicious and even better for your health than most other creations of him ...
But this time carbonated and enhanced with talaxian spieces!
(5:02) In light of recent events involving WotC, that's pretty funny. Hey... I wonder if Chuck is going to have to make a bonus update video for his Time of Dragons series... 🤔 😜
I'm pretty sure he changed that because of said events; last time it was Channel Awesome instead of WotC.
@@lordultimus559 Oh huh.
The replicators throw a lot of screws into the idea of ferengi. What good is being rich if everything you might use the money for can be reproduced infinitely? Granted, economics in star Trek in general has never been looked into well, but It's why I look at this episode as probably the only time the ferengi made actions I bought as they get to a root of the desire for wealth: to lord it over the poor. No, that's not all rich people, but the negative type the ferengi are supposed to represent, it makes more sense then acquiring latinum to buy stuff an industrial replicator could just create.
There are some elements and materials that can not be replicated Latinum is one such. The Gold containing it can, but the Latinum can not. Dilithium is another non-replicatable substance. As are many elements needed for colonies and starships.
@@lynngreen7978 you can replicate most ship building materials. Its just not energy efficient, at all.
@@lynngreen7978 Fair, though it's one of those tools not consistant enough to make real claims (ds9 had infinitely replicating mines while voyager kept Neelix because they couldn't feed 150 people regularly)., and even then, a rare substance on its own has no value if you can't say it's rarity equates to value of other things because they can just be replicated.
And yeah, I know I'm treading into areas even trek writers didn't understand, but Roddenberry said "it just works that way".
@@chrisw207 I always figured the Ferengi rigged their replicators to be something like iTunes. You can replicate anything, but if some bast- er- business has a trademark or license or whatever, you have to pay a small fee every time you replicate their product. Given their obsession with cash (I've never seen a Ferengi credit card) there's probably a slot in every replicator for you to insert latinum.
Honestly, its not the worst idea I've ever heard. The creators are still rewarded for their efforts, and you get what you want for much less than you would if it were manufactured.
@@chrisw207 The replicators and what they can an cannot do are one of the great mysteries of Trek. These mines from DS9 were a really bad idea - they wanted something different than just closing the wormhole by technobabble, but this solution creates so many problems the writers just didn't think about.
A lot of good SciFi stories are focused on an invention and the implications that arise from this technology - like Arthur C. Clarkes "The Trigger". If you instead only want to have a certain tech in the background as an easy explanation for certain things, you probably shouldn't bring it up in the way DS9 did with the mines or VOY with the energy shortage (speaking of, the replicators aren't the worst things - that price goes to Voyagers holodecks, which use a totally different form of energy that cannot be converted to power the rest of the systems).
I think it would have been preferable for the Ferengi to have reworked a struggling world into an economic powerhouse where they are ruthless businessmen, but still looking out to make the planet as a whole rival the economic empire of the Ferengi homeworld. I guess it was just 'better' to the writers to continue making them walking jokes.
Because no one else in the galaxy but the Federation ever invented replicators.
WotC reference seems either oddly timely, or a new addition to an old episode.
Well we know the Delta Quadrant is a little bit backwards technology-wise - if you don't count the many species we see that are on par or have even better tech than Starfleet 😁
You would think the Borg would have assimilated replicators.
@@Goodiesfanful Given their self-repair, probably.
And Disney... and Warner Brothers... and Paramount... and Amazon... where's that list I made?
Remember these 2 are minions. That might explain why they're so short sighted.
Everyone seems to bash this one but I've always enjoyed it
That Wizards of the Coasts joke HAS to be new.
Right?
…right?
Idk at this point I wouldn't be surprised If chuck can see the future with a 98% certainty
And here we have a perfect example why many people see Voyager as a continuation of TNG: They even continued a TNG-plot! And of course the Ferengi are as annoying as they were on TNG, without DS9's good work with the terrible concept of this species 🤢 Quark would be ashamed.
This wormhole-idea here is just as bad as in the original TNG-episode: Yes, the wormhole is only stationary on one end, so sending ships through is way too dangerous.
But it is still a great opportunity for exploration - just send probes instead of manned ships and collect as much data as you can. Geordi and Data figured out what was going to happen because of the sensor readings, so program the probes to return before the wormhole changes its position.
When the truth was revealed at the end of "The Price", the Federation should have been still interested in making a deal with the species that controls the system with the wormhole.
And if Starfleet continued exploration this way, they would have realized that the other side of the wormhole re-opens in the same region of space after a while. And they would have restored contact with the Ferengi ...
11:43 oh you just gave me a few new lines to use if someone messes up 😀😃😄. This is why I love your channel for Star Trek reviews, you're the only one I watch for this content, your honest and I agree with you 😎.
You also give me new reflections on characters I saw in the 90s when I was much younger. Yeah, Nelix (sp?) was not a good character 🙂.
When I saw the Ferengi in the title card, I gotta admit I thought this was going to be a DS9 review. Oh well, now I know & knowing is half the battle!... Whoops, wrong franchise!
Do the parallel tng episode
Anyone notice that Neelix dressing as a Ferengi is a call back to when he did play a ferengi in Ménage à Troi
Whoever wrote this script doesn't understand how economics work
Yeah, but Trek writers mangle _every_ field of knowledge they touch on. Why should economics be unique?
Star Trek writers, not understanding economics? That has been true for a very long while.
@@Philistine47 True that - when looking at the Ferengi and also other species like the Klingons they don't even have an idea how their societies would work.
The Ferengi for example are ALL capitalists, everyone has the goal to make as much profit as possible - and if you are not successfull, you are deemed unworthy from a religious viewpoint. What Roddenberry and others seem to forget is that the "Yankee traders" they based the Ferengi on were only a small group and not the whole society.
And the Klingons are even worse: Glory in combat is the only thing that matters - so everybody wants to be a soldier - no even must be a soldier, because every other job is deemed unworthy. Yeah, totally believable that they were able to create spaceships ...
Elon Musk, Jeff Bezo. Both are rich because they exploit their workers to build their wealth and give their workers peanuts. Sound like they understand how capitalism work to me. But for some reason, you guys love to move the goalpost and talk about *economics* and not capitalism. If people don't have the money to spend (because their wealthy boss don't want to give them pay rise), then the economy goes into recession and some of those people will get made redundant.
@@Renegade2786 Corporations exploiting their workers is not a new thing. And you using the popular examples doesn't make you right about it. I work at UPS in management and it's a non union job. The ones I supervise are unions and I can't touch them. Meaning the UNIONS actually exploit workers upward some of the time and it only works the other way when upper management figures out how to cut costs. That's how businesses work. You start a business and see how far you get with paying your employees so called "living wages" when you aren't making enough in profits. Is capitalism actually? No it isn't. Ask any small business owner the struggles. You want to lump ALL business owners to the massive corporations. I bet you LOVE twitter and the billions it makes until ANOTHER billionaire came by and bought it. You think this platform, RUclips, is some symbol of socialist equality that you obviously want?
This is one of the most mishandled episodes IMO and not one of my favourites. Janeway threw away another opportunity to get home just because she was too fixated on those damn Ferengi. It's a wonder the crew didn't erupt into mutiny afterwards and throw her off the ship in an escape capsule. If the wormhole had already become unstable at both ends for some reason, the episode would have worked better.
Wizards of the Coast have a new slogan!
Harry is a horrible character, hes the dog tail jainway was talking about as well..
You would think after the first time he got all excited about a "quickfix" home he would learn to check hes estrogen everytime a possible way home is mentioned,
The Wizards Of The Coast joke got me good.
God there was so much stupid in this one. There was some unnecessary goofiness on TNG (I chalk it up to the time period) but never VOY's level of consistent intentional dumbness. Overall TNG was smart - or it at least tried it's best to be so. That's why it bored so many people, it wasn't there to be flashy but cerebral and philosophical. (Still, can't deny later VFX on DS9 and a few on VOY were pretty sweet)
They could have done something actually cute with this one if they wanted to and they just made it dumb. Fehhhh
Not surprising this was a Biller production. Maybe he tried his best but if this is it, than he doesn't have the chops.
I love that little "chibi" Harry Kim
If we dont provide more Neelix, how will they know the show hates them? Best quote ever.
originally released in 2018 you say.
time sure is cyclical. (cough hack wizards of the coast haaaaaack)
I’m shocked he gave it a 6, it sounded like he hated it and I thought it was going to be a 1 or 2 out of 10 near the end
Well, it's _Voyager, so he rates it as a bit better than the average _Voyager_ episode. It would score lower as a _TNG_ or _DS9_ episode.
Like Chuck always says, his scores are relative to the show. This episode is stupid, but at least not insulting or boring like so many other episodes of VOY. And at least the comedy was intentional this time ...
What, did Dan Schneider write this episode?
BTW the ear that the Ferengi land in is not by any stretch Bronze Age but Medieval. Just look at the buildings. They look like 11-16th century England. While you have your opinion, I don't necessarily agree with it.
Yes, this might be wrong. But i think it's pretty amusing that we only see so little of the locals and their tech level even though the episode is about the impact of the Ferengi on their society and developement ...
I never thought these were updated when they were uploaded. Wizards proved me wrong.
I was fixing audio glitches anyway, so I updated this and the Steve Jobs one. It was originally Elon Musk, but obviously if I left that in the comments would be thousands of people saying that Elon Musk is the Elon Musk of screwing up.
On wings of fire!
"Wizards of the Coast has a new slogan."
This was originally released years ago, you say? Maybe there is something to it...
When I hear "Greed is eternal", I tend to think that they it's true but they forgot the word damnation.
4:55ff - Good timing with that reupload, huh? 😂
I thought we were done with voyager? I guess a few eps still need to be uploaded?
Reuploaded. He's got several which he wants to move over to RUclips because Daily Motion has adds way to frequently and he gets no returns on said adds, the episode was taken down for copyright claims, or it was on a site that doesn't exist anymore since he's been doing this that long.
@@mikegates8993 yea I know, I just thought maybe they had all moved.
@@DeconvertedMan Than to properly answer your question, he's still got plenty of episodes to reupload. I can think of three episodes off the top of my head that aren't available to watch at all and plenty that need to be moved over here.
@@mikegates8993 fair enough :D heh. I cant wait to hear his thoughts on the final of the Mahoromatic series. I thought it was so - disconnected from the rest of it.
Ah yes, this episode - always a fun one.
Sure love Kol and Arridors business
plan of profit and error. They really
lived the good life of exploitation
and asset stripping .
Maybe they are just considered to be bad businessman by Ferengi-standards, which is why they were sent on this mission anyway 😉 - DS9 showed us Quarks and Roms father and of course Rom himself as loosers in the art of success (hell, DS9 even had cowardly Klingons).
I love the idea that Kol and Arridor might know all the Rules of Acquisition, but they are too stupid to use them. And so every "good" Ferengi would have the same criticism as SFDebris ...
Luv ya chuck
Hope you do a review of "The Price".
Chances are high he already made one, but it's not available right now before he uploads it on RUclips.
You can see everything he has done on his own site, just search for SF Debris.
@@lordmontymord8701 do those videos play for you? I can't get them to work on my phones chrome browser.
@@YourCapyFrenBigly_3DPipes1999 No, not anymore. So we have to wait till everything is uploaded on RUclips ...
@@lordmontymord8701 oh got it. I was wondering why they wouldn't load and just kept buffering. Was thinking it was something on my end.
Greed. Hoarding. I thank you for Explaining very well on this Episode of Voyager, False Profits. 😅❤❤❤
Great Explanation of Economics and Sound Financing. Yup Common Sense.
Greed is Greed, there is no satisfaction, Hoarding is greed. Greed is not enough, no satisfaction because why its eternal. It is an evil in itself, one of the seven deadly sins. We are not talking of Philosophy, belief, religion here.