This Terrible ‘Star Trek: TNG’ Episode is Suddenly Annoyingly Relevant
Star Trek looks towards the future. Sometimes it even successfully predicts the future. And that’s usually cool! Not this time.
Star Trek is an aspirational franchise. Imagine actually living out among the stars and meeting all sorts of alien life! The dream! And that doesn’t even start us on the fact that poverty, starvation, and disease are largely wiped out in the Federation. Utopia!
But the coolest part about Star Trek‘s aspirational qualities isn’t the stuff we haven’t done, but the stuff we have. There are lots of ways life imitates Trek. Our cell phones are a blending of communication devices and tricorders. The computer pads on TNG are basically just 24th-century tablets. Heck, 3D printing is taking us toward the world of replicators! Yes, indeed. It’s great when Star Trek successfully predicts the future.
But what if we told there is a specific episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that predicts where we are right now – and it’s terrible? The episode is terrible. The way in which life imitates it is terrible. And once you realize the similarities, you will feel terrible.
Anyway, here’s an article about “Angel One”.
Courtesy of CBS Television
Yes, That “Angel One”
The first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation is infamous. There’s an entire documentary dedicated to how chaotic it is! And the chaos led to some pretty terrible episodes. For example, “Justice” is about a planet of scantily-clad athletic types who love killing kids almost as much as they love hitting the gym. Or, “Code of Honor” an episode so racist that the entire TNG team (including the writer) disavows it. And then there’s “Angel One” – the episode where Will Riker wears a ridiculous outfit and tries to bone interplanetary leadership while everyone else is in peril.
But first: the A plot of “Angel One”. The Enterprise is searching for the crew of the Odin, a Federation freighter that is seven years missing. The wreckage of the Odin itself is found, but escape pods are missing. Their most likely location is Angel One, a constitutional oligarchy with a matriarchal society. Starfleet wants to keep diplomatic relations with Angel One pristine. Picard sends Riker down with an away team to see if any of the Odin crew is there. What could go right?
Long story short: Angel One isn’t just a matriarchy. Angel One is a society where the women are in charge and it’s generally accepted that men are all worthless idiots who are good for nothing except looking and smelling nice and doing as they’re told. However, the survivors of the Odin are all men. And after seven years, the Odin men are leading a revolution to make men as equal in society as women.
Yes, this obvious gender role reversal designed to point out the hypocrisy of systemic misogyny in our real world is as ridiculously ham-fisted as it sounds. But wait, there’s so much more!
Courtesy of CBS Television
Meanwhile, on the Enterprise
The main premise of “Angel One” is so laughable that most people forget there are two other plots in this episode. But there are! Back on the Enterprise, Dr. Beverly Crusher discovers her son Wesley is sick with an unidentifiable respiratory disease. Naturally, she seeks to quarantine him and his fellow students (who also have the illness) while she seeks a cure.
Unfortunately, both Picard and Worf interacted with Wesley and contract the ailment as well. Picard is immediately quarantined. With Riker and Data both on the planet below, Geordi LaForge takes command. However, one by one, everyone onboard takes ill. And Crusher still has no cure, no idea what the illness is, and no clue how it is transmitting.
And there is one more, minor plotline. Apparently, Romulan ships are converging on the Neutral Zone potentially putting lives on the border in danger and setting the stage for intergalactic war. The Enterprise is desperately needed on the border. However, with a mystery illness on board and an away team trying to keep things kosher during a planet-wide gender conflict, the Enterprise is unable to warp to the Neutral Zone.
Courtesy of CBS Television
Angel One Meet Angel Two
There isn’t a single plot in “Angel One” that is not absolutely ridiculous. The women on Angel One threaten to execute the entire crew of the Odin to collapse a gender revolution. The pandemic on the Enterprise is only solved by luck. And the Romulan conflict is barely touched on and we don’t even get a resolution for it.
But the worst part of this terrible, no-good episode isn’t how poorly constructed it is. The problem is that it’s exhaustingly familiar. And if you check the Enterprise viewscreen, you’ll see a cube shape in the distance. Magnify. No, it’s not the Borg. It’s my soapbox.
To wit: “Angel One” is an episode where a pandemic rages, war looms, and no one can do anything about it because everyone is too busy arguing about gender. You know… just like in real life. Yes, our civilization has reached such depths that “Angel One” is relevant. Change Earth’s name to Angel Two. A true low point for human civilization.
Courtesy of CBS Television
Do What Will Riker Says
Mark your calendars, folks: today Will Riker is right. “Angel One” may resolve in an oversimplified way (what else do you expect), but it’s also a way that basically makes sense. When Angel One’s leadership plans to execute the revolting men, Riker points out that such an act will not end a revolt. In fact, Riker says this is not a revolt at all – it’s an evolution of Angel One’s society.
Leadership talks about “the natural order of things” and the way that men and women inherently are. But one of the main leaders marries the Odin‘s captain and agrees with him. And Riker correctly points out that there are likely men native to Angel One who were fighting for equal rights long before the Odin crash landed.
Riker says that the only thing to be made of murder and total oppression is martyrs. There are men on Angel One who are leaders. There will be more. Nothing is inherent to one gender or the other. Arguments over the nature of gender do harm. Better to let people be who they are and live as they wish. In the end, the changes will take time and be more manageable than leadership thinks.
Or, transposed to today, stop making people adhere to a falsely perceived “natural order” based on genital configuration. Trans people exist. Nonbinary people exist. Trans and nonbinary children exist. And the harder people try to create laws to oppress trans and nonbinary people, the more harm is done to society as a whole. The more we focus on attacking a minority who does zero harm, the less we focus on things like pandemics, climate change, and international conflict.
Wheel of morality, turn turn turn, how is this the lesson we still have to learn? Good grief.
Computer: end program.
