I'd once described the second season as bipolar, but it can also be described best as Star Trek trying to break out of its shell. Sometimes it would peck and push and really make some progress as you could see in the strength of the last episode. And then it would flounder and roll around in a kind of rest period as you can see in another series of so-so episodes beginning with this one.
You may be expecting some snide comments or whining on my part because it's a Wesley episode. Well, the Wesley parts weren't all that bad in this one. I will say that if he'd been written in the way that I'd envisioned him as being written at this point, the two characters would've had a lot more in common - teenagers set apart for great and unknown destinies. It could've been a better match and they could've made a truly believable bond. But, even if they had been writing Wesley according to my vision, you'd still have to deal with the whole first love thing at some point which is done in every show where a teenager is involved. The premise isn't a bad one, it was just (as I must have said a million times by now) badly done.
The Enterprise is transporting two aliens that appear to be a teenage girl and her extremely overprotective guardian back to their home world where there are two warring factions that live on opposite sides of the planet; one on the daylight side, one on the dark side. She's going to become leader of the planet because she is apparently the product of a union between parents from each side. I mean... okay... so she's been raised away from the planet in a bubble, suffocated by a guardian that didn't properly socialize her with anyone and now the planet, I guess, wants her to be their leader because she'll magically make it work somehow due to her parentage and she'll never be able to leave the planet again for reasons that are unclear. That's so paper thin it could almost blow away. I guess it just loses me because you can tell they still didn't take these parts of the script seriously at the time. Instead of putting some backbone behind this story, they just let the base of the plot blow away with hopes that you'll be too distracted with the drama that is being pushed forward as the main part. Yes, the drama can be the main part. But when the conflict at the base of the drama is weak, the rest is somewhat lacking to a thinking person. Like a lot of other episodes, this concept is reworked again later on more successfully because they'd learned how to add real depth to the stories.
Added to everything you learn that Anya, the guardian, is a shape shifter which complicates the girl, Salia's, interest in meeting people and pursuing a relationship with Wesley. She can turn into a big hairy monster which is strangely (or not so strangely with the track record of the first two seasons) reminiscent of the salt vampire from The Man Trap. I thought the salt vampire was scarier too.
Unfortunately, it also adds confusion too. She can also apparently become a teenage girl to act as Salia's friend, and a furry little gremlin of some kind to be her pet. I didn't see the point in this scene. I guess it was to make you wonder where these other friends of hers came from since she was only beamed aboard with Anya, but it's kind of obvious what's going on and it just compounds problems with the parts that don't make a lot of sense. Salia's true form is none of these things; presumably Anya's isn't either. It just filler space that demonstrated how empty that base plot was.
But this episode isn't without it's nice moments that were actually good for Wesley's character. Another great use of the holodeck and beautiful scenery therein when Wesley takes Salia there to show her different places in the galaxy. It's a great scene. He's finding out that just being himself works fine to hold a girl's attention and she's dropping lamenting hints of how she'll never see all of these lovely places, which gives it all the emotional portrait that they were going for to distract from the fact that the spine of the story is so shaky. Or the emotional portrait that would've been better validated if the spine of the story made more sense at any rate.
He gets advice from Worf and Data as well, which are also comical and fun scenes to watch but his best lesson is learned in one of the best scenes in the show. A genuinely hilarious exchange between Riker and Guinan as Riker is attempting to show Wesley how to flirt and woo a woman. Not only is it funny, but it's not all preachy like other messages to teenagers where they're usually told directly just to be themselves. Wesley can see for himself as they're carrying on how ridiculous Riker's exaggerated pick-up style is and quickly realizes that he's on his own. The more subtle message that is sent to teenagers about love in that exchange is also nicely done in my opinion because it's done through comedy and the fact that after a while they're having more fun playing around with each other than actually advising Wesley on anything so that it doesn't leave Wesley or any teenager feeling as awkward as they would feel after asking any adult on this kind of subject.
Anyway, one thing leads to another and Wesley gets to see that his dream girl can shape shift into a monster too (no surprise to the audience) and it makes him reevaluate his feelings which I thought was kind of shallow on his part. But then I have to remember that his character is a teenager and the shock would probably have a more negative affect on him than an adult. And now as you can see, even I'm not talking about the base of the story line anymore, which, I suppose, means they accomplished what they intended in this episode. They get where they're going and the personal relationships are all resolved and we've all forgotten why everything escalated in the first place.
Wesley gets to see Salia in her true form which is a beautiful light being of some kind, although the effects weren't that great at the time. It makes him feel better about what she is. Worf, too, gains respect from Anya that he reciprocates which was just another time waster. I think they were trying to add to Worf's character in his trouble with Anya, but it was a little flat and unnecessary.
Another valid life lesson is learned at the end when Wesley is confiding in Guinan at the end of the episode. It's these parts that make it a watchable episode that is fairly intelligent for a change and is a perfectly acceptable addition to Wesley's character development. If only they'd tried this hard in all of his episodes.
Still, it's only a three star episode as the birth pains of the best Star Trek series of the bunch continues.
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