133 – The Magnificent Ferengi

Grade: B-

Summary

Quark makes an impressive deal to purchase some expensive drinks for his bar. While he’s bragging about his exploits, he’s interrupted when Bashir, O’Brien and Dax return from a mission fighting against the Dominion. Quark then gets a call from the Grand Nagus letting him know that his mother has been kidnapped by some Jem’Haddar soldiers. He rounds up as many Ferengi as he can in order to rescue her.

Commentary

This rather silly episode is a nice break in between what seems like endless war stories. At first, it seemed like it would be a lot like the 1960 version of the Magnificent Seven. There were, in fact, a lot of parts of this episode that reminded me of the film. However, because this focused on Ferengi, it really couldn’t be a serious outing. In fact, I thought it was quite humorous in a lot of places. At the end of the episode, I was really reminded of the really horrible Original Series episode called Spock’s Brain. Luckily, Magnificent Ferengi was actually funny while Spock’s Brain was accidentally so.

Of Note

The series writers claim that this episode and the 1960 Magnificent Seven film have nothing in common. However, the actors playing the parts seemed to think otherwise. It sounds to me like maybe the writers just didn’t want to admit to it because then they’d have to pay royalties.