Ménage à Troi (S03E24)
Airdate: May 21st 1990
Written by: Fred Bronson & Susan Stockton
Directed by: Robert Legato
Running Time: 45 minutes
It is one of the peculiar truths of popular television that its most iconic, enduring moment need not belong to its finest hour. Even Star Trek: The Next Generation, widely considered the very zenith of the franchise, provided a stark example of this during its celebrated third season. The episode in question, Ménage à Troi, is, to put it charitably, a curious anomaly that fails to meet the season's generally high standards. Yet, paradoxically, it is responsible for birthing what has become arguably the most popular Star Trek internet meme of all time.
The plot begins with the USS Enterprise in orbit of Betazed, hosting a biennial trade conference notable for including the Ferengi for the first time. Counsellor Deanna Troi is briefly reunited with her flamboyant mother, Lwaxana, who is desperately, and rather crassly, attempting to rekindle her daughter's former romantic relationship with Commander William Riker. Lwaxana’s visit takes a dramatic turn when she catches the attention of Daimon Tog (Frank Corsentino), commander of the Ferengi ship Krayton. Tog is fascinated not only by her imposing presence but by her telepathic abilities, viewing her as a unique commodity. His determination to possess her leads directly to the episode's central contrivance: when the Enterprise departs on a short cartography mission, Tog seizes the opportunity to abduct Lwaxana, Deanna, and a coincidentally present Riker, beaming all four to his vessel.
Once aboard the Krayton, the hostages are separated. Tog has little use for Riker and Deanna, focusing his avaricious attention on Lwaxana. In a moment that grants the character unexpected depth, Lwaxana attempts to play along, feigning interest in the Ferengi to protect her daughter. This strategy is short-lived, as the ship’s doctor, Farek (played by Ethan Phillips), insists she be subjected to Ferengi mind probes to replicate her telepathy. Meanwhile, Riker engineers an escape by manipulating a lesser Ferengi, Nibor (Peter Slutsker), into inadvertently aiding him. He and Deanna are temporarily freed but find they cannot directly contact the Enterprise without Tog’s message codes. Riker’s improvised solution—sending what the Ferengi dismiss as static but is actually a coded drum pattern—is deciphered back on the Enterprise by a departing Wesley Crusher. This allows the starship to intercept the Krayton. The resolution involves Captain Picard engaging in a theatrical farce, pretending to be a rival suitor desperately in love with Lwaxana to force Tog to relinquish his prize. The coda sees Wesley, having missed his Starfleet Academy entrance exam to aid the rescue, being granted a field promotion to full ensign by Picard—a transparent narrative device to keep the actor Wil Wheaton in the regular cast for a fourth season.
For more experienced viewers, the mere combination of Lwaxana Troi and the Ferengi would have signalled an episode leaning heavily towards farce, and a particularly lightweight one at that. The Ferengi, as conceived in early TNG, often struggled to be credible threats, frequently devolving into caricatures of greed. Daimon Tog exemplifies this, being a ridiculous character even by the already broad standards of his race. The plot that hinges on his whims is consequently contrived and tiresome, relying on a series of unlikely coincidences and naive decisions from all parties involved. The tonal whiplash between attempted romantic drama (the Riker-Troi subplot), broad comedy (the Ferengi), and familial tension (Troi and her mother) is never satisfactorily reconciled, leaving the episode feeling uneven and, at times, painfully awkward to watch.
Furthermore, Ménage à Troi is notable for being one of the slightly more risqué episodes of the series. This is partly due to a scene where the Ferengi, whose own females are traditionally naked, teleport away the dresses of Deanna and Lwaxana, resulting in one of TNG's rare instances of implied nudity. More significant is the episode’s introduction of oo-mox, the practice of massaging Ferengi earlobes, described as a profoundly pleasurable, erogenous activity for the species. Whether the oo-mox Lwaxana performs on Tog is intended as a sensual or merely a tactical manipulation is left deliberately ambiguous—ambiguous enough, it seems, for 1990s American broadcast standards to allow it, paving the way for the concept to be explored more extensively in Deep Space Nine.
On a production level, the episode offers minor points of interest. It is the first to be set on Betazed, depicted through a combination of the Huntington Library gardens (previously used in the first-season episode Justice) and an impressive matte painting. It also features the first proper kiss between Riker and Troi, a significant moment that explicitly confirms their romantic past and hints at a potential future.
Behind the scenes, the episode's authorship adds a layer of unintended subtext. It was written by Fred Bronson and Susan Sackett. Bronson was a former publicist and personal friend of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. It was Bronson who, in 1975, introduced his friend Susan Sackett to Roddenberry; she subsequently became Roddenberry's personal assistant and long-term mistress, a relationship maintained throughout Roddenberry's marriage to actress Majel Barrett. Given that Barrett portrayed Lwaxana Troi, and the episode's title is a play on the French phrase for a three-way romantic relationship, Ménage à Troi has inevitably become an object of speculation regarding how much it was inspired by the authors' personal lives.
The episode’s most glaring narrative convenience, however, is the side-plot involving Wesley Crusher. His entire storyline exists solely to facilitate the rescue and, more importantly, to provide a last-minute reason for him to remain on the Enterprise as a regular cast member. The fact that his crucial decoding happens precisely as he is about to leave for his Academy oral exam, and that his reward is an instantaneous field promotion, feels cynically engineered by the writers' room rather than organically grown from character.
All of these flaws coalesce into what many critics and fans consider a "pretty terrible" episode. Yet, its final act achieves a bizarre, memorable alchemy that has secured its place in pop culture. The climax requires Captain Picard—a man who visibly recoils from Lwaxana’s mere presence—to convince the infatuated Daimon Tog that he is a more genuine and passionate suitor. Picard’s method is to launch into a grand, romantic performance, a pastiche of Shakespearean sonnets and lines from Othello, delivered with deliberately exaggerated flourish. This scene is parodical in the extreme, a piece of intentionally bad acting within the narrative. It gives Patrick Stewart, a classically trained Shakespearean actor, the meta-textual opportunity to ham it up spectacularly, playing Picard playing a bad actor. The result is one of the cheesiest, yet most singularly hilarious moments in the entire series. Stewart’s performance, complete with a dramatically outstretched hand and eyes blazing with feigned passion, is so wonderfully over-the-top that it transcends the surrounding mediocrity.
It is this very image—Picard, chest puffed, hand extended, declaiming "Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?" with absurd intensity—that has been extracted from its context and propagated across the 21st-century internet as a ubiquitous meme. The snapshot perfectly encapsulates hyperbolic declaration, desperate persuasion, or theatrical affection, finding endless utility in online discourse. Thus, Ménage à Troi endures becomes a testament to the strange alchemy of television: a largely forgettable episode can, through one sublime moment of inspired silliness, achieve a kind of immortal, fragmented fame.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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