ENT: Acquisition

         I gotta say the Ferengi are just the right level of sleazy to work well for ENT. I really hope this isn't the last we see of them. This is one of those episodes that I don't think Kirk could watch without breaking his television. What I mean is Archer allows himself to be shackled over and over by a clearly incompetent Ferengi whose grip on his gun is clearly lacking. I suppose the real reason is probably since they already had the ending in their heads when they were writing it, but it makes him look like quite a wimp. I am also not sure what the point of T'Pol hiding and listening in was supposed to be. I guess she moves stuff around to make the Ferengi in fight more, but they don't actually show her doing it which was a poor choice.
         We open with Ferengi boarding Enterprise which appears to be adrift. All the crew are asleep and the Ferengi start grabbing everything that isn't bolted down, and unbolting some of the stuff that is. We can't understand what they are saying though and the proceed with looting everything they can. Trip wakes up in the decon chamber upset that Phlox left him in there so long and manages to force his way out and realizes everyone is unconscious. He manages to hide from the Ferengi (luckily there are only 4 of them). The Ferengi wake Archer after chaining him up and beat him up demanding to know how to get into the vault. He sees whats going on and negotiates with them for his own cut but their greed gets in the way (makes you wonder what he would have done if they had agreed. I bet he didn't have a plan.). He gets assigned to help the lowest ranking Ferengi load the loot. He starts trying to convince the guy to turn on his buddies even though he could clearly take him in a fight. Well, actually Archer probably couldn't. He manages to wake T'Pol and she sneaks off to work with Trip. Trip gets caught though and the Ferengi demand he tells them where the vault is and Archer pretends to try and beat him up for telling. T'Pol starts moving loot around to get them to think one of them is stealing from the rest and the tensions rise. Trip leads the three greediest Ferengi into a trap and T'Pol knocks them all out with a phaser. They leave the low ranking guy in charge and leave after giving the Ferengi a stern warning. 

         Review: A lot of the plot of this episode didn't work but I actually really enjoyed the depiction of earlier Ferengi. They visually resembled the action figures Quark had from his childhood which was a fun touch. Still kinda weak as episodes go.

4 out of 10