"Angel One" is on Spike right now. The TV is muted but I'm glancing at the screen every few minutes. This episode is hilarious without sound. Riker has this lovely women's robe on, revealing his manly chest. I haven't seen this episode in years, but it seems to be about a planet of dominant (but pretty) women and subservient males in gay outfits. And what the fuck is that thing on Riker's ear? I do like the blonde that he's kissing, however. What's the actress's name?
Yeah, muted audio might be for the best for this and a couple other season one extravaganzas. I like season one's trying out new things and styles and ideas, but the episodes that fail really do so miserably and "Angel One" is still one of them.
I want to believe the episode meant well by inverting sex and gender based stereotypes in hopes the audience would see things the other way around, but it ended up falling flat on its face. I wish I could remember more of it; I saw this within the last year or so -- Ah! I found my post on it:
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/angel-one-brought-to-you-by-angel-dust.302316/
My opinion hasn't changed too much since then...
https://www.missionlogpodcast.com/angel-one/
https://www.missionlogpodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/109.jpg
(I know, those late-80s pastels can be
-inducing at times... )
On the plus side, Riker's 8 tonne earring there doesn't look like a dime store generic knock-off at the bottom of a cracker jack box. Nor is it a safety pin, the pinnacle of punk, which even the 5th Doctor told Monarch there was a lot of it about after being told the concept was barbaric but this is
Star Trek, not
Doctor Who...
I'll admit, Trent there does do more pectoral exercises...
But if you want even better examples of silly outfits, look up on YouTube "Iron Butterfly- "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" 1969 (Reelin' In The Years Archives)". At least, in 1969, the goal was to upend 1950s social norms as some form of rebellion. By the 1980s, it was cliche and New Wave did a better job at upending norms while introducing new style that held up better over time -- if you were to ask me and come to think of it you hadn't...
The episode doubly so because it was just faffing about with role reversal without any depth put into it. Made worse when you consider the ironic shrewdness in casting as all the males found had to look
less muscular. (Genetics invariably prevailing with their variables therein, our species is made up of all combinations. Sadly, no 45 minute installment could begin to go into any comprehensive detail and this being early-TNG season 1, Gene was more about the jollies than the justice. Case in point, also try to sit through the episode "Justice"...
)
