“Ferengi Love Songs” is a train wreck of of misplaced ideas, humor and stories. Almost nothing works here, from the premise to the script to the performances. Instead of humor, we get horrid. The installment increasingly grates on the nerves and the only way to endure this drivel is try to ignore it as it unfolds. I’m not sure why Deep Space Nine had such a fetish for bad Ferengi stories — there’s no reason why they all have to be nonsensical farces — but the love affair with the Ferengi is destructive and demeaning.

Quark, after suffering a string of bad luck decides that it’d be a fantastic idea to go home and live with his mother for a while. And if that isn’t bad enough, once he arrives home he finds, hiding in his bedroom closet no less, The Grand Nagus himself, who is having a fling with his mom. Moments later, Brunt, from the FCA appears … once again using Quark’s closet as an entry point. Brunt offers Quark a deal: Sabotage the relationship between the Nagus and Quark’s mom and be reinstated as a Ferengi. Quark takes the job.

Setting aside the obvious retread notion of Quark taking an illicit job only to have second thoughts later (seen just two episodes earlier in “Business As Usual”), the whole premise is just without any merit or interest, much less humor. I suppose it is kinda silly to have a running gag about characters showing up in Quark’s closet. But when that’s the best “joke” the episode manages to come up with, you know the prospects are pretty bleak.

Because, really, Quark’s plot is entirely forgettable. It had been done with a bit more sobriety and interest in “Business As Usual” and that episode wasn’t saddled with the disgustingly sappy and annoying relationship between the Nagus and Quark’s mom. Beyond their cringeworthy PDA, there is the combined effect of their voices which are bit like listening to a cross between scratching a chalkboard and cow enduring an alien probe. You would think that a species, with ears like the Ferengi, would talk in voices that had a tad bit more subtlety.

The subplot features Rom’s pending nuptials with Leeta. And, if anything, it’s more insufferable than the main plot. Things are going smoothly until Dax notes that Rom is the most “unFerengi-like” Ferengi she’s ever met. As a result, he goes off and makes a ridiculous demand which Leeta refuses. Their marriage is on hold until Rom gives away his money and all they are left with is their love.

Awwww.

“Ferengi Love Songs” is an example of the worst kind of dreck a series can produce. It’s supposed to be funny, but the episode is in love with its own premise and humor to the point where it doesn’t realize how horrendous the final product has become.

Filed under: Deep Space Nine