History Recap / StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E13AngelOne

* MoralDissonance: Despite the above-mentioned low-tech nature of the civilization on Angel One, not only is the Prime Directive being ignored with regards to them, but the opening exposition outright states that this mission is diplomatically sensitive because the Federation hopes to induct Angel One as a member! Apparently this is due to their strategic proximity to the Romulan Neutral Zone.

** Picard refers to the sighted Romulan ships as "battlecruisers" rather than "warbirds."

* HilariousInHindsight: Producer Maurice Hurley's credit appears onscreen right when Picard's log says "an unusual matriarchal society where the female is as **aggressively dominant as the male gender** was on Earth".

* OmnidisciplinaryScientist: In this episode, Crusher is a GP, a virologist, immunologist, and chemist, and she doesn't need to run any kind of clinical trials on her cure once she has one she thinks will work (which she comes up with less than an hour after she figures out what the pathogen is). She also seems to have the best immune system because she never shows any symptoms despite her constant exposure to the sick.

We open with the ''Enterprise'' having investigated a seven-year overdue ship, the ''Odin''. The wreck contained no life signs, but had several missing escape pods, suggesting there are survivors. The nearest planet is Angel One, a pre-warp society that is a {{matriarchy}}. Women are larger and dominant, while the men are small and subservient. The all-male survivors of ''Odin'' have become outlaws during their time on the planet and gone into hiding. The elected leader of planet, Beata, agrees to allow the Federation to extract them.

Picard wants to get this small issue finished with quickly so that he can rush to the neutral zone, where the Romulans have started amassing battlecruisers. Further complications arise when Wesley Crusher contracts a virus about the ship, and it quickly spreads to other members of the crew. Picard gets hit with flu-like symptoms and is relieved of duty by Dr. Crusher, leaving Geordi in command.

As Ramsey and his men are not members of Starfleet bound by the Prime Directive, the away team has no power to force them to comply. The team reports back to Riker right in front of Beata, who promptly sentences Ramsey and his followers to death for their subversive views and easily captures them. Riker offers to take them and their families off-planet to avoid execution, but they still choose to stay even in the face of death. Meanwhile, the virus has spread to so many crew members that Dr. Crusher declares the ship quarantined, meaning Riker can't beam them away even by force.

* DullSurprise: When casting is tasked with finding a bunch of women over six feet tall, they're naturally not going to be too picky about acting ability.

The ''Enterprise'' visits a world in which the otherwise very human-like (they aren't even RubberForeheadAliens) inhabitants have reversed some human patterns of sex-based physical differences. The females are [[LargeAndInCharge generally taller, stronger, and more physically imposing]] than the (to us) effeminate and waifish males. In addition, all the leadership roles in this society are filled by women and the men are subservient. The ''Enterprise'''s purpose is to rescue survivors of a downed freighter, but everyone on the ''Enterprise'' gets sick.

We open with the ''Enterprise'' having investigated a seven-year overdue ship, the ''Odin'', showing just how much the Federation cares for its citizens [[note]]Although this is a substantial improvement over the early United Earth Starfleet as shown in ENT: "Terra Nova", where it had taken more than ''seventy'' years for Earth to finally check up on their ''first'' extrasolar colony, which had mysteriously gone silent.[[/note]]. The wreck contained no life signs, but had several missing escape pods, suggesting there are survivors. The nearest planet is Angel One, a pre-warp society which is a matriarchy. Women are the dominant gender, while men are subservient. Naturally, Picard gives the responsibility of contacting them to Troi, the only person on the bridge who isn't wearing a uniform and has no diplomatic training whatsoever. The women of Angel One agree to help them, with Picard noting that Starfleet is hoping this world will become part of the Federation (again, they are a ''pre-warp'' society).

Riker, Troi, Data, and Tasha beam down to Angel One, where we see just how desperate casting was to find women over six feet tall with acting ability. In addition, the men are wearing tight-fitting clothes exposing a great deal of chest, an attempt to provide commentary, and yet Troi is doing the exact same thing (another reason why Troi wearing a uniform would be better). The women of Angel One are distrustful of the ''Enterprise'' crew, but permit them to stay for the meantime. Aboard the ''Enterprise'', Wesley Crusher has contracted a virus, continuing the Season 1 trend of Wesley helping destroy the ship. Picard is relieved of duty by Dr. Crusher, even though he seems no worse off than getting the flu, and leaves Geordi in command.

Meanwhile, the away team decides to find the missing crew by isolating something unique to them that doesn't exist on Angel One. Rather than looking for human biosigns, they look for platinum. Riker is invited to a private audience with Beata, the elected leader of Angel One, complete with the tight-fitting attire of the native men, while the others look for the survivors. Sure enough, they find Ramsey, the leader of the surviving freighter crew. Unfortunately, he has no intention of leaving. The crew has settled in, taken wives, and even have children. However, due to how men are treated on this planet, they're in hiding. Nevertheless, they refuse to leave.

As Ramsey and his men are not members of Starfleet bound by the Prime Directive, the away team has no power to force them to comply. After the team foolishly reports back to Riker in front of Beata, she sentences Ramsey and his followers to death for their subversive views, and easily captures them. Riker offers to take them and their families off-planet to avoid execution, but they still choose to stay even in the face of death. Meanwhile, the virus has spread to so many crew members that Dr. Crusher declares the ship quarantined, meaning Riker can't beam them away even by force.

As the scheduled execution approaches, Riker makes a last-ditch appeal to Beata, pointing out that Ramsey's men are not the cause of the revolutionary views spreading across Angel One, but merely a symbol, and executing them would make them into martyrs and worsen the situation. After some thought, Beata agrees, and sentences the ''Odin'' survivors and their families to exile instead.

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: A virus that spreads by smell. Definitely one of the stranger xeno-diseases that the ''Enterprise'' encounters.
** Actually averted; it's a respiratory virus, and the pleasant smell is just a side-effect, but one that makes potential victims breathe deeply, making them more likely to catch it.

* LadyLand: More like Lady ''Planet''.
* LostAesop: At the time of this episode's writing and for years afterwards, it was heavily insisted that the society on Angel One was an allegory for UsefulNotes/TheApartheidEra in UsefulNotes/SouthAfrica. Although Angel One does depict a segregated society, there is far more evidence of a [[StrawFeminist cautionary tale against certain radical feminist movements]] whose ideology is often interpreted as an intention to replace the alleged patriarchy with a matriarchy. It is worth noting that many female ''Franchise/StarTrek'' fans self identify as feminists, though not neccesarily as the [[DoesNotLikeMen extreme type of feminist]]. It is possible that the writers insist on the apartheid allegory to avoid alienating part of the fanbase, and/or the credited writer, Patrick Barry, genuinely did intend for it to be a commentary on apartheid, but the message was lost during Creator/GeneRoddenberry's rewrites.

-->'''Website/SFDebris:''' [[SarcasmMode I'm sure you're on great terms considering you haven't spoken with them in 62 years!]] That's not long at all! I mean, that was 1950 compared to today! Sure, back then, a black guy could get arrested for drinking from the wrong water fountain, whereas today, we've elected a [[UsefulNotes/BarackObama black guy president]]. [[SocietyMarchesOn Twice]]. But that's basically the same thing! I remember hearing about it on the radio after I rung up Mildred the operator and asked her to connect me to someone with one of them fancy new television sets!

* StrawFeminist: The defining trait of Angel One.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Angel One is established to be a world in a mid-20th Century age of development, meaning the Prime Directive should have forbidden Picard from making contact with them. Possibly an in-universe example of the GrandfatherClause, as dialogue implies that first contact with them occurred back around the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' era, when the Prime Directive was much more loosely applied.

-->"When you spoke of the prisoners, you used the term revolutionary. Indeed, death has been known to stop revolutions. But I suspect it's not a revolution that Angel One is hoping to stop. It's evolution. Mister Ramsey and the ''Odin'' survivors did not initiate the waves of dissent that are rippling through your planet. Their presence here merely reinforced the change in attitudes between men and women that was already well under way. They became symbols around whom others who shared their views could gather. You may eliminate the symbols, but that does not mean death to the issues which those symbols represent. No power in the universe can hope to stop the force of evolution. Be warned. The execution of Mister Ramsey and his followers may elevate them to the status of martyrs. Martyrs cannot be silenced."

The ''Enterprise'' visits a world in which the otherwise very human-like (they aren't even RubberForeheadAliens) inhabitants have reversed some human patterns of sex-based physical differences. The females are generally taller, stronger, and more physically imposing than the (to us) effeminate and waifish males. In addition, all the leadership roles in this society are filled by women and the men are subservient. The ''Enterprise'''s purpose is to rescue survivors of a downed freighter, but everyone on the ''Enterprise'' gets sick.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
** Angel One is established to be a world in a mid-20th Century age of development, meaning the Prime Directive should have forbidden Picard from making contact with them. Possibly an in-universe example of the GrandfatherClause, as dialogue implies that first contact with them occurred back around the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' era, when the Prime Directive was much more loosely applied.
** Worf is unfamiliar with the phrase "When in Rome" and [[UsefulNotes/{{Rome}} the city itself]]. Later episodes would establish that he was raised on Earth by human foster parents.

* LostAesop: At the time of this episode's writing and for years afterwards, it was heavily insisted that the society on Angel One was an allegory for UsefulNotes/TheApartheidEra in UsefulNotes/SouthAfrica. Although Angel One does depict a segregated society, there is far more evidence of a [[StrawFeminist cautionary tale against certain radical feminist movements]] whose ideology is often interpreted as an intention to replace the alleged patriarchy with a matriarchy. It is worth noting that many female ''StarTrek'' fans self identify as feminists, though not neccesarily as the [[DoesNotLikeMen extreme type of feminist]]. It is possible that the writers insist on the apartheid allegory to avoid alienating part of the fanbase, and/or the credited writer, Patrick Barry genuinely did intend for it to be a commentary on apartheid, but the message was lost during Creator/GeneRoddenberry's rewrites.

* LostAesop: At the time of this episode's writing and for years afterwards, it was heavily insisted that the society on Angel One was an allegory for Use4fulNotes/TheApartheidEra in UsefulNotes/SouthAfrica. Although Angel One does depict a segregated society, there is far more evidence of a [[StrawFeminist cautionary tale against certain radical feminist movements]] whose ideology is often interpreted as an intention to replace the alleged patriarchy with a matriarchy. It is worth noting that many female ''StarTrek'' fans self identify as feminists, though not neccesarily as the [[DoesNotLikeMen extreme type of feminist]]. It is possible that the writers insist on the apartheid allegory to avoid alienating part of the fanbase, and/or the credited writer, Patrick Barry genuinely did intend for it to be a commentary on apartheid, but the message was lost during Creator/GeneRoddenberry's rewrites.

* LostAesop: At the time of this episode's writing and for years afterwards, it was heavily insisted that the society on Angel One was an allegory for apartheid in South Africa. Although Angel One does depict a segregated society, there is far more evidence of a [[StrawFeminist cautionary tale against certain radical feminist movements]] whose ideology is often interpreted as an intention to replace the alleged patriarchy with a matriarchy. It is worth noting that many female ''StarTrek'' fans self identify as feminists, though not neccesarily as the [[DoesNotLikeMen extreme type of feminist]]. It is possible that the writers insist on the apartheid allegory to avoid alienating part of the fanbase, and/or the credited writer, Patrick Barry genuinely did intend for it to be a commentary on apartheid, but the message was lost during Creator/GeneRoddenberry's rewrites.

** Worf is unfamiliar with the phrase "When in Rome" and the city itself. Later episodes would establish that he was raised on Earth by human foster parents.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Angel One is established to be a world in a mid-20th Century age of development, meaning the Prime Directive should have forbidden Picard from making contact with them. Possibly an in-universe example of the GrandfatherClause, as dialogue implies that first contact with them occurred back around the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' era, when the Prime Directive was much more loosely applied.

* LostAesop: At the time of this episode's writing and for years afterwards, it was heavily insisted that the society on Angel One was an allegory for apartheid in South Africa. Although Angel One does depict a segregated society, there is far more evidence of a [[StrawFeminist cautionary tale against certain radical feminist movements]] whose ideology is often interpreted as an intention to replace the alleged patriarchy with a matriarchy. It is worth noting that many female ''StarTrek'' fans self identify as feminists, though not neccesarily as the [[DoesNotLikeMen extreme type of feminist]]. It is possible that the writers insist on the apartheid allegory to avoid alienating part of the fanbase.