I have some good news. The acting is finally coming around. The Ferengi ship was really cool, the special effects were good and the Ferengi's make-up is extremely well done, you actually believe them to have developed on another world. Their behaviour is very different from what it will be later, "OH! Accursed planeeeeet!" was a funny sentence, but they still were a tad too silly. Sometimes that's good, sometimes not.

The tension and the mystery of the ship being disabled was extremely well done. It never even occurred to me that it weren't the Ferengi that had drained the Enterprise's power and read it's databanks. I still kept thinking that they had never been this powerful in Deep Space Nine ...

Data isn't the only character that's coming around, but he is improving the most in this episode, even though he's not like the Data we know. Worf's back but whether that's good or not you'll soon see. I liked all the scenes onboard the ship, I liked the holograms coming from the tables that will sadly disappear after the third season and never be shown again.

The idea of the T'kon as a previous main inhabitant of the galaxy along with species such as the Iconians ("Contagion") and the first humanoids ("The Chase") along with others, then dying out for the current inhabitants to appear and rule the galaxy is nice, and I wish it had been used more later.

I have some bad news. The new enemies of a galactic scale or whatever they were said to be, are not enemies of a galactic scale. They are silly. They have large ears, a big head and are tiny in size. These physical traits I might have considered good if they hadn't acted so ... ridiculously. It was strange the crystals didn't absorb the beams from the Ferengi's whips the first time and the explanation used was gibberish.

It was also bad "what the VISOR had been telling Geordi" wasn't mentioned earlier. All the explanations about the energy draining were complete nonsense and a bad save for this weak link of this episode. Worf is portrayed as a stupid war loving troll all through this season so I'll complain about it here and now and get it out of the way.

I liked most of this episode, though the Ferengi might have been portrayed as they are in Deep Space Nine from the start. The episode had a big character and acting improvement though it really wasn't the show at work, just more experience gained by the actors.

RATING:

out of 5