No Angel of an Episode

Episode Title: Angel One
First Aired: January 25th, 1989

Summary
The Enterprise travels to a matriarchal planet called Angel One in search of survivors from a wrecked ship they found. The survivors are, in fact, on the planet, but are in hiding for going against the planet's matriarchal ways. Meanwhile, the Enterprise is wanted in a nearby neutral zone to handle a situation with some Romulans, which becomes an issue when the entire ship gets sick from an airborne virus. The away team finds the runaway survivors but the survivors refuse to leave Angel One, insisting that it is their home and leading Angel One's leader to sentence them to death.Just in the nick of time Doctor Crusher finds a cure for the illness, Commander Riker convinces Angel One's leader to spare the rebels, and the Enterprise is free to continue to the neutral zone in time.




What the Devil Is This?

I'd heard about this episode before I even began this blog, and it did not disappoint in how disappointing it was. The Angel One plot is Original Series levels of ridiculous. I see what the writers were going for--let's show how barbaric sexism is by reversing it. At least, I'm hoping that's what they were going for, because if the point was actually to show how unfair it would be to end the patriarchy, I don't even know what to say to that. So, we'll assume it was the former, and they were denouncing sexism. If they wanted to show how silly sexism is, why not just...show it? Why not have a patriarchal society where women are seen as inherently inferior to men? Having human characters denounce a society like that would have been much more meaningful.

We don't see any men of Angel One protesting the status quo, only the outsiders (despite Riker's speculation towards the end that the revolutionary ideas were not brought in by the Odin's survivors). Male characters who come from a fairly recently patriarchal society (see: the law against women in command in ToS) would obviously denounce a matriarchal society as unjust, because it is the complete opposite of their experience and they would immediately notice the inequality. Also worth noting is how Riker (and later Ramsey) seems to be the one doing most of the complaining during the episode. If humanity has truly achieved gender equality, shouldn't Lieutenant Yar and Counselor Troi have had more to say? Or could it be that visiting Angel One makes for a nice reprieve for them? Given this show's track record (see: every previous post on this blog), I scoff at the notion that humanity has truly moved past sexism.

Never Fear, Real Men™ Are Here

What really gets me about this episode is that even when writing matriarchal leaders, this show still can't resist writing them poorly. We see that the men of Angel One are effeminate, but as soon as Real Men™ show up, the women of Angel One can't wait to hop into bed with them. Beata, the Elected One of the society, praises Riker for being "a man who knows what he wants." Alice ran off with Ramsey, betraying the woman who is not only leader but someone who, it is implied, is a close friend of hers. In fact, despite the matriarchal nature of the society, these characters' personalities hardly exist outside of their opinions on men. By the end of the episode we know nothing about any of them, really, except that they believe women are superior to men (and that Beata thinks Riker is hot and doesn't like change).