Ménage à Troi

This Story: Season 3 Episode 24 (production code 172)
TNG Overall: Episode 72
Trek Overall: Story 172, Episode 174
Airdate: 28 May 1990
Written by Fred Bronson & Susan Sackett
Directed by Robert Legato

Notes

• Farek the Ferengi was played by Ethan Phillips, who would go on to be a series regular on Star Trek: Voyager as Neelix.
• This episode is the source of another popular internet meme with Patrick Stewart – the one with his hand outstretched.
• The majority of Picard’s speech trying to “win” Lwaxana back is directly lifted from Shakespeare.
• Wesley is promoted from acting ensign to full ensign in this episode.
• The fact that a Ferengi’s ears are erogenous zones is established here, along with the act of “oo-mox”.
• The scenes on Betazed were filmed in the space place that the Season 1 episode “Justice” was filmed at (The Huntington Library Botanical Gardens in Pasadena, CA)
• This episode shows Riker & Troi kissing, which directly contradicts a line that Troi says in the movie “Star Trek: Insurrection”.  In that she says she never kissed him with a beard before.
• Events of this episode are relayed to Odo when he and Lwaxana were trapped in an elevator in the episode “The Forsaken” on DS9.
• There is a background character in one scene that is seen wearing the outfit of the character Yareena from the Season 1 episode “Code of Honor“.
• The way Riker works the computer on the Ferengi ship echoes the way Data was able to manipulate the Borg collective in “The Best of Both Worlds Part II“.
• Fun observation by the author Keith DeCandido about this episode… “In the “too much information” category, the title is a play on a French term generally used to indicate sex among three people. The episode was co-written by Susan Sackett—who was Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s personal assistant, and with whom he had a long-term affair—and guest starred Roddenberry’s wife. That isn’t at all weird.”

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