{"id":5581,"date":"2014-10-20T05:34:23","date_gmt":"2014-10-20T05:34:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/15-The-Last-Outpost"},"modified":"2014-10-20T05:34:23","modified_gmt":"2014-10-20T05:34:23","slug":"15-the-last-outpost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/2014\/10\/20\/15-the-last-outpost\/","title":{"rendered":"1.5 \u2013 \u201cThe Last Outpost\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n        \n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>1.5 \u2013 \u201cThe Last Outpost\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>100 Word Review:<\/strong> The Enterprise meets the Ferengi for the first time, by coincidence, inside the sphere of influence of a planet housing the automated overwhelming technical superiority of a dead empire. Before this technology destroys both ships, the two cultures must learn to cooperate long enough to hurl ponderous speeches back and forth and be tested by Monty Python\u2019s Bridge of Death. This episode is a race to the bottom. Which element is worst? My vote is Riker\u2019s smarminess, because we know he\u2019ll be back next week.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Other Thoughts<\/strong> Watching this episode now, one year after writing that, I enjoyed it a little more. When you know what&#8217;s coming, you tend to roll with it and notice all the pretty things happening on screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The new <em>Enterprise<\/em> is beautiful, isn&#8217;t it? The bridge doesn\u2019t have the sense of busy drama from the Original Series (all those Yeomen with clipboards!)&#8211;it\u2019s kind of a soothing, low-stimulation lounge space, but very attractive. The effects on the visual readouts are cool, and the spectacle of the large Ferengi head looming from the gigantic viewscreen over Picard is one of many striking images. At one point I noticed them doing an nifty camera move where they motion track the camera to Picard as he walks forward, while the bridge recedes in the background.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The bit where Riker doesn\u2019t flinch while the axe swings at his head is awesome. And some of the words spoken are very nice, if patronizing. The small things about the episode are good&#8211;it\u2019s just the big things that suck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Ferengi. Look. Awful! They were supposed to be the new Klingons of TNG, fearsome villains, but they just come off as a big, unpleasant joke (I want a laser whip, though). The Keeper of the Bridge of Death&#8211;I mean, Portal 63&#8211;is just too much. And the exposition is far too convenient. A civilization of <em>trillions<\/em> of people does not get wiped out by one supernova. If this happened hundreds of thousands of years ago, how does the Federation know about it? Why haven\u2019t they bothered to check out the area before? It&#8217;s far too pat. Thanks to Chrissie&#8217;s amazing transcript site (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.chakoteya.net\/index.html\">http:\/\/www.chakoteya.net\/index.html<\/a>) I can tell exactly how many times someone in the cast said &#8220;Yankee Traders&#8221;&#8211;five times too many.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When you know all these things are coming, you mostly don\u2019t worry about them, and enjoy the episode for what it offers. Last year, though, I couldn\u2019t stop rolling my eyes and snickering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Grade:<\/strong> Fail.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"http:\/\/en.memory-alpha.org\/wiki\/The_Last_Outpost\" class=\"embedly-card\" data-card-recommend=\"0\" data-card-width=\"100%\">http:\/\/en.memory-alpha.org\/wiki\/The_Last_Outpost<\/a><script async src=\"\/\/cdn.embedly.com\/widgets\/platform.js\" charset=\"UTF-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n      ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>        1.5 \u2013 \u201cThe Last Outpost\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-5581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-star-trek-relive-the-majesty-tng-episode-threads","tag-kevin-black"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}