6x23 Profit and Lace

[1.0/10] Some Star Trek episodes feature comedy that falls completely flat. Some Star Trek episodes feature messages or depictions that have aged like milk. “Profit and Lace” is the rare Star Trek episode that does both, and it may be the worst of the lot because of it.

Thanks to Ishka’s shining influence, Grand Nagus Zek has essentially added a clause to the Ferengi constitution that allows women to wear clothes and make profit. As a result, Ferengi society has been thrown into chaos; Brunt has ascended to the role of acting Nagus; and Zek, Ishka, and the Ferengi braintrust aboard the station must work together to restore Zek and ensure that this progress isn’t lost.

There are worse premises for an episode of Deep Space Nine. Ferengi politics have walked the line between loony and serious, but one of the more consistent threads has been the gradual case for women’s rights upon the misogynistic planet. Forcing our Ferengi heroes to band together to cement those rights, in the face of Quark’s recurring foe from the homeworld, has merit to it.

But that’s about where the good times end in “Profit and Lace”. The episode is widely considered one of the all-time worst of the franchise, and it’s not hard to see why. The comedy is broad and atrocious. The sitcom-like realization of the premise is abominable. And the way the episode tries to draw humor from sexual harassment, attempted sexual assault, and gender fluidity lies somewhere between backwards and reprehensible.

The most charitable read of the episode is that it’s a story about Quark fully accepting not just his mother, but feminism, after having to walk a mile in her shoes. When Quark’s ranting effectively gives his mother a heart attack, he’s forced to temporarily become a woman, replete with body modifications and hormones, in order to secure the support of an influential legislator to put Zek back on the throne.

That idea is problematic as hell, but the best version of it would be one that takes the transition seriously, with Quark having epiphanies and bursts of empathy about what it’s like to be on the other side of the double standard. Instead, it’s a loony farce, with the most stock and hacky gags about what women are like, that just makes you want to put your head in your hands.

Part of the problem is that the humor is hackneyed writ large. Even if you could somehow separate out the problematic elements in “Profit and Lace”, the comedy would still be downright bad. The running gag of someone describing Brunt as Grand Nagus only for someone to correct with “acting Grand Nagus” quickly becomes exhausting. Tepid soft drink-based humor about Nilva slinging “sluggo cola” is embarrassing. If last season’s “Ferengi Love Songs” taught us nothing else, it’s that going for broad sitcom energy with the Ferengi is a recipe for disaster.

And yet, I’d tolerate all of that if it could avoid the backward, retrograde humor that “Profit and Lace” deploys in the rest of the hour. Good lord, the gags about the female Quark, dubbed “Lumba” (in another pitiful play on words) are disastrous and ugly. This is the most unfortunate, “estrogen makes you weak and weepy”-style sexist humor to ever make it into Star Trek. Quark frets about walking correctly, about the size of his hips, about wanting a hug from Odo after being emotionally overwhelmed. It’s the worst kind of “Men are from Mars/Women are from Venus” nonsense.

It’s also a wrongheaded betrayal of the trans community. Despite some progressive treatment of Dax and her identity not changing even as her gender does, “Profit and Lace” sets that back fifty years. Between the way Quark’s transition is treated as a source of ridicule and ridiculousness, and Rom harboring some kind of identification with the traditional elements of femininity being treated as an oddity and source of humor, this episode feels downright bigoted in a way that thankfully few episodes of Star Trek do. I’m sympathetic to the idea that norms change, and you have to accept film and television as products of their time, but this kind of depiction was wrong then, and it’s wrong now.

That’s before you get to the laughs the episode tries to wring from sexual harassment and assault. Watching Quark try to use his position as boss to lean on one of the dabo girls to sleep with him is contemptible, but not out of character for Quark. His insinuations are disgusting, but they give him somewhere to go later in the episode, post-transformation. In that light, it could be forgivable. Characters have to start somewhere lacking if you want to watch them grow.

What isn’t forgivable is the humor the show attempts to squeeze from Nilva chasing “Lumba” around the room and trying to have his way with her, despite her obvious protests. What the show plays for yuks is quietly horrifying, and something the show normalizes by treating it as light farce. The fact that the solution to Brunt’s accusations that Lumba is a man is her flashing the assembled is downright embarrassing, And even at the end, when Quark is supposedly more enlightened from his experience and doing right by the dabo girl he harassed earlier, they pivot into a “She actually likes it and Quark hasn’t actually changed” kicker, which undermines and good intentions you could possibly draw from this garbage fire of an episode.

I don’t want to say there’s no way you could draw humor from these scenarios. Unfortunately, they’re regular occurrences in our society, and anything that people can relate to can be a source of humor and catharsis. But it would take a delicate hand, not a sledgehammer covered in clown makeup. The broad, regressive comedy at play here would be bad for any show, but it’s especially damning in a franchise that aspires to be progressive like Star Trek.

What’s extra maddening about this whole catastrophe is that it undermines the good work Deep Space Nine has done to this point. The show’s Ferengi episodes have been a mixed bag to be sure, but along the way, there’s been a quiet but palpable arc of Quark gradually becoming more open-minded in his view of women and gender in general.

From his revulsion-turned-respect for the cross-dressing Pel, to his appreciation for the call of duty felt by his Cardassian paramour/freedom fighter Natima, to the programmatic partnership and eventual affection he develops with the Klingon Grilka, to the deeper understanding and appreciation he develops for his own mother and the good she could do for herself and her people as a woman of business, Quark has steadily become, if not a feminist, then certainly someone who sees the potential and capabilities of his distaff counterparts in a way he didn’t before.

“Profit and Lace” throws all of that out the window for cheap comedy, retrograde sexual politics, and an attempt at another step of “evolution” for Quark that inadvertently erases the progress he’s made and sets him back even further. The arrival of women’s rights on Ferenginar should be an opportunity for the culmination of Quark’s journey; instead it’s a rank embarrassment that practically counts as character assassination, undoing the good work the show has done to date.

This isn’t the first time Star Trek has bungled comedy episodes or gender politics, but few thank sink so low or have so few excuses as “Profit and Lace”.

One of Ira Steven Behr’s first writing credits in Star Trek, TNG’s “Captain’s Holiday” aims for light escapades, only to crash and burn in the process, but the results are harmless. “Elaan of Troyius” from The Original Series is a franchise low, where Kirk slaps a bratty princess into “behaving” and falling in love with him, but you can, at least, semi-write it off as a product of the 1960s. The TOS finale, “Turnabout Intruder”, is infamous for its sexist take on women and has rightfully been ignored in the franchise ever since, but can at least boast an interesting concept and a conclusion for the show’s original run that is fitting, if not exactly great. And “Angel One”, one of The Next Generation’s attempts to comment on current societal norms by flipping them, is a mixed bag at best, but has its heart in the right place.

There’s no such excuse for “Profit and Lace.” It botches its comedy. It butchers its gender politics. It destroys any efforts to do better on topics of sexual harassment and assault, which Star Trek doesn’t have a great record on to begin with.

At best, I think the writers, including showrunner Behr, are trying to do Deep Space Nine’s version of Some Like It Hot, a hilarious cross-dressing comedy that doesn’t fully jive with modern sensibilities, but which has a surprisingly progressive and transgressive streak for a classic film. But it’s not 1959 anymore, and 1998 wasn’t so long ago that these kinds of blindspots can be excused nearly four decades later. “Profit and Lace” earns its place as one of Star Trek’s lowest of low lights, with a unique blend of terrible humor, terrible character work, and terrible messaging that mean it ought to be obliterated from the memories of fans and friends.

Deep Space Nine remains a transcendent show, including its treatment of some topics where the rest of the franchise falters. With episodes like this one, though, well...nobody’s perfect.