Written by Patrick Barry and Tracy Torme
Directed by Michael Ray Rhodes
The Enterprise finds the remains of a freighter which collided with an asteroid. The have reason to believe that survivors of the collision may have landed on the planet Angel One, which is a society dominated entirely by women. There are four survivors from the freighter – all male. They are being treated as criminals on Angel One. The “Elected One” (no joke – this is the best they could come up with as the name of the leader) requests that these men be removed.
Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) – who is second in command of the Enterprise, readily agrees. The only problem is that these men are not bound by Starfleet law and have wives and families now on Angel One and do not want to leave. They are being persecuted because the men do not like being treated the way they are and want to move the society to a more level playing field. For many of the leaders – especially the “Elected One” – this is too revolutionary.
Meanwhile, back on the Enterprise, there’s a virus going around. It ravages the crew one by one until all that is left seems to be the android Data (Brent Spiner) and Doctor Crusher (Gates McFadden). Ever heard a Klingon sneeze? It’s not pretty, but then again they do everything in a big way. It’s a race against time to save the day on Angel One, as well as get the ship back in shape to ward off the Romulans attempted advance into The Neutral Zone.
There’s a whole lot wrong with this episode and very little that is right. It’s just one of those that leaves me scratching my head wondering “What were they thinking?” First of all, where the virus comes from is never really explained. It’s suddenly just there. It seems to start with the doctor’s son, Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) and a schoolmate in the holo-deck, but that really doesn’t make sense. Also, Doctor Crusher is racing against the clock to find an inoculation for the virus, yet she doesn’t seem to show any symptoms. She would have been one of the first people in contact with the disease, yet she seems fine all the way through.
In the beginning, when she is trying to figure out how the virus is spread, Doctor Crusher states that it isn’t an airborne virus. Yet later on in the script we learn that it is. The writing is way inconsistent and the whole virus scenario is just never believable. It seems to be simply filler since the other storyline going on couldn’t hold up the episode for the entire time.
The planet Angel One is a female-dominated society. The men who landed there from the freighter don’t like it. And???? That’s the whole story, folks. The rest is merely filler. We get the opportunity to see Riker with his shirt off and the Ship’s Counselor, Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), and Security Chief, Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby), snicker at him. All this as he seduces the “Elected One” in a true throw-back to the Captain Kirk era. Karen Montgomery portrays the “Elected One” and is so wooden in the role she seems to have no chemistry with anyone.
This episode fails miserably in all areas. I think this is one they should write-off as Riker’s bad dream after eating too much Klingon food one night.
Next episode:
I hated this episode when it first aired, and I hate it now. Poorly-written, inconsistent, and, at least with some of the guest cast, indifferently acted.
It’s really the bottom of the barrel of TNG episodes. There might have been some that miss the mark but this has nothing redeeming to it at all.