The Last Outpost

This TNG story introduces us to that humanoid race called the Ferengi who later on writers saw comic possibilities with their latinum grubbing ways. Among the three encountered were future DS9 regular Armin Shimerman.

Nothing comic here, the Enterprise and a Ferengi vessel are trapped and power draining from both. The Ferengi landing party attack the human landing party led by Jonathan Frakes.

Frakes and the Ferengi both have to deal with the Guardian, still on duty at the Portal after the civilization was destroyed centuries ago. He's played with the combination of menace and wariness by Darryl Henriques.

Commander Riker proves to be both warrior and diplomat.

This is the first ever episode of Star Trek to introduce the Ferengi, a race of greed-ruled creatures, who at this point in the series, were shaping up to be the lead villains of Next Gen. It would be all to easy to hate the Ferengi, but I always enjoyed their appearances, and this is no exception. Making an appearance is Armin Shimmerman, the actor who would go on to brilliantly play Quark in Deep Space Nine. This is a unique appearance for the Ferengi, as they are more threatening here than their usual mild annoyance, this is shown by the fact they have purple whip things which prove rather hazardous with the Enterprise crew. Seeing a Ferengi vessel is always a treat as well. The overall episode is so-so, there is a nice bit where Riker and Portal 63 have a pleasant chat once the Ferengi are dealt with, but the novelty of this episode lies with those big eared orange dwarfs themselves.

This is the first of the Enterprises' run-in with the the one trick pony Ferengi, with their ruthlessly mercantile , misogynistic finagling: big deal. What matters is the astounding presence of The Portal, played by Darryl Henriques, the last of the immortal guardians of a once unimaginably vast and superior empire inhabited by a race of nearly omniscient beings, who has stopped the Federation and Ferengi from functioning, leaving them dead in space and freezing as punishment for conflictual behavior in his space! His ease of releasing the ships, in deciding who the aggressor was and questioning Riker is genius!

Enterprise pursues a Ferengi ship.

There is half a decent episode in 'The Last Outpost', but it's problems are what will probably be remembered.

The plot is good, with a number of decent concepts and themes. I love the idea of reflecting of human capitalism and nationalism by introducing the Ferengi species and in theory what transpires on the planet. Unfortunately, how it's portrayed on screen doesn't always work.

The early scenes, before the appearance of the Ferengi, are the strongest. I enjoyed the discussions on the bridge comparing the Ferengi to the worst aspects of the Earth capitalism and the historical reflections on when Earth was organised into nation states. The tactical discussions are a bit exposition heavy but still enjoyable. Seeing Picard working to avoid conflict as others advise fighting is always enjoyable, likewise his negotiations with the Ferengi. It's not perfect, such as Geordie going into an OTT nerdgasm and Data having some rather silly moments, but generally, there is an excellent set up for what happens on the planet surface.

It's when the story moves to the planet that everything starts to go downhill. As other reviewers have stated the Ferengi are hideously annoying in their verbal and physical performances. Likewise the scenes on board the Enterprise as life support starts to fail are pretty uninspired, with many bland dialogues involving Picard and Dr Crusher. How it's all resolved is morally very sound, but not particularly cinematic.

I enjoyed most of the visuals. The sets used for the planet have an old fashioned feel to them reminiscent of the original series. I like Data's map projection sequence. The Ferengi make-up design is excellent. The less said about the laser-whips and TNG era hand-phasers the better.

Performances are a mixed bag for me. Patrick Stewart is great as always, Jonathan Frakes cuts a fine heroic shape and the remaining cast, aside from the Ferengi actors, are mostly solid. Gates McFadden for me struggles with some poorly written dialogue and LeVar Burton strays dangerously close to the line of annoyance.

Overall, for me this episode has slightly more good than bad in it, so I rate it as a 5.5/10, but I round upwards.

...But due to this last outpost of the tKon Empire. It was simply, a cool 50's type Science Fiction story stuck in the midst of Trek.

The Ferengi steal a "Worthless T-9 Energy Converter" and The Enterprise D gives chase. They pass a planet and it seems that the Ferengi have got the D in some kind of energy suppressor beam. "We push, they push back" as Geordi tells Riker. This is also a hint that Geordi will eventually be on charge of Engineering, any time we had a 1st season engineering conundrum, Geordi solved it. But here, it's a hint of things to come.

My favorite part of this episode was when they had finally turned their attention on the planet, Data pulls up a rotating stellar map in an ancient language. We can all ask, "If the tKon Empire is out of business, how did Starfleet ever find out about it?" - Well, we forget the United Federation of Planets, of which there are over 150 member worlds. So we can assume one of them had this information that Data pulls up before he gets stuck in an odd "functional Impasse" due to misuse of a Chinese finger-puzzle.

In fact we never saw that same Stellar map ever again, it was used in this episode and only here.

When it becomes plain that The Ferengi are not the cause of the power drain, Picard suggest both ships send away teams down to the Planet. I just loved this planet, it was an image of something truly "alien".

And this is our first view of The Ferengi, Armin Shimmerman who would become Quark is there, but we forget Tracy Walter, who was in an early 80's movie called "Repo Man" - And too bad Tracy only had about 2 lines. Now these original Ferengi, these must have been the "Ferengi Shock Troops" - In Deep Space 9, Quark refers to these original Ferengi as "Marauder Moe" - Adorned in animal skins with cool Phaser-Whips. We never saw the whips, or the uniforms, ever again. Maybe the Uniforms in "The Battle". I see one and only one continuity error- These Original Ferengi show interest in the Gold which encases the Comm badges. Ferengi have no use for worthless gold except for Gold Dust to make bars of latimum which is their main currency. "Gold Pressed Latinum".

But the problem was, these scrodsuckers were just too danged FUNNY for us to believe they were any kind of serious threat to the Federation! Hold that thought, the humor aspect was greatly enlarged, until delved into in Deep Space Nine, where we finally got to see their home planet, and their rules of acquisition, and their leader, Grand Nagus Zek.

And so these buffoons confront the Enterprise away team on this eerie planet, it is a comedy of caricatures.

But mostly I liked this guy named "Portal" who is the guardian of the planet. He swings a mean Axe on Riker! I thought his makeup not up to Westmore's par.

I guess it was just the idea of a forgotten planet, and a sleeping guardian with unmeasurable power that was the attraction for me. If not for Riker's composure, Portal would have obliterated both ships and that would have been the end of the show right there. But Riker's solution to facing Portal was similar to the Chinese finger puzzle, the less effort used, the quicker the release from the dilemma.