10 Most Hated Star Trek: The Next Generation Episodes

Riker attempts to negotiate the release of Federation prisoners who crashed on Angel One, an oppressive matriarchal society.

A big issue is that we never get to see the type of oppression the males in this planet suffer because none of them are given any substantial roles. They are just butlers in the background who don't seem to be complaining and who even look content making it hard to understand and sympathize with this race.

Meanwhile, the Federation survivors, led by Ramsey, have been sentenced to death for supposedly contaminating the local culture with their ideas about equality but we never see this either. Ramsey is called a revolutionary but there is no moment where he is influencing others or spreading his message making him a boring character who seems to only want to stay because he found himself a wife.

The main moralizing comes from William Riker who lectures Beata, the government head, with basic lessons about equal treatment and sharing responsibility that we have heard hundreds of times before. Simply switching the genders doesn't automatically make the lessons fresh. Riker also gets physically intimate with Beata making us wonder if it’s ethically okay for him to sleep with beautiful heads of state during diplomatic missions.

Finally, there is a virus outbreak in the Enterprise that shuts down most of the crew. It's mostly played for laughs with Captain Jean Luc Picard itching and laying sick in bed and Worf sneezing his guts out which is not exactly the kind of riveting TV we want to see. That, combined with the rote storyline on the surface ensure that there is nothing angelic about the stay in Angel One.