Title: The Dauphin
Airdate: 2/20/1989
Plot Summary
The Enterprise is to pick up Salia, a child of two factions of a planet that has been in civil war. After 16 years being raised in seclusion by here guardian, Anya, she’s ready to take her place to bring peace to her people. However she’s never been off the world she was raised on and longs to travel. Wesley falls for her at first sight, but her guardian turns out to be a dangerous shape-shifter who perceives danger around every corner. Will Salia perform her duty or will Wesley talk her out of it?
Make It So
Picard has to ask Wesley to leave Salia alone, something he’s clearly uncomfortable with as interfering with a crewman’s personal life is fairly taboo to him. Given how private he is in his own life, this makes a lot of sense.
Number 1
Riker attempts to help Wes with approaching Salia by acting it out with Guinan which goes into a really weird place.
Fully Functional
Data actually has very little to do other than give info whenever necessary. Understandable after last episode.
Today Is A Good Day To Die
Worf has to fight Anya in her beast form. He and Anya develop a lot of respect for each other as warriors and protectors.
Phase Inducers
Geordi doesn’t have any advice for Wesley (we’ll see why later in the series as he’s no better with women than Wes is,) but he does recognize that Wesley hit puberty while working on the engines and kicks him out before he makes a mess.
Counselor Cleavage
Deanna senses that Anya and Saliah are not who they say they are. Or rather what they say they are, but she has nothing more to go on other than that.
Doctor Not Bones
Pulaski has to defend a patient from getting killed by Anya.
Shut Up, Wesley
This is Wesley’s episode where he acts just like a teenager should act. All lovesick and crushing hard. Though I have quibbles at the end, finally he seems like a real person for once.
Guinan?!
Guinan doesn’t have any good advice at first, more happy to take in Riker’s lines and play the part. However later on, she does give good advice, tell Wesley that sometimes a woman wants you to run after her when she leaves.
Canon Maker
Anya is called an allasomorph, a shape shifter. Though it appears that the entire planet is shapeshifters. The crew thought they were mythical.
Guinan tells Wesley to shut up. That’s three people who have said that to him. I’m here for it.
Canon Breaker
Shapeshifters just are so rare, except for the ones that taught Garth, the weird one that became a deflector shield, a camaloid on Ruhe Penthe, not to mention a changling that at this point in time would’ve been working on Terrok Nor… though the crew can be forgiven for not knowing about that last one.
Riker mentions that the terawatt signal generator was more power than the whole ship could produce. I suppose if he meant communications power, that makes sense. But with a matter/anti-matter engine, I have no doubt the power of the ship far exceeds a terawatt.
A Little Bloody Nose
No one died although Anya sure was ready to kill some fools.
Technobabble
We can see the holodeck change entire environments right under your feet, something we’ve never really seen before. It also was taking them to places that in real life would’ve probably required space suits and such.
Geordi uses this time to do maintenance on the engines, which probably made this trip take way longer than it should. Kirk had a reason with Elaan but here, it just made the trip take longer than it should have, creating a lot of the issues. Do the maintenance later there, buddy!
Please Repeat Your Communication
Wesley Crusher: Are you telling me to go yell at Salia?
Lieutenant Worf: No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects… and claw at you.
Wesley Crusher: What does the man do?
Lieutenant Worf: [dreamily] He reads love poetry…
Lieutenant Worf: [back to his serious self] He ducks a lot.
Wesley asking Worf for romance advice… or how to handle domestic abuse.
Library Computer
I always wondered why this had anything to with sea mammal, misspelled. Of course later I knew it was something different and I kind of assumed it had something to do with shape-shifting. Well now that I’m doing all this work, I have no excuse to not figure it out once and for all. And it turns out that “Dauphin” most commonly refers to the historical title given to the heir apparent to the French throne from 1350 to 1830. This tracks since Salia is supposed to be taking the throne of her world. So there’s your useless trivia of the day.
I Know That Guy:
Paddi Edwards plays the formidible Anya. She didn’t do a ton of work but a lot of voice work later. What really cooked my noodle was finding out she was the voice of Gozer in the original Ghostbusters.
Jaime Hubbard plays Salia. She’s adorable and looks like she’s younger than Wesley but in fact she was nearly 10 years older! This is probably the only thing of note she did. She went on to be a licensed psychologist.
And the big “before they were famous” moment is an uncredited Mädchen Amick as Young Anya. This was her very first role at the tender age of 18. Only a year later she would be cast in Twin Peaks and the rest is history.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
Wesley gets a crush. That’s pretty much the entire episode. A star-crossed romance that doesn’t really go too far. I think Wheaton was still underaged and Hubbard was in her mid 20s so they weren’t going to do anything too physical in this one.
I really don’t have a lot to say on this one. I found the various bits of “advice” Wesley got somewhat amusing, and I really enjoyed Worf and Anya verbal sparring throughout the episode. I’ve seen opinions where people think this old lady trying to be inimidating is unconvincing, but I disagree. I thought the actress did a great job and we know she’s a shape-shifter so I thought it worked well. I always enjoy the idea of two warriors on opposite sides having a ton of respect for each other. Reminds me a bit of Balance Of Terror, though obviously nowhere near the quality of that episode.
I am about the same age as Wheaton so when I watched this the first time and got the revelation that Salia was also a shape-shifter, I could not for the life of me figure out what Wes was so mad about. He’s been everywhere, he’s shown that he has a lot of experience with different races and cultures. Why does this get him so mad? And quite frankly, Wes. Dude. A girl that can become anyone you want? What’s the problem, man?!
Ok all dirty stuff aside, I really just don’t have a lot of interest in Wes’s romance here. We know it’s not going to be a permanent thing or anything and it really loses a lot on repeat viewings. Just not great.
