Encounter at Farpoint, Part Two

Earlier this week over on WAM TNG, "Encounter at Farpoint, Part Two". Here's an extract:

The most interesting word-drop in this script is Picard name checking 'Ferengi'. For the longest time I assumed that all this talk about them eating their enemies was just because they hadn't worked out who this alien race was supposed to be yet. But no. It turns out that because the Ferengi were originally going to be super-evil in order to replace the Klingons (they're our friends now, dont’cha know), this idea that they would eat their enemies was intended to paint them as dark as possible. Of course, by the end of Deep Space Nine, Ferengi society is busy transforming into a 90s liberal fantasy of the what the United States could be if only US liberals weren't utterly incapable of negotiating social changes with conservatives, so in retrospect this throwaway line looks rather uncomfortable. But this is season one of TNG. It's going to get a lot more uncomfortable than this!

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