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sshbpodcast · 20 days

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Character Spotlight: Quark

By Ames

Do you have the lobes for business? This week, we’re putting our knowledge of the Rules of Acquisition to the test with one of our favorite Ferengi characters: Quark! He really does it all: he tends bar, he runs a profitable casino, he romances ladies who you’d think would be way out of his league, he snarks with a certain gooey chief of security, and he schemes! Boy, does he ever scheme.

The Ferengi overall are a bit of a mixed bag, what with their ultra-capitalist, extremely misogynist society, but Quark proves throughout Deep Space Nine to be a complex and well-written person, full of contradictions and character growth. So read the full contract below and listen to this week’s podcast episode (jump to 55:53) as A Star to Steer Her By takes a seat next to Morn to try to catch the ear of the bartender. Come to Quarks, Quark’s is fun, Come right now, Don’t walk: Run!

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

Make him an offer he can’t refuse Ferengi-centered episodes are typically goofball comedies and worth a laugh or five, and “The Nagus” gets us off to a quite funny start. Quark’s performance as Zek’s successor is full of funny little touches, and the allusion to The Godfather with Quark stroking a gilvo as if it were a lapcat is a good joke indeed. Quark would make a fine nagus, I say. And a decent godfather.

Who wears the clothes in this relationship? Quark may start out as a typical Ferengi, but we see glimpses of his development to becoming a better person due to hanging around all these hoomans. In “Rules of Acquisition,” he’s prepared to pay Pel ten bars of latinum to set her up in a new life, and then outthinks the Nagus when she reveals herself as a female. It’s a small step, but a big one for a Ferengi!

Being with you was the happiest time of my life Somehow, Quark is at his best when paired with reciprocating love interests. In “Profit and Loss,” (not to be confused with “Profit and Lace”), he earnestly attempts to get Natima Lang to safety when the Cardassian government is after her for being a dissident. Sure, it starts off one-sided and creepy, but Natima and Quark’s love turns out to be mutual and really sweet!

Behold the power of math! Yet again, we’re highlighting an episode in which Quark is romantically paired with a kickass female and he comes out looking swish! Not only does Quark battle D’Ghor in “The House of Quark,” but he also exposes the fraudulent bookkeeping D’Ghor had done for Grilka’s house. Quark allows Grilka, one of our favorite Klingons, to realize her agency and be her best.

If they want their money back, give it to them? People give Sisko all the credit, being the Emissary and all that, but in “Prophet Motive” we get to see Quark go into the wormhole to talk to the prophets himself! To save Zek from whatever personality rewriting the denizens of the celestial temple had done to him, Quark takes it upon himself to ensure that Rule of Acquisition #10 remains true: Greed is eternal!

The bigger the risk, the bigger the win Quark’s lobes might only be rivaled by his spine, as he demonstrates an absurd amount of bravery when he disarms the bomb that had Kool-Aid Manned into the ship in “Starship Down.” The thrill of gambling with their lives is perfectly captured in the scene and you feel both the relief and exhilaration when Quark and Hanok don’t explode into little bits.

For a minute there I thought you were talking to me as a friend As we said in the Odo post, the relationship between the constable and the barman is one of the best explored in the series. We can read between the lines how much they respect each other but just can’t say it. So when Quark (in his jammies!) goes to Odo when he’s hurting over Kira in “Crossfire” and pretends it’s just for his business ventures, we all know what it really means.

I claim the Right of Proclamation One good episode with Grilka deserves another! When the ever-glorious Grilka comes to Quark seeking financial advice in “Looking for par’Mach in All the Wrong Places,” Quark goes above and beyond to win her favor. He even practices how to fight with a bat’leth and learns some of the basics of Klingon culture, all while remaining true to his Ferengi identity! Qapla’!

Let me pour you another By the time we get deep into the Dominion War, Quark is keen to play both sides, but he does his part for the little resistance band too. In “Behind the Lines,” he slyly gets Damar shitfaced enough to spill all the information he has about taking down the cloaked minefield. Like another good bartender I could name, Quark’s main role is to tend the bar and to listen.

Nobody moves except you Soon afterwards when everything in the resistance is going headlong downhill in “Sacrifice of Angels,” Quark practically single-handedly (okay, with Ziyal’s help) saves the day! He tricks a guard using a hasperat soufflé and then straight up shoots two Jem’Hadar goons and rescues everyone from the brig. If it’s not the first time Quark has deliberately killed, he sure plays it that way.

Ferengi can be just as tough as Klingons Quark’s choice to assemble an all-Ferengi elite squadron to rescue Moogie in “The Magnificent Ferengi” may seem hare-brained (it’s a goofy Ferengi episode, after all), but it also speaks to his pride in what Ferengi can accomplish. There’s also a pure familial love for Moogie that is worth all the latinum in the Nagus’s reward (minus the finder’s fee, of course).

My, what big ears you have Finally, Quark would want to flaunt how he turned out to be right in “The Siege of AR-558” when the standoff with Jem’Hadar soldiers results in massive casualties, including costing Nog his leg. But Quark staunchly protects his nephew and uses his superior Ferengi hearing to detect incoming Jem’Hadar soldiers and blow them away before they can finish Nog off.

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Worst moments

A contract is a contract is a contract We could really, really, really have done without this detail. Sarda, one of the Dabo girls, reveals in “Captive Pursuit” that Quark has sexual favors written into their contracts. It’s one thing for the Ferengi to be misogynists and kinda sleazy, but it’s a whole other level for him to engage in sexual manipulation, harassment, and assault. And for the writers to play it as a joke!!!

You Ferengi, you think you’re so clever but you’re stupid We gave Bashir a pat on the back the other week when he saved Jadzia’s life in “Invasive Procedures” when Verad and his hired goons kidnapped the Dax symbiont. But remember that it was all Quark’s fault that these worm snatchers got onto the station in the first place! In his greed to make another illicit deal, Quark let them through the docking ring. All for a little latinum.

I’ve been waiting for you Can we all agree that it’s a bad idea for the holodeck to be able to create holo-images of real people because it will always get gross? Geordi did it in “Booby Trap,” Barclay did it in “Hollow Pursuits,” Odo did it in “His Way,” and in “Meridian,” Quark violates Kira’s privacy to create a sex object for that creep Toran and make a little profit, which is a running theme with him.

No nephew of mine is going to disgrace our family name by joining Starfleet The way Quark scorns Nog for wanting to follow his dreams and join Starfleet is also a pretty bad look for the boy’s uncle. First he tries to forbid Nog from applying to Starfleet in “Heart of Stone” and then he rigs up the holodeck to ensure he’ll fail his exams in “Facets.” Quark just comes across as an overstepping asshole when it comes to his nephew in these cases.

Quark’s Treasure, ready to depart Shocking no one, Quark is looking to make another deal in kemocite which he couches in generosity while bringing Nog to Starfleet Academy in “Little Green Men.” And of course this gets them stranded in the past in Area 51 for a while, breaking the Temporal Prime Directive and perpetuating the trope that Quark will put profit over his family members at any cost.

Great Exchequer, take me now! I like to call “Body Parts” “Missed Opportunities: the episode!” When Quark learns he owes his desiccated remains to Brunt, Quark just… gives up on life and plans to get himself killed by Garak. And this is supposed to be a comedy! This is so not in Quark’s character and I lament that we didn’t get an episode of Quark faking his own death, which would be infinitely funnier and better!

Why, Quark? Why did you kill my baby? While most of Quark’s schemes are just typical goofy Ferengi shenanigans you’re meant to roll your eyes at and accept with a snicker, Quark actually sidles up to committing atrocities when he gets into the arms racket in “Business as Usual.” When even Jadzia, who’s the most forgiving of his Ferengi ways, won’t talk to him anymore, you know he’s gone and done wrong.

Oo-mox for Fun and Profit After years of development into a slightly better person, and just when you start thinking “maybe that episode in which Quark put sexual favors in his Dabo girls’ contracts was a fluke,” “Profit and Lace” comes along. The teaser shows Quark asking Aluura to consider giving him oo-mox or he’ll consider firing her. And by the end when he should have learned better, he’s right back at it. VOMIT.

You’re the worst thing that ever happened to the entire Ferengi Alliance Speaking of “Profit and Lace,” there’s more to hate in this deplorable episode. Quark gets into a screaming fight with his mother, blaming her radical feminism as the cause of all their problems with Brunt dethroning Zek as nagus. It’s an ugly fight in an ugly episode, and Quark cruelly goads his own moogie until she has a heart attack, jeopardizing their plan to reinstate Zek. And nearly killing her!

The REST of “Profit and Lace” I’m not done shitting on “Profit and Lace.” It should be obvious why we rated it hands-down the worst episode of Deep Space Nine, and Quark’s depiction of Lumba is at the heart of it. It’s like Quark has never seen a woman before and concocts the most demeaning caricature. The hormones are inexplicable. The walk is atrocious. The whole thing flies in the face of any message of equality the show might otherwise champion, all for the sake of a Ferengi joke.

I loved Jadzia as much as anyone in this room After pining for Jadzia in season six almost as much as Julian, Quark weasels his way onto the mission to get her soul into Sto-vo-kor. Throughout “Shadows and Symbols,” it feels like all he wants is to one-up the grief of the actual widower in the room, Worf. Quark makes Jadzia’s death all about him and whines that Worf isn’t gracious enough that he’s there being underfoot.

Someone has to speak up and I’ve decided that someone is me As if all the ogling of Jadzia wasn’t enough, poor Ezri gets targeted by Quark once she arrives on the station. Quark butts in and advises her not to get involved with Worf in “Once More Unto the Breach,” and it’s none of his damn business! The scene plays it off like it’s romantic and funny and cute, but it’s all self serving because he fancies her. Ugh, why did only men largely write this show?

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All bets are final and there will be no reimbursements. That’s it for our Quark chat, but we’ve got more Ferengi characters to spotlight on the way (save me). So make sure you’re following along here, keeping up with our watchthrough of Enterprise over on SoundCloud or wherever you podcast, place your drink order over on Facebook and Twitter, and you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

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sshbpodcast · 27 days

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Character Spotlight: Odo

by Ames

The security chief of Deep Space Nine is a lot of things: a bird, a tripwire, a glass, a bag… The list goes on and on (though our favorite is usually when he’s a cute little rat), and all of them add up to a whole that is greater than the sum of his parts. In a world full of solids, Odo fills in that Outsider Character™ whose quest to shape his identity makes for a truly engaging character journey, though many stops along the way do dabble in fascism. But we love him anyway.

So kick back in your bucket and get ready to melt as your hosts at A Star to Steer Her By explore the many, many faces of Odo, even ones for which he can’t quite get the ears right. We’ve got our favorite moments and a whole bunch of times he messed up royally below and discussed this week on the podcast (jump to 1:05:53). Harumph!

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

No one has ever seen me like this before We’ve brought up this one before in our fan-favorite Lwaxana Troi post, but it’s always worth dipping into again. Forever the tightass of the station, Odo lets himself be vulnerable with our hot Betazoid mama in “The Forsaken,” and it’s such a thing of beauty for these two polar opposite characters to show each other the hidden sides of themselves.

Do holograms dream of holographic sheep? We really liked the little hologram girl Taya in “Shadowplay” when we did our Children in Star Trek post, and apparently so does Odo! Who’d have thought that the station’s chief wallflower would have such a soft spot for kids? And then he sticks up for Taya and all of the holograms because, real or not, they still qualify as people to him.

You flatter me, sir, you flatter me! Last week, we marveled at how often Miles O’Brien gets to suffer across the series, and in “Tribunal,” Odo really does his darndest to keep the chief alive. By acting as nestor in the sham Cardassian trial, Odo at the very least slows down the inevitable enough for Sisko to reveal the corruption inherent in their awful, awful legal system. O’Brien’s lawyer sure wasn’t any help!

From one laboratory specimen to another Like he did with Taya in “Shadowplay,” Odo identifies with the Jem’Hadar child in “The Abandoned.” When he realizes that Starfleet is probably going to subject him to the same kinds of tests Odo underwent as a baby blob, he takes the kid under his wing to try to treat him more like a person. It doesn’t do much good, but at least Odo got to return him to his people.

You won’t be turning against them. They will have turned against you. We joke a lot on the podcast about how much of a fascist Odo can be. And he sure can, as you’ll see in the Worst Moments list, but he does a great job not succumbing to the draw of oppressing human rights in “Paradise Lost.” One of our favorite Evil Admirals, James Leyton, masterminds a military coup and Odo is there to work with Sisko to stop him in his tracks!

One raktajino, extra hot, two measures of kava Before Kira starts boringly pining after that dullard Shakaar in “Crossfire,” we get treated to some sweet scenes of Odo and her going about their morning briefings. And it’s downright adorable! Every morning, Odo replicates up a mug of raktajino just how Kira likes it and prepares for his chat with the major in a way that gets things off on the right foot. Cute!

Before I met her, my world was a much smaller place We have one more great Odo-Lwaxana moment to extol. It is just the tenderest, most selfless act for Odo to marry Lwaxana to get her and her baby out from under the rule of her Tavnian husband Jeyal in “The Muse.” When Odo declares all that Lwaxana has done for him and how she changed his life, we are amazed at how honest the speech is. Here’s to the happy couple!

Hardly the words of a Klingon Odo also proves to understand Klingon culture better than other Changelings (and probably some Klingons, for that matter!) in “Apocalypse Rising.” When Martok isn’t acting at all honorably about dispatching Gowron, Odo figures out that it’s Martok who’s the Changeling and exposes him to a crowd of the most honorable Klingons on Q’onos. And Gowron. Qapla’!

Well that’s fine with me, because I hate you too How could we complete a Best Moments list without mentioning his complex relationship with Quark? Their natural opposition and trademark snark make them excellent foils for each other, and though they claim the opposite in “The Ascent,” you can tell that under their sarcastic words, they really do love each other as they keep each other alive on the freezing mountain.

Now Mister Pyramid, here comes Mister Cube Watching Odo caring for the baby goo in “The Begotten” is downright adorable, but at the same time deeply sad. Odo reveals that he doesn’t want to see the baby poked and prodded like when Mora Pol was assigned to him, and he truly empathizes with the infant Changeling in a way that is so parental and personal. It makes the ending all the more heart wrenching.

You have my gratitude… and my blessing Speaking of heart-wrenching endings. Despite how much it troubles Odo that the Vorta all view him as some kind of god, Odo opts to try to help Weyoun 6 in “Treachery, Faith, and the Great River” as much as he can. And when Odo bestows the dying Weyoun with his blessing, it comes across as a kindness between people, regardless of whether he believes it or not.

Talk about a Great Link! Though Odo’s relationship with Kira Nerys started out squicky, as you’ll see in a moment, you can’t help rooting for them. And when Odo chooses being with this solid over someone of his own kind in “Chimera,” it feels like a big win. Odo may not be able to link with Nerys, but the equivalent he whips up in the closing scene is visually stunning and emotionally cathartic.

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Worst moments

Elementary, my dear: I obviously did it! First and foremost, Odo’s first duty is to justice and he just can’t help himself from solving a good mystery. So in “A Man Alone,” he keeps accidentally proving that he committed the murder of Ibudan all along, even though he didn’t. After all, Occam’s razor teaches us that the most obvious answer is probably that Changelings are behind it.

Taking his bucket and going home If I had a nickel for every time Odo quit his chief of security job in a huff… well I’d have two nickels but it’s still weird it happened twice. First in “Move Along Home” when Odo has a little tantrum when Primmin comes onboard and then AGAIN when Eddington comes onboard in “The Search.” Odo, I have no idea how old you actually are, but grow the hell up!

Untie my hands before you start to blame me Let’s just clump all our “Odo is a fascist” moments into this example. In “The Maquis,” Odo makes it clear that he wishes he were given unbridled power in order to keep the station safe, but of course that comes at the expense of civil rights. When he states that Terok Nor was safer under Cardassian occupation, you see just how little he initially cares for the people he’s protecting.

So happy together… except for Jadzia When Odo merges with Curzon during Jadzia’s zhian’tara in “Facets,” what we get is just an asshole who doesn’t want to reabsorb back into the symbiont, leaving Dax feeling incomplete. And while a lot of that is Curzon’s fault, Odo is a part of Curzodo, and he claims that this is how they both want it to be. He entirely fails to consider Jadzia’s personhood. What a selfish jerk.

Solids and liquids just don’t blend It’s never a good look for a guy to get personally offended when a girl doesn’t like him, but Odo shows us a master class in incel behavior in “Crossfire” when Kira’s relationship with Shakaar gets serious. Dude, she’s just not into you. There’s no reason to go ballistic in your quarters and break all our hearts by destroying the plant that Kira had gotten you as a quarters-warming gift.

You don’t even belong here. I do. Try as he might, Odo cannot undo the mistake he made that gets revealed in “Things Past” because this isn’t actually a time travel episode. The Shyamalan twist of this episode is that it was all Odo’s fault that three Bajorans had gotten executed seven years prior because the constable was too lazy to do his damn job and see that they were innocent all along.

This is what increased security looks like? 90% of the time, Odo’s infatuation with security goes above and beyond what should be reasonable. And yet, when a serial killer is murdering off Kira’s friends in “The Darkness and the Light,” he doesn’t notice when a) Furel and Lupaza sneak onto the station, b) they get blown to smithereens, and c) Kira absconds with his list of suspects. You’re losing your touch, Odo!

What’s a nice woman like you doing with a dataport? We gave Geordi stink for getting romantically involved with the woman he was investigating in “Aquiel.” We gave Julian stink for all the patients he grossly seduces. And you’d better believe we’re going to give Odo stink for banging the woman in witness protection he was supposed to be protecting in “A Simple Investigation.” Dude! Gross! That is so not okay!

Tell Kira I want her to know it was me! An alternate timeline Odo gets away with blinking out an entire society of people – the descendants of his friends, no less! – to stop Kira from getting killed. What’s even more screwed up is that our Kira would have preferred dying so this planet of living, breathing people could continue existing in “Children of Time,” but Gaian Odo could only think of how it affects him.

Solids just wouldn’t understand Odo gets tempted by the Female Changeling at the top of season six of the show, and it’s agonizing to watch him totally get suckered in by her dangling the Great Link over him all the time. In “Behind the Lines,” he’s so busy linking with her while his friends in the resistance need him that it foils their plans and gets Rom captured.

Turn her no into a yes! I rag on “His Way” a lot, and for good reason! It rewards toxic masculinity by giving Odo what he always wanted after Vic has tricked him and Kira into a date. It’s not all on Vic though! Odo valiantly refuses to get involved with Lola Crystal, but he is more than okay with wooing one that was supposed to be like the real thing! That’s not romantic, guys. That’s creepy.

Anyone can always steal a shuttlecraft! We already gave O’Brien stink for releasing feral Molly into the wild last week, and we’ll probably do it again when we get to our Keiko spotlight, but when it comes to “Time’s Orphan,” Odo’s hands are dirty too! When one of his security goons catches the O’Briens stealing a shuttle, Odo just lets them go. Where’s your sense of justice this week, constable?

— And that’s all the security footage we have this week from the station. Keep following us here as we shine the spotlight on Odo’s better half next week – the magnificent Ferengi himself: Quark! You can also keep following along with our watchthrough of Enterprise over on SoundCloud or wherever you listen to podcasts, harumph with us over on Facebook and Twitter, and watch out for rats! They might be Changelings!

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