the delphic expanse

With the holiday weekend, I'm a day late and a dollar short.

This is the discussion thread for S1E19, Acquisition! All Delphic Expanse rules of engagement apply.

Written by: Rick Berman and Brannon Braga
Teleplay by: Andre and Maria Jacquemetton (Breaking the Ice, Dear Doctor)
Directed by: James Whitmore Jr. (Future Tense, plus a few Quantum Leaps)

There was a Rewatch Chat scheduled for 1am GMT on Tuesday, May 31 (8pm EST) which I totally blew at Tinychat.com. Or whenever anyone else wants to watch and chat!

This one has the distinction for me, and a few other fans I know, as being one of the only non-irritating Ferengi episodes. Even going back to TNG, I've always found the Ferengi humor juvenile, sexist and possibly even Anti-Semitic, since many of their cultural negatives are also associated with Jewishness. I know people's mileage varies on these things, but seeing women "pleasuring" their ears is gross. Just gross. And I'm no prude.

That said, I was won over by the Jake and Nog friendship on DS9, and I like this episode over all. It's a lighthearted, ship-in-jeopardy episode where the big three get to shine. As we said in the chat, some of SB's best performances as Archer are when Archer is acting. I'll say the same about Stratagem, too. He's very clever in how he recognizes what they are all about and outplays them. In the beginning, he's willing to let them take all the stuff and go, and it's only when he realizes they are taking crew as well, that he resolves to fight them. This speaks well of him.

It's fun to see T'Pol embrace the playacting (still not a fan of the leering at her, even though I know it's supposed to be wrong and funny, but whatever). She proves competent and strong, and she works well with both Trip and Archer.

Trip. *sigh* Poor man getting stuck in his underwear. He shows his resourcefulness, and his closeness with Archer - and his developing working/flirtatious relationship with T'Pol. Again, we see Trip also playacting, but instead of playing the hick, he plays the guy in the know, willing to "betray" Archer for his "wife" Hoshi.

As annoying as I find the Ferengi, the guest stars were all great, and they did well individualizing their characters.

It's a crackerjack little episode, and it's a shame the first time around people couldn't get over the mild continuity issue - which was dealt with in the episode - to see it for what it was.

This is just a delightful episode, especially as far as my OT3 is. It's so nice to see the guys getting to know T'Pol, and even in the midst of a crisis, able to trust her and even tease her a bit. She's also willing to give as good as she gets, and she really appears to be enjoying being around humans. As the show gets darker, and the character suffers more, I miss the early days of her really relishing the company of humans, which is on display here.

She looks amazing in her catsuit. Trip is in his underwear. Jon is in his black t-shirt. It's all good.

Oh, and I agree with you, Honeybee, the ear sex stuff isn't funny. It isn't sexy. It's just gross. And sexist.

Just two episodes back T'Pol was basically date raped, and here in "Acquisition" she's put in a position where she has to give a potential kidnapper/slave trader an "ear job." I know it was played for laughs, but that always bothered me.

First thought....JEFFERY!!!! I do love him, and of all his characters, I must claim Shran as my favorite. Gotta love blue!

On the note of the Ferengi episode, and the four actors portraying them.....I love that no subtitles were used to let us know what they were saying in Ferengi.....and the actors did a wonderful job expressing the dialog so that we were able to follow their converstation and intent!

Trip in his undies! And LOVED that profile shot of him in decon.......no, not THAT one,


THIS one!!!!!



"Just because a guy's in his underwear you think the worse!" LOVE IT!

Oooooo, Trip does not like you messing with T'Pol's ears. Hummmmm.

I agree the ear fetish is icky.....and when Trip bites one of them on the ear it made me go "bbblllleeeggggggghhhhh, spit, spit, gag, cough cough!"

I did NOT like the Ferengi line about Porthos' ears and referencing a thought as to what he was to the Captain.

I wonder how hard it was for all the prone actors to keep their positions and not suffer cramps. I bet they just prayed for the "Cut!" by the director!

Since I am writing three of these eps in one night, I have noticed that T'Pol is standing closer and closer to Trip (in some scenes Archer as well, but there still seems to be a distance with her) and she is very comfortable with that.

We are too!!!!!!

That's the best I can do. I hope I make the next one.....my water aerobics got in the way this week. See y'all!

During the goofy pretend fight between Archer and Trip (great scene), I always add: 'Careful, Cap'n, he'll bite your ear!'

This episode had me at Trip in his underwear.

Taking the shipper glasses off for a minute, I actually like how both Trip and Archer had "moments" with her in this episode. This is the ep that says to me that it really could've gone either way.

Re: date rape -----------> ear foreplay.... yes, it's icky to *us*, because we know the forced mind meld is a metaphor for date rape. However, keep in mind that the Vulcans may not equate such a thing with their sexuality--and probably don't at this point in their society and history. T'Pol is not a literal rape victim caught in a situation where she has to come on to a captor in order to get what she and her ship needs. Stroking a Ferengi's ears is probably icky to her for a lot of reasons, but not for what happened with Tolaris. The Ferengi was a means to an end for her. She was in control of the situaton (as much as she could be--the Ferengi didn't know he was being played) and I'm sure she had to do much worse in her former life as a Vulcan secret agent. At the very least, her training probably helped her get through the Ferengi thing without any mental/emotional damage.

I agree that T'Pol was probably undamaged by the whole ear job thing, as opposed to the serious emotional/medical damage Tolaris meted out in in Fusion. However, until they start making jokes about men stroking Ferengi's ears, I'm still in the sexist camp. :p But you are right Aquarius, I think it's important to separate the character and how she sees it with how we the audience see it, especially in context of how the character suffers in other episodes. She's not damaged by this, just grossed out as she should be.

Yes, I think at this point, TPTB were playing with A/T and TnT - and hadn't decided on a direction. And didn't decide, really, until The Expanse. Still thinking they might have missed the boat with an opportunity to write a real, solid love triangle between three main characters. Might have been interesting!

I didn't mean to imply that T'Pol was or should be traumatized by the ear stuff. I just meant that as a viewer it struck the wrong note with me. It wasn't something I ever thought about in the past. I guess that since we're doing this re-watch and I'm seeing a lot of episodes closely together and discussing them in depth, it just stuck out to me this time around.

It's sort of like in "Stigma" where they have T'Pol going through the aftermath of the forced meld and Trip being chased/harassed by Phlox's wife. Trip wasn't seriously damaged by what happened, but having those two events in the same episode didn't seem like the best idea to me. However, the meld and the ear stuff were separated by a couple of episodes, so it's not quite the same. That's just as close as I can come to explaining what I mean.

Well, I hadn't watched this one before and I can see why I was avoiding it.

The character stuff wasn't bad, but I hate seeing everyone on Enterprise being a bunch of wimps. The whole episode made me want to go find the writers and smack them in the heads for insulting my intelligence.

4 Ferengi introduce knock-out gas and everyone is knocked out by it. OK - it's a stretch (the ventilation system is all linked together, everywhere on the ship to disperse toxins efficiently. Hmmm...) but I'll take it.

They cleaned out the Armory and 14 weapons lockers (according to Archer) in about half an hour? Don't they have locks on any of these things? Weren't all the weapons in the launch bay then? Maybe Trip could have opened a box when Krem and Archer were in the Ferengi ship.

The whole Archer/Krem thing was cute, but Kirk would have kicked Krem in the balls and had him begging for mercy in about 10 seconds. Krem couldn't even hold his gun right most of the time.

Trip revives T'Pol and then Krem is there all by himself, with his face right next to her while she plays unconscious. Vulcan neck pinch anyone?

Who stuffs food on a plate in a sack? That's not even stupid funny. It might have been stupid funny if they'd show the lead guy, Ulis, pulling stuff out of the bag all covered in food and having a fit. Who, on a tight schedule, steals food?

Poor Porthos! That box didn't have any ventilation.

T'Pol's upset because Archer said she had no sense of humor? That's a compliment for a Vulcan!

Definitely embodied the best and the worst of Enterprise. The characters are fun (best) but the amount of thought put into the scenario is less than minimal (worst).