As the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Code of Honor" was tone deaf on the issue of race, "Angel One" is similarly bad on the subject of sexism. The key difference is that the former was innocent enough on the page and offensive only in its execution; "Angel One" actually thinks it's making noble points about gender discrimination, while undermining its own intended message.
Looking for survivors from a destroyed ship, the Enterprise investigates a planet controlled by a matriarchal society. An escape pod of men did indeed crash on the planet, and are fomenting rebellion against the society's gender discrimination from a secret hideout. Not being members of Starfleet, they aren't bound by the Prime Directive, and the away team cannot force them to leave. Meanwhile, the Enterprise may be summoned to respond to a Romulan attack, but when a debilitating virus breaks out aboard the ship, the crew finds itself in no position to go anywhere -- or even to assist their own away team on the planet below.
There's an awful lot going on in this episode, and very little of it working well. Ultimately, this is another Prime Directive parable very similar to the earlier episode "Justice." The locals want to execute someone, and the Enterprise has its hands somewhat tied by the Prime Directive. In this episode, it isn't even a regular cast member whose life is on the line, so the dramatic stakes are much lower. And again, the notion of what exactly the Prime Directive is hasn't quite been settled on. Riker says at one point that it prohibits them from interfering with less advanced societies, but not from interacting. Otherwise, he notes, how could we learn from you? A fair point, that is eventually abandoned when the writers settle on a total non-interactive policy within a season or two.
As if the "Justice" re-run wasn't bad enough, the secondary plot somehow manages to combine still two more ideas the series had already covered in just a dozen episodes -- a virus infecting the crew and a holodeck malfunction. Somehow, the holodeck (which is not supposed to create anything dangerous, nor anything capable of leaving its confines) serves up a virus-laden snowball that splatters Picard as he's walking through the corridor nearby. And because the episode is so crowded, we never even really see him getting sick. Suddenly, Dr. Crusher is there telling him he's infected and unfit for command, and he's barely able to stand up. And ultimately, this disease subplot is nothing but a contrivance to keep the Enterprise from beaming up the escape pod survivors right away once the away team finally convinces them to leave.
The Romulans are mentioned for the first time on the series, as seven of their battle cruisers are threatening a Federation outpost. I've read this was a last minute change from the Ferengi, who had proved to be such pathetic villains earlier in the season. It's truly a shame the writers made the change, because when the Romulans would actually appear on screen for the season finale, we'd get a far more mysterious and interesting (but contradictory) story telling us that the race had gone almost entirely into seclusion for decades. Then again, that long absence was never actually explained in any episode, so it was a missed opportunity anyway.
However the real train wreck of the episode is its commentary on gender discrimination. The episode tries to portray how sexism is wrong, and the writers decided that the novel way to do it on Star Trek would be to reverse the Earth-typical male centrism. But I have to wonder if maybe this was the wrong approach to the story. On the one hand, I can see how the science fiction thing to do is to draw a (thin) metaphor by depicting a discrimination atypical for our society. On the other hand, flipping things around like this makes the "oppressed minority" in this story be... white men. (Because there are no people of color on this planet that we see.) So, from a certain point of view, the story is almost saying to us, "there's been discrimination on Earth for all of human history, but when you see it happen here to white men for just 45 minutes, you're going to realize what an outrage it is!"
Still it could have worked out anyway, if the episode had truly depicted women in strong roles. At first, it seems like that's what we're going to get. We get to see Troi play the diplomat quite skillfully in the teaser, and then she and Yar lead the away team to the planet. Bu everything comes unraveled when Beata (the leader of the matriarchal society) finds Riker sexy. He protests briefly that it's not his function to seduce or be seduced by alien leaders, but then he totally Kirks up the joint and, through the power of sex, convinces her on the spot that generations of both capital punishment and gender discrimination are wrong. When it comes time for the rousing speech at the end of the episode that saves the crash survivors and the day, it's not delivered by Troi or Yar, but by Riker. That's right, folks -- in the episode that's supposed to be speaking out against sexism, a man has to come in at the end to solve the problem the women can't handle. Terrible.
Other observations:
- The virus subplot is a weak, manufactured threat, but it does at least give us the chance to see other characters take command of the Enterprise -- and this is really the one highlight of the episode. Geordi is practically glowing when he takes command, and instantly adopts Picard's already-signature line: "Make it so." (And Worf has a nice little moment where he advises Geordi on delegating tasks.) Later, Data takes command, bringing his careful analysis to the job when he interprets the strict letter of Riker's instructions in a way that works to everyone's advantage.
- Unlike in "The Naked Now," Dr. Crusher manages to cure this virus without contracting it herself. How she avoided it is a complete mystery -- maybe the writers just didn't have the script pages to have her get sick. But at least that plot element isn't replayed too.
- At one point, Picard serves up the ridiculous line, "On the Enterprise, Mr. Crusher, nothing 'just happens.'" Actually, things seem to "just happen" at least once a week.
- The costume designers had an interesting challenge this episode, trying to depict how a female dominated society would objectify men. What would be the male equivalent of high heels, prominent cleavage, and heavy makeup? The results are bright pastels, exposed chests, and renaissance-like codpieces. It looks a bit silly, but is probably about as close to the mark as they could have gotten within 1980s broadcast television standards.
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