On page 195 of the NextGen Guide, Phil says that Deanna senses emotions from Ferengi captains in two previous episodes, but he forgot that she "senses no tension" from `the Ferengi in The Price. (And I took the reference from his entry on The Price, in the NextGen Guide. ;-)
As for Betazoids being able to read Ferengi minds before this episode, but not after. There is a very simple explanation. The Ferengi, sick and tired of having their minds read at the most inconvenient times, upgraded their brains to the four lobe model. Prior to this episode Ferengi got by using the old three lobe brain, except for those `swoop and duck,' arm-waving Ferengi from The Last Outpost who clearly were using a two, or even one, lobe brain.
At the beginning, the Betazoid man, Grax, says that Betazoids are uncomfortable around species whose minds they can't read, but he is standing next to Data and doesn't seem all that uncomfortable. Also in Manhunt, Lwaxana was actually turned on by a `man' whose mind she couldn't read.
DaiMon Tog says to Lwaxana, "Every woman has her price." This implies that on Ferenganar a Ferengi male pays a dowry to the Ferengi woman that he wants to become his mate. However, as several episodes of Deep Space Nine have pointed out, `females cannot earn profit.' So is it only Ferengi females who cannot make a profit?
Lwaxana tells Deanna that getting married and having a child made her happy, "until now.' I guess she must have blocked out her memory of Kestra and her death.
Lwaxana mentally tells Deanna to come in to her quarters, but then Lwaxana acts like she is asleep. Some Humans talk in their sleep, do some Betazoids use telepathy in their sleep?
When Picard is convincing Riker to take shore leave he says that the Enterprise's mission will be a "routine mapping mission," but the area they are mapping is apparently less than two days away. Isn't Betazed a member of the Federation? Don't they have ships to map any sudden change in their space? Secondly the area they are mapping is a stellar nursery. I guess things have really changed in four centuries. Here in the 20th (now 21st) century stellar nurseries are a big deal to astronomers, but in the 24th century they are a blasé event that only needs to be mapped every now and then instead of having a space station outside the region studying it all.
This is grungy nitpicking since Riker probably meant it as an insult and not a statement of fact, but he says, "From the smell of things we must be aboard a Ferengi ship." When was Riker ever on a Ferengi ship before this?
Was it my imagination or did some of the round devices on the Ferengi ship resemble the illegal Thought Maker from The Battle?
Why didn't the Betazed police examine the scene of Riker, Deanna and Lwaxana's disappearance? When the Enterprise is finally contacted, two days have elapsed since the kidnapping, then we see Enterprise personnel examining the scene and a crewmember, Lt. Foley, has found the Ferengi plant, which has been laying there all that time.
Why didn't Betazed sensors tell when the Creighton entered and left orbit and which direction it left in?
On pages 243 & 244 of the NextGen Guide II, Phil wondered how Riker could see what buttons the Ferengi pushed.
One, possibly there is a mirror on the other side of the hallway that we the viewer can't see. Two, he watched the monitor while they filmed the scene. ;-)
I loved the line, "The only way you'll get me back is over Tog's dead body!"
Picard tells Worf, "Throw everything you've got at the Creightor.", but the ship is named the Creighton.
At the beginning, the Betazoid man, Grax, says that Betazoids are uncomfortable around species whose minds they can't read, but he is standing next to Data and doesn't seem all that uncomfortable. Also in Manhunt, Lwaxana was actually turned on by a `man' whose mind she couldn't read.
If you were always able to read people's minds you might feel some danger from a person who's mind you couldn't read. Lwaxana has a bit of a bad-girl streak in her and could be attreacted to a "dangerous" guy.
KAM: On page 195 of the NextGen Guide, Phil says that Deanna senses emotions from Ferengi captains in two previous episodes, but he forgot that she "senses no tension" from `the Ferengi in The Price. (And I took the reference from his entry on The Price, in the NextGen Guide. ;-)
Luigi Novi: Phil's point was that Troi saying she sensed no tension meant that she normally did read Ferengi.
KAM: DaiMon Tog says to Lwaxana, "Every woman has her price." This implies that on Ferenganar a Ferengi male pays a dowry to the Ferengi woman that he wants to become his mate.
Luigi Novi: No, that's just your interpretation. What I took it to mean was that Tog felt that every woman could be bribed or impressed enough by some material possession to sell out and become a trophy babe.
KAM : This is grungy nitpicking since Riker probably meant it as an insult and not a statement of fact, but he says, "From the smell of things we must be aboard a Ferengi ship." When was Riker ever on a Ferengi ship before this?
Luigi Novi: He smells the Ferengi, Keith.
Luigi Novi: Phil's point was that Troi saying she sensed no tension meant that she normally did read Ferengi.
Precisely. That's why I listed it. Was my grammar so bad you couldn't figure that out?
NANJAO: AHHHH! Yet another "I wish I was there" moment. The Ferengi beam Troi & her mom out of their clothes and we get to see Marina Sirtis' (Troi's) bare back! I'm TOTALLY envious of the man who played the Ferengi in this episode...for he saw THE FRONT!
Actualy they used body doubles for that bare-back shot.
Why didn't Troi tell Picard that she and her mother were raped by the Ferengi? Wouldn't this act constitute an act of war? (Not to mention the kidnapping bit?)
Were they raped? I don't think so.
Also does a Starship captain have the right to declare war? Not according to The Wounded.
More importantly would the Ferengi empire (?) want a war or would they just declare the Daimon a rogue who should be punished?
Were they raped? I don't think so.
Yeah, I'm guessing the women's reactions would be slightly more...uh...intense had they actually been touched.
IIRC the strong implication was that things had gone no farther than the stripping, as a customary Ferengi prelude to seduction...putting the Trois in not much peril, but more than enough to propel a lighthearted ep along.
I like peril, really!
John, where did you ever get the idea that they were raped? Nothing in the episode indicated that.
They were beamed out of their clothes. It was a form of rape. (In my opinion)
Followup...
If a woman VOLUNTEERS to take off her clothes, it is not rape.
If a woman is arrested and is strip-searched...that is not rape. (Unless the policeman doing so intends it to be--this one is touchy)
If a woman's clothes is forced off her body, it is rape.
Forgot one...
There is another form of voluntary rape...it's when a woman (who is a wife) allows her husband to disrobe her. (Unless you're Mrs. Bobbitt)
Erm...John, speaking from the female perspective, I thank you for the sensitivity...
but I think you're taking your logic to extremes, or at least using language that isn't appropriate to the situation.
Lwaxana and Deanna were violated by the removal of their clothes, certainly, and they very properly protested it to the hilt. But they were not raped - that's something considerably deeper and more personally ugly than what happened here.
I have a high respect for women...despite what you read in my posts.
Yes, I do have raging hormones..but that doesn't alter my perception of women.
There is another form of voluntary rape...it's when a woman (who is a wife) allows her husband to disrobe her. (Unless you're Mrs. Bobbitt)
??? I'm missing something here, obviously. If I were married I can think of many situations where I'd want, indeed expect, my husband to...ah, well, you get the idea. 
Seriously...John, rape is about one person exerting power over another, as cruelly as he possibly can. Unless possibly you're the type of uber-feminist who believes that any close contact whatsoever between the sexes is a form of male oppression, rape is never, ever 'voluntary'.
Point well taken. Allow me to rephrase then....When a woman asks her husband to take off her clothes, that's disrobing...not rape. (Unless the husband starts hurting his wife)
(Unless the husband starts hurting his wife)
Nope. That may be sexual assault, it may be assault. It's not rape.
But we're getting WAAAAY off topic.
A few words from your Moderator.
If you want to continue discussion on rape, please take it to Political Musings. Everyone has been nice so far but the potential for things to degenerate into anger is too great I fear.
Thanks for breaking it to us nicely, Butch. I agree with you (hence my comment about us going OT).
You're welcome.
At best, what Tog did was sexual assault, and even then, given Betazoid sexual enlightenment, it may not even qualify as that by the Trois' perspective.
Sexual enlightenment or immodesty does not mean that one cannot take offense. Oglers are not often welcome at nude beaches. And judging by Lwaxana's reaction to the Ferengi leering, she took offense as well.
There are two matters in regards to assault that haven't been mentioned: The first is the fact that Lwaxana had to sexually gratify Tog in order to effect their escape. One wonders what would have happened to her had she not given him an ear job.
Perhaps she would have been subjected to Farek's experimentation, which brings up the second matter. While the Ferengi were hoping that the Trois would willingly offer their telepathic services, they were fully willing to force the secrets out of them. I am reasonably certain that these techniques would have been as violating to them as any physical rape... maybe more so. So even if the Trois were never raped in the episode, the threat was very much there... and quite blatantly so.
Kind of makes you rethink the notion that this was a lighthearted episode.
As for the legality of what you are talking about I'm pretty sure that what he did could be considered a form of assult (even though he didn't touch her to remove her cloths, perhaps it's more like peeking in her window if she were taking a bath) but removeing her cloths and not trying to physicaly force himself on her would never get convicted as rape in a court of law.
True, Darth.
I didn't mean to suggest there wasn't a real threat to the Trois - see notes on 'peril' above - just that from a dramatic standpoint it wasn't treated in a deliberately grim fashion (to the point where the aforementioned threat to force the Trois' secrets out is actually kinda jarring).
To me the whole thing is mostly reminiscent of the old Perils of Pauline serials, ie lots of breathless adventure but no real danger that the heroine(s) won't escape/be rescued in the last reel.
Message from the Mod. This discussion detoured into a discussion on racism in Trek. Rather than have further off topic discusion about it here, I've created a new topic in the NextGen Sink for it called "Is Trek Sometimes Racist?" Please read the note at top there from me and put any further discussion on the subject there.
GREAT MOMENT: I must admit I felt proud of Wesley when he was promoted to full ensign. Having Bev there was a real nice touch too.
I'll bet that Kirk (if he were still alive) wished he could've gotten his hands on one of those Ferengi transporters
NANJAO: AHHHH! Yet another "I wish I was there" moment. The Ferengi beam Troi & her mom out of their clothes and we get to see Marina Sirtis' (Troi's) bare back! I'm TOTALLY envious of the man who played the Ferengi in this episode...for he saw THE FRONT!
That would be Ethan Phillips aka Nellix
Who the heck is Nellix? Is he related to Neelix?
Didn't Nellix have a top-5 hit a few years ago?
Why didn't the Betazed police examine the scene of Riker, Deanna and Lwaxana's disappearance? When the Enterprise is finally contacted, two days have elapsed since the kidnapping, then we see Enterprise personnel examining the scene and a crewmember, Lt. Foley, has found the Ferengi plant, which has been laying there all that time. -Kmorgan
It's just like Earth in Paradise Lost (DS9).
There are no planetary based police forces.
It's all Starfleet, no individual city police or even planetary police.
Peter Slutsker (a.k.a. Peter Marx) would appear two more times as a Ferengi--Birta in "Bloodlines" and the dedicated Dr. Reyga in "Suspicions." If you want your head to explode, he appears in "Bloodlines" with Daimon Bok, who was originally played by Frank Corsentino (but not in that episode), who appears in this episode as Daimon Tog. Aaaaaah!
Man, I wonder what it was like for the female members of the "Slutsker" family in school. Must've been hell for them. Probably still is.
HMM! When the Ferengi transports Deanna back to the holding cell, she is wrapped in a towel. However, a little later in the episode, we see her in the "off the shoulder" purple dress that she was removed from earlier. So in other words, she dropped the towel & got dressed again in front of Riker! How lucky can one get?!
(Of course, Riker PROBABLY looked the other way and closed his eyes, but I liked MY WAY better! )
GREAT LINE: "Set course for Betazed.....(lowers voice) Warp 9."....Picard at the end of the episode after getting caressed by Lwaxana.
OF course Riker has seen Deanna naked many times before. Not only did they have a relationship in the past but if Imzadi is to be believed they were both naked when they met.
Oh my! I gotta go to Betazed!
DaiMon Tog says to Lwaxana, "Every woman has her price." This implies that on Ferenganar a Ferengi male pays a dowry to the Ferengi woman that he wants to become his mate. However, as several episodes of Deep Space Nine have pointed out, `females cannot earn profit.' So is it only Ferengi females who cannot make a profit?
A dowry isn't necessarily paid to the female - it can just as well be a price for the father of the female.
Lwaxana tells Deanna that getting married and having a child made her happy, "until now.' I guess she must have blocked out her memory of Kestra and her death.
But wasn't that precisly the problem of Dark Page - that Lwaxana had blocked that memory so deep, even destroyed recordings related to Kestra?
That stuff Picard spouts about his love being a fever... is that some shakespear sonnett? Some other classic literature? (I don't believe Picard to be the type of person to spout stuff like that off the top of his head by himself, considering he's usually very reserved and disciplined, but also cultured and literary well-read.
About Wesley: in the dubbed version, he was promoted to full lieutant from probationary (acting?) ensign. Does the one full pip mean only ensign, not Lt.?
One pip is Ensign, one full pip and one hollow pip is Lt Jg, 2 full pips is full Lt.
Aha. Thanks.
KAM: DaiMon Tog says to Lwaxana, "Every woman has her price." This implies that on Ferenganar a Ferengi male pays a dowry to the Ferengi woman that he wants to become his mate. However, as several episodes of Deep Space Nine have pointed out, `females cannot earn profit.' So is it only Ferengi females who cannot
constanze: A dowry isn't necessarily paid to the female - it can just as well be a price for the father of the female.
Luigi Novi: Who says the remark even has anything to do with marital matters? It could be simply a sexist observation he's made from dealing with non-Ferengi women.
Id have to agree that it was a sexist observation on Tog's part.
Wil Wheaton had to be thrilled to get out of that drab acting Ensign uniform and into a standard Starfleet uniform!
Oh and at the end of the episode, when Wesley first steps off the turbolift in that uniform, there is a break in the floor between the Bridge and the Turbolift. In a previous episode someone posted there there didn't appear to be.
When Riker taunts the chess-playing Ferengi from his cell, they start to play a new game, but the Ferengi does not set the board back up.
Wouldn't Lwaxana have known Picard was just making up an excuse to get away from her(in the teaser)?
Why couldn't Starfleet have booked passage on another, even a private, vessel to transport Wesley to Earth? Surely there must have been one vessel somewhere around Betazed headed to Earth.
Also, not all cadets are taken to the Academy by Starfleet, are they? If I got into Annapolis the Navy wouldn't send the Enterprise to take me there.
Lwaxana tells Deanna that getting married and having a child made her happy, "until now.' I guess she must have blocked out her memory of Kestra and her death.
According to 'Dark Page', that's exactly what happened.
At the beginning, the Betazoid man, Grax, says that Betazoids are uncomfortable around species whose minds they can't read...... Also in Manhunt, Lwaxana was actually turned on by a `man' whose mind she couldn't read
Perhaps she is an exception, and Grax was simply generalizing.
Why couldn't Starfleet have booked passage on another, even a private, vessel to transport Wesley to Earth? Surely there must have been one vessel somewhere around Betazed headed to Earth. - dotter31
yeah, for that matter why didn't they just give him a shuttle? they did before when he went for his entrance exams, Picard went with him in the end but only because he was going to the same starbase, before that they were ready to let the 14 old fly himself.
he was more like 17 - Wesley said in "Coming of Age" a year earlier that he was about to turn 16.
Still, I'd be leery of letting a sub-18 year old fly alone across several light years. Maybe within a solar system or a run between a planet and its moon.
Re: By John A. Lang on Friday, July 30, 2004
GREAT LINE: "Set course for Betazed.....(lowers voice) Warp 9."
I was going to post that as well (It was on BBCA tonight)
I wonder how long it took to shoot the scene where Picard demands the Ferengi give Lwaxana back. I'll bet the entire cast (especially Patrick Stewart) cracked up laughing, and had to do many takes. I was close to cracking up while watching it (on BBC America [HD yet] as well.)
My nits/observations for this episode.
The actor playing Reittan Grax says "Betazeds" when referring to his race. He of course meant to say "Betazoids", who are from Betazed. That's a minor thing, it's probably already been noted.
As for Betazed, it is a very nice-looking world. At least the part of it we saw was, I think that if it was the grounds of where the Daughter Of The Fifth House resides, then it would be a nice place to live.
As far as I know, Betazoids have totally black eyes, it having something to do with the planet's sun. And their telepathic ability and the openness and honesty of their culture made them perfect for joining the Federation, but we don't know just when that happened, I don't think.
The muktok plants make a pleasant sound, and the uttaberries and oskoid leaves sound quite appetizing. Food for thought!
I happen to think that a pre-Neelix Ethan Phillips made a great Ferengi with the voice and mannerisms he delivered for the character. As for Daimon Tog, I wonder how he was even able to get command of a Marauder in the first place, he was putting lust over profit! Something that just *isn't done* amongst the Ferengi!
One of the "funny" Trek episodes, and a pretty good one. One more thing. Patrick Stewart says "Kray-TOR" instead of "Kray-TON" during his "declaration of love" for Lwaxana. Another minor thing, it's not a big deal!
The Ferengi transporters are way better than the Starfleet ones! The dematerializations and rematerializations are way faster - they take less than half the time that the Starfleet ones take. But no one ever talks about the Ferengi being more advanced. They're portrayed as being at least a bit behind Starfleet in terms of technology.
Faster doesn't necessarily mean better.
Ferengi transporters could be faster because they don't have all the safeguards that Federation transporters have.