Angel One

A frequently re-used shot - maybe all planets are the same.	MILF or ILF?	Aussie Lex Luger with a mullett.	A woman called Ariel. Good at doing the washing-up.
(more images below)

Overview: The Enterprise visits a world dominated by women to flesh out diplomatic ties and search for survivors of a downed freighter.
Writers: Patrick Barry
Director: Michael Rhodes

Anon²: Arsehole One.

Anon: What a travesty! In fact, they even got the title wrong. Only men are angels.

Pie: Is that true? I'm not particularly religious.

Anon: Yeah, it's true. They mention it in The Long Good Friday with Bob Hoskins.

Pie: Ah okay. But how did the planet get named anyway? I mean, we called our planet Earth. We didn't evolve an entire society then name the planet after our system of government.

Anon: No, otherwise we'd have called it "Dinosaurs."

Pie: (laughs) Exactly.

Anon: It was a pretty fucking gay planet. Maybe they should've left Wesley there.

Anon²: Well, Wesley was in the beginning of the episode and he was gay as fuck.

Pie: And then he vanished...

Anon²: ... which was good. Geordi had an exceptional episode.

Pie: He was all over the place.

Anon²: Basically, the first thing he did was change orbit, then he became Captain and said "Make it so" in a very shit way and everyone ignored him. Data-watch: nothing really. Worf-watch: he may have said something. Troi-watch: she had a gob-full of spunk pretty much throughout the episode. Riker-watch: he did a pose and he may have, although I don't think he did by the end of the episode, got a fuck.

Pie: Although I hate to bring this up in an episode that was so full of contaminated wank, the first thing I noticed was that they basically stole the storyline from 2 episodes ago where there's a strategically important planet that they have to deal with even though they're a bunch of losers. I mean, it's not the worst storyline ever, but to use it 2 times in 3 episodes is a bit of overkill.

Anon: You're talking about the guys that Picard gargles at?

Pie: Yeah. How many different ways can you put, "We're going to introduce you to a planet full of losers, but for some reason we still have to talk to them."

Anon: It's also the second time this season that they've gone to a planet with the death penalty.

Pie: Yep, true, true.

Anon²: And there was a speach about that too. Gay.

Pie: I can't say a single nice thing about that episode. I'm trying.

Anon²: Well, it was basically about lesbianism/feminism and basically we noted that if there was a spider in the corner of the room, they'd be fucked, wouldn't they?

Anon: So the planet was run by this woman, Mistress Beatta or something.

Pie: Could be, could be.

Anon²: Yeah. She basically said, "I'm not going to listen to your unreasonable demands." I've got a list here of unreasonable demands based on me being on that planet: football, pub, not going to see a chick-flick, beer, more beer, not watching soap operas, football again.- because it's Match of the Day later on. Y'know, Football Focus at twelve o'clock and more Football Focus at 10:30 or so. If they're unreasonable demands, then I'd remain single all my life. Fuck it, y'know?

Anon: And this Mistress Beatta - was she a MILF?

Pie: Could be a MILF; could be an ILF.

Anon²: Oh, the men in this episode. Obviously, they were trying to portray them as the inferior of the species...

Anon: As if.

Anon²: Yeah, exactly. And one of them was called Trent.

Pie: I wonder what it was in real life, I don't believe it.

Anon²: Terence Trent-D'Arby? Maybe it's his second name.

Anon: They could have given the Trent guy a gay voice. He could've been super-camp too.

Anon²: Well, they could have called him Serge, y'know what I mean? It's the same thing. (assumes gay voice) "Hello, I'm Serge!"

Pie: No, I must admit that episode brought up everything I hate about Star Trek. All the things that over the years have made we want to cringe about it. Like the fact that there always have to be some sort of deep message about something happening in real life that they always manage to screw up...

Anon: ... until DS9.

Pie: Yeah, DS9 got better at that. This typifies early seasons of Next Generation. It sorta comes back in Voyager a bit as well, and DS9 a bit too. They try to make episodes that make a point about real life that always falls flat on its face and turns into a big pile of wank.

Anon: I think it's a fair point. It probably originates from some of the things they did to get Classic Trek on the TV in the first place. Hmmm... Riker cross-dresses in this episode, doesn't he? It's fucking nasty. You see his hairy chest with his nipple poking through the bit that he appears to have shaven off. Maybe so someone could suck on it.

Pie: This must have been the only fun the cast had in the entire episode.

Anon: They must've been pissing themselves.

Pie: C'mon, can you imagine? We were sitting there watching it for 45 minutes and it felt like 3 and a half hours. Can you imagine what filming it for a week would've been like?

Anon: You did call this "The Episode Where Time Stands Still."

Pie: I think that's accurate.

Anon: You also didn't realise when I'd paused it.

Pie: (laughs) Yes, that is true. The episode was paused for 5 whole seconds before I realised it had been paused at all.

Anon²: (laughs) Oh, by the way, card-count was 1 for each of you, none for me.

Pie: We weren't exactly good with cards to keep the entertainment value up.

Anon²: Yep, in fact I'd forgotten to mention the card count at the beginning because that was such a shit episode. Erm, they had a green planet. Looked like a bogey, didn't it?

Pie: I think Decipher just got so bored making the episode that they couldn't be bothered to make any cards out of it. Matriarchal Society appeared in the first 5 minutes, then Medical Tricorder about 5 minutes later and then Jason Winter's just gone, "Fuck this. This is a load of shit" and blew it off.

Anon: (laughs) Jason Winter?!

Anon²: It's only fair that you mention that bit of equipment because that was just how desparate this episode got.

Pie: Do you remember Jason Winter? He was a geezer.

Anon: He was Q, right?

Pie: Yeah, yeah I thinks so, yeah.

Anon: Not John deLancie Q. The other one.

Pie: Yeah, the one from the Decipher BBS... and then he fucked off. Was he shagging Chase Masterton for a while? Yeah, I think he was.

Anon: You don't want us to get in trouble here, do you?

Pie: It's not libellous if it's true.

Anon: We officially don't know.

(For the record, I now think Chase was in a relationship with someone else at Decipher, not Jason.)

Anon: Ramsay looks a bit like Lex Luger, right?

Pie: I thought he did, from what I remember of my WWF-watching days.

Anon: He had a proper mullett.

Pie: Yeah, I think if the episode had more mulletts it might've been more entertaining. Like, maybe if all the men on the planet - instead of being short and weeny-looking, were like normal-looking but had mulletts. I think that would have brought the episode back up from a 0.5 out of 10 to a 0.7 or 0.8.

Anon: Ramsay had a mullett and he's not even an Aussie. You'd expect that he would. Maybe he lives on a street somewhere too. May even have some Neighbours.

Pie: Yeah, that's possible. A bit of Mrs. Mangle too. Yeah, I think that if the revolutionaries do succeed and bring the mullett to Angel One in force, then it could make the planet a lot more viable as a tourist destination.

Anon²: But only in the 80's

Anon: Welcome back dude.

Anon²: Yeah, I went for a piss. Y'know, at the end of the day, all of these episodes so far we've pretty much taken the piss.

Anon: Well, you have to. There's so many weaknesses.

Anon²: Yeah, that's it. That's my point. I mean, at some point in the future, when we get to season 3, we're all gonna sit here and go, "Oh my God! Wasn't that fucking great?" But we're not they're yet.

Pie: And then we're just gonna sound like geeks when we get several decent episodes straight.

Anon: At the end of the day, we all enjoy Trek. Y'know, we're harsh on it because we love it in a way.

Pie: Yeah.

Anon: That may have sounded a bit gay.

Anon²: Well, I don't sound gay.

Pie: I don't feel bad slagging off a bad episode whilst knowing that there are better episodes to come. It's all relative.

Anon: Yeah, the next episode's a lot better for example. This episode was also the first mention of the Rommies in Next Gen.

Anon²: And the Neutral Zone.

Pie: Yeah. I may be mis-remembering here, but I thought in the episode The Neutral Zone they said they hadn't heard from the Rommies for decades when clearly they heard from them 10 episodes before that one.

Anon: Yeah, maybe. Or maybe they just hadn't encountered them for a long time.

Pie: Possibly, yeah. And they seem to think the Rommies have Battle Cruisers but when they actually turn up they have...

Anon²: Warbirds, is it?

Pie: I think they call them Warbirds from then on in. I don't know where these Battle Cruisers came from.

Anon: How about the Birds of Prey?

Anon²: That's the Klingons, isn't it?

Anon: There's no Romulan Birds of Prey?

Pie: No. Romulan Warbirds.

Anon: Ah, basically all things to do with birds. I was really waiting for the Ferengi to turn up in their Batplane!

Pie: (laughs)

Anon²: What, freaking out on E?

Pie: Ferengi had Marauders, didn't they?

Anon: Yeah.

Pie: And Cardassians had house-bricks.

Anon: (laughs) House-bricks! Something that was purple anyway. Let's take stock: is this the worst episode so far?

Pie: Stiff competition. I would say, plot-wise: this was probably the worst episode with the possible exception of The Naked Now. I think production-wise and continuinty-wise there are worse.

Anon: How about you?

Anon²: I just want a beer.

Anon: Something else... Picard seems to have a fear of his own sperm, doesn't he? In one scene, he's lying in bed and uses the two sentances together: "Come" and "It looks terrible."

Anon²: Yeah, he's in bed naked. Basically, no matter how much a man has flu, if he's in bed he's gonna crack one off. He's gonna have a wank. He's gonna bust his balls.

Pie: You've got nothing else to do when you've got the flu, have you?

Anon²: Exactly.

Pie: I must admit the subplot to that episode was quite terrible, but because the main plot was so bad I actually found myself quite looking forward to it.

Anon: The subplot involved another problem with the holodeck, for the second time in 3 episodes, right?

Pie: Yeah, another new plot device that doesn't make sense but they're determined to use it as often as possible.

Anon: And this time Wesley doesn't save the Enterprise. He causes the whole problem...

Anon²: ... by wearing a gay jumper.

Anon: In fact, it was a gay ski-suit this time, wasn't it?

Anon²: Yeah, that's right. Him and his bum-chum.

Pie: His misterious Chinese friend, yeah.

Anon²: So far we haven't rated anything. I guess we're gonna do that at the end of the season.

Anon: Well, we've rated this as perhaps the worst episode so far. I think for me, this episode wasn't as bad as Lonely Among Us. I just thought that episode was terrible.

Pie: I don't know about Lonely Among Us. I've blocked that one out of my memory.

Anon: One thing I would say is I think Jonathan Frakes did his best here with what he was given. He seems to play it for laughs to the extent you don't want to slap him.

Pie: Yeah, I thought he did well too. He did his best with what was essentially a really bad script.

Anon²: As far as acting his nuts off, I've noticed he does his guizzical look, posing look and back in Haven, his pondering look. And that's pretty much all I've seen. He's basically trying to show us his balls, show us his frown, or show us his arse.

Pie: I think when the show was originally designed, Riker was supposed to be the Captain Kirk character, wasn't he?

Anon: That was the plan, yes.

Pie: Yeah. They made Captain Picard very different to Kirk.

Anon: This is why Picard often stays on the bridge. Essentially, it's so Riker can be the action hero.

Pie: Yeah. Exactly, they were trying to give the audience a particular sort of character they could relate to. It sorta worked I guess, then he developed a personality of his own.

Anon²: And he grew a beard.

Pie: I think he saved this episode from being a 0 out of 10 to being a 0.5.

Anon: It's 1-star at best, isn't it?

Anon²: I think you can have half a star.

Pie: Or maybe 1 star out of a hundred.

Anon²: If it's 1 star out of a hundred it's gone down to 0.01 from 0.5, so it keeps going down the more we talk about it.

This must be true as I've since moved this episode to lower on the scale than Lonely Among Us, marking it as the worst episode so far.

Anon: This is already the longest commentary we've done on an episode. A lot of entertainment value though, I think.

Anon²: Strange that we talk longer about the shittest ones.

Pie: In fact, it was shit in so many ways I felt it wasn't necessary to cover them all.

Anon: And for anyone wondering, I mentioned in the previous commentary about Roddenberry leaving the program. A lot of that was due to this episode. The guy who was writing the episode originally before Roddenberry came in and told him it was shit... the original guy had a lot more conflict in the script. Roddenberry basically came in and said, "No no no... Star Trek has no conflict between the main characters." To me, Trek was at its best in scenes where there was conflict between the main characters. DS9 is something I think about particularly - the characters are always thinking from different perspectives... Odo and Quark for example. And so, that was the end of Roddenberry. And it makes me think, Roddenberry may have created this, but he didn't know what the fuck he was on about half the time. Y'know, there was Wesley for example.

Pie: I didn't even know when his last episode was but everyone reckons the show got better once he left and if this was his final episode, then it was a fitting send-off.

Anon²: We'd better shut the fuck up about this now. What's the next episode?

Anon: Next episode, when we get round to it, is 11001001.

Anon²: The Bynars!

Pie: I think they learnt from their mistakes in this episode and put in more mulletts.

Anon: Well, we all know that the next episode is much better than the one we just endured. See ya later guys.

- Anon, Anon² & Pie, 15-Jul-2009