Acquisition

I enjoyed this episode. Fortunately for me, I understand that Star Trek is NOT real, it's all pretend for the sake of entertainment. It is not meant as an exercise in logic or a treatise on real space exploration. It's entertainment, designed to amuse, distract, and entertain. Instead of trying to pick out every little plot hole, discrepancy, unlikely scenario, or continuity failure, I like to put my brain in neutral and let it enjoy the audio/visual candy Star Trek spoon feeds it. When I return to work tomorrow and prepare for the surgeries that await my skills, THAT'S when I can reengage my brain and ensure all seriousness is at full peak. I enjoyed watching the actors have fun with their parts. That Jeffery Combs, what a hoot!

When T'Pol opens an alien object found in the surface of a planet by Trip, a gas is released and the entire crew of Enterprise faints. Four Ferengi pirates - Krem, Muk, Grish and Ulis – break in Enterprise to steal the supplies and belongings in the starship and they awake Captain Archer trying to find the location of the vault. Meanwhile, Trip was in the decontamination chamber and is not affected by the gas, and wakes T'Pol. Using the greed of the quartet, Archer and Trip lure them.

"Acquisition" introduces the greedy Ferengi merchants – actually four pirates of space. The story is funny, and I loved when the crushed Krem asks T'Pol to caress his ears. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Aquisição" ("Acquisition")

To see Clint Howard finally get to shine in a role where he doesn't look nearly so...exotic... as he does in movie and TV roles of the past. And then to put the other 3 crewman in such elaborate makeup, all just to match Clint's more "...unique" characteristics; well, it shows more empathy and heart than I thought Hollywood was capable of displaying.

XD xD In all seriousness, if was fun getting to watch Ethan Phillips return to the Trek Universe, playing the Ferengi raid party leader. He was previously on Star Trek:Voyager as the delta quadrant scavenger turned ship's cook Neelix.

There isn't much more to the episode than a handful of ship's crew vs the 4 ferengi raiders. Feels like the producers were trying to keep costs low. Although it didn't feel quite like a true bottle episode, they DID manage to wring a cute and decent story from a rather... "wash cloth" sized idea.

All in all, This is a fun episode that never quite shifts into second gear, it tries to get the audience "invested" (😉) in the story, but often it feels like it is not quite sure which way to turn, and thus stalls out.

Decent, nothing special, top line of the episode: "my lobes...stroke my lobes." 🤢

Look, this is one of those episodes you have to take as is. The reality is that they could've easily overpowered the Ferengi at numerous points and not had all of the silliness.

I also question whether or not they would've impounded the ship and taken them back to Starfleet as prisoners. Granted, rules weren't really established then, but this was more of an 80's scheme and then off your way once they foiled the scheme. I would argue that they had an obligation to take the ship, weapons, technology, etc or at least taken them apart and seen how they work.

Anyway, just take it as is and it's fun and enjoyable.

Enterprise is boarded by a group of Ferengi looking to steal everything they can fit into their own ship.

This is episode has a pretty ridiculous premise but is played out as a comedy. Whether or not you'll find it funny depends on your own sense of humour. It has a similar tone to the original series episode 'A Piece Of The Action' where the protagonist plays along with the antagonist in order to outsmart them and give opportunities for actors to do comical character traits that we never usual see them doing.

My favourite sequence is at the start when we see the Ferengi exploring the Enterprise before the universal translators kick in. There are no words spoken except in the Ferengi language and this allows for some decent visual storytelling to be used.

'A Piece Of The Action' was funny, but this one is less so in my opinion. The charade Archer, Tucker are T'Pol play gets tiresome pretty quickly and you feel like any one of them could swat the Ferengi aside and take back control of the Enterprise.

There are massive continuity issues with the franchise that can be forgiven if an episode is entertaining, which this is mildly, but I suspect the hardcore Trek fanbase probably hate this with a passion. Out of interest though, Vulcans playing along with deceitfulness isn't anything new as Spock sometimes did when Kirk tried to lie his way out of trouble (Example - The City On The Edge Of Forever "Perhaps the unfortunate accident I had as a child" to explain Spock's ears).

All performances are as good as they can be with the material given. It is fun to see Star Trek actors just playing it for laughs and I have to admit I was mildly amused seeing the Ethan Phillips, Jeffery Combs and Clint Howard as Ferengi. If the writing was a bit better this might have been hilarious but I found it moderately funny.