I meant to leave feedback for this one a while ago, but real life, hurricanes, and elections got in the way. My memories are a bit fuzzy, particularly when it comes to early TNG. I don’t remember thinking “Angel One” was a terrible episode, but admittedly I probably have only seen it one time when I first got the DVDs years ago. One of these days, I’ll have to go back and rewatch TNG from the beginning. It’s interesting that this episode came up in your rotation at practically the same time as our Sliders episode, “The Weaker Sex,” which also focused on role reversal. In that episode, they arrive on a world in which women have the “dominant” role in society and men are treated as the “weaker sex.” And it wasn’t terrible by any means, but it wasn’t one of my favorites from Season 1 because, like you guys discussed with “Angel One,” there were elements of the plot that still felt very problematic. Almost all of the women in the episode seemed to embody very male traits, while the men were relegated to the stereotypical female roles that were prevalent in the 80s and 90s. There was no real explanation behind this divergence other than to say that women got tired of men constantly creating war and violence, and somehow collectively decided to take control hundreds of years ago. So if that was the case, then shouldn’t the world be a much different place now? The male/female roles as we know them are there because men decided on these roles and made the rules. There’s a fundamental difference between the way men and women think and behave toward the opposite sex. I have a hard time believing that in a female-dominated society that they would be treating men the way that men have treated women for centuries. I’m sure the writers behind episodes like “Angel One” and “The Weaker Sex” had the best of intentions, but yet somehow they still missed the mark. Why was it so problematic to address role reversal even with female writers? When we did our review, we had our wives “take over” as a gimmick to have a little fun with it. And I do remember the “space Covid” thing and Worf’s sneezing that could be heard from miles away, but didn’t realize it was the same episode. What the hell did that plot line have to do with anything?! 🙄 Great discussion as always! ~Damon
I meant to leave feedback for this one a while ago, but real life, hurricanes, and elections got in the way.
My memories are a bit fuzzy, particularly when it comes to early TNG. I don’t remember thinking “Angel One” was a terrible episode, but admittedly I probably have only seen it one time when I first got the DVDs years ago. One of these days, I’ll have to go back and rewatch TNG from the beginning. It’s interesting that this episode came up in your rotation at practically the same time as our Sliders episode, “The Weaker Sex,” which also focused on role reversal. In that episode, they arrive on a world in which women have the “dominant” role in society and men are treated as the “weaker sex.” And it wasn’t terrible by any means, but it wasn’t one of my favorites from Season 1 because, like you guys discussed with “Angel One,” there were elements of the plot that still felt very problematic. Almost all of the women in the episode seemed to embody very male traits, while the men were relegated to the stereotypical female roles that were prevalent in the 80s and 90s. There was no real explanation behind this divergence other than to say that women got tired of men constantly creating war and violence, and somehow collectively decided to take control hundreds of years ago. So if that was the case, then shouldn’t the world be a much different place now? The male/female roles as we know them are there because men decided on these roles and made the rules.
There’s a fundamental difference between the way men and women think and behave toward the opposite sex. I have a hard time believing that in a female-dominated society that they would be treating men the way that men have treated women for centuries. I’m sure the writers behind episodes like “Angel One” and “The Weaker Sex” had the best of intentions, but yet somehow they still missed the mark. Why was it so problematic to address role reversal even with female writers? When we did our review, we had our wives “take over” as a gimmick to have a little fun with it.
And I do remember the “space Covid” thing and Worf’s sneezing that could be heard from miles away, but didn’t realize it was the same episode. What the hell did that plot line have to do with anything?! 🙄
Great discussion as always!
~Damon