AAARRRGGGGHHH! Who the fuck names their planet “Angel One?” That is the WORST name for a planet, let alone an episode title.
The Enterprise goes looking for the Odin, a freighter that’s been overdue for seven years. WHY is the Federation just now looking for a ship that’s been missing for SEVEN FREAKING YEARS? I’d get On*Star if that’s the best the Fed can do when you send out a distress signal.
(beep…beep…beep)
“Federation Starship Distress, how can I assist you?”
“THIS IS A DISTRESS SIGNAL!!”
“Is your ship in danger, sir?”
“HEEEEEELLLLPPPP! We were hit by an asteroid…spinning off course…losing oxygen fast!”
“Hold please.”
The Enterprise follows the trail to a planet improbably named Angel One, which has a matriarchal society where the women carry the clubs and do the leadin’ and protectin’ for their tiny badly-dressed menfolk, who can’t vote or express an opinion. Riker immediately gets on the leader chick Beata’s nerves, leaving Troi to do most of the negotiating.
If you can’t tell, this was a god awful 1st season episode, which has Gene Roddenberry written all over it. He loved those terrible in your face “planet where women lord it over the men” stories (OMG, I get it: it’s GENDER OR ROLE REVERSAL. How clever). I’m surprised the women didn’t have two navels since they’re twice as strong as their men…oh, wait, GR already did the two navels bit in Genesis II.
Since there was time to kill, Riker gets out his favorite “bow-chick-a-bow-bow” make out CD while wearing leader chick Beefeater’s gift: THE worst costume in the history of male costumes. It was basically a half shirt, leaving the entire left side of his hairy chest exposed. And it was a swirly, shiny fabric. And he had electrical tape on his leggings. Even Brad Pitt couldn’t pull this frock off.
It turns out the Odin survivors made it to Angel One and “integrated” with some of the local hotties, if you catch my drifting freighter. So while their leader chick Baragon was hunting them, they were being aided by her VP of Tallness who was now the common law wife of the Macgyver look-alike Odin captain. It all ended in a ham-handed We should be tolerant of strange tall men with mullets who come to our planet, get down with the local girls and teach us our “old ways” are outdated screed, which of course breaks the Prime Directive for the 852,934th time.
The B story was a strange flu (is there any other kind?) breaks out on the Enterprise and cripples her crew. Doc Crusher figures out that the flu is AIRBORNE (wow, an airborne flu - whodathunkit?) and is transmitted when you smell it. Will she come up with a vaccine in time (she should have just adapted the vaccine for the “dreaded Anchilles Fever” they got from the genie people in "Code of Honor"). Data at one point even tells her she has just 45 minutes to figure it all out before it’s too late. And so of course she does.
Jesus H. even third season episodes of the original series were never this stupid.
Star Trek is (C) 2009 and a (R) Trademark of CBS Studios, Inc. No infringement of those rights is intended. Screencaps from Trekcore.com.
"How long before we're declared overdue can we expect a rescue?"
ReplyDelete"Seven Years."
"Seven years?!?!? I got news for you pal, we ain't gonna last 7 hours!"
-T
LOL--Penny's catalogue photo shoot (pure poetry)! Zoolander must have arrived fresh from the gasoline fight.
ReplyDeleteMan, people from down the hall were wondering what the stink coming from my computer was--it was this episode (badda-bing...not). It's almost hard to believe that the show lasted as long as it did.