The Dauphin

I have to say that the story was quite well done and very nice characterisation of the Princess Bride ala Star Trek starring Young Wesley Crusher.

It kinda illustrates the difficulties that Wesley goes through as a fatherless boy and millions of answers he his seeking as he grews into a Young Adult aboard a working Starship. Very Poignant story.

Who was that girl? There really is not much info on Jaime Hubbard, she was only in a few TV shows from 1989-1995. No Bio, No other info or trivia on her page. I understand she was about 25 years old in this episode, but sells the Alien Teenage Princess thing beautifully.

So of course Wesley develops his first crush. Unfortunately, the girl has a nanny "Anya" acting as a Deflector Shield (Voice Actress Paddi Edwards - Who ironically was the voice of 'Gozer' in Ghostbusters).

In fact, Paddi the nanny was the high point of this Ep. We all thought she was just a protective old woman until she changes into a monster in sick bay. An "Alasamorph" - maybe a distant cousin to Odo, a Shapeshifter, and she's good at it. But her over-protectiveness is interrupting normal ship operations, and Salia (Jaime) is affecting Wesley the same way, he can't get any work done.

Picard confines Anya to quarters. She has a great confrontation with Worf. This gives Salia a chance to sneak out and chase down Wesley.

But "Nothing is as it seems", in more ways than the obvious. It is not simply that the nanny 'Anya' is not who she seemed, but we see Salia talking to a young woman and then a short alien bear. Eventually we figure out that these are also Anya, and she is much more than a Nanny.

Basically this episode is Anya and Selia's taxi ride from Harlem to The Bronx, and what they did to spend the time. The Enterprise is simply a backdrop, and it was lucky for Salia as well that Wesley was there to get all bothered.

This episode was long before they had any digital shots, so there are a couple of transformation sequences done by Dan Currie which were matte paintings shot over each other in rapid succession. The end result was fantastic. Eventually, Foundation Imaging would do CGI for Odo's transformations in DS9, but here, they could do more than the regular Orangish Odo-Goo, you could see the hair and skin textures developing in each piece of the transformation.

This episode in fact had a lot of great imagery, and it was all practical effects. It's worth seeing, even if you don't like Wesleysodes like this. But the Wesley-Salia salivation is not the only connection, there is a strong Anya-Worf connection, and the interaction between Michael Dorn and Paddi Edwards is like watching two boxers in the ring. Or, even better: Two Klingons with Bat'Leth's

A decent episode, the teen angst worked well enough, but for me the highlight was how Guinan and Riker sold their flirting showcase to Wesley. Just a short clip, but it was really starting to sizzle!

Thinking back knowing what will happen to Wesley, does anyone ever wonder if he stopped by on his journeys to visit Salia?

This TNG story involves the Enterprise on a mission to bring back Jaimie Hubbard the teen princess of a divided world to assume her thrown now that she has reached her majority. The princess arrives accompanied by her maid/protector/duena and it seems to be taken from the story of Mary Stuart when she arrives in Scotland from France.

The companion is played by Paddi Edwards who protects Hubbard from all but official contact. That's not pleasing to Hubbard as she's spotted Wil Wheaton who is close to her age. As for Wesley Crusher his hormones are kicking in.

Needless to say Hubbard is not what she seems and neither is the duena who can summon up some fierce powers in protecting her charge.

Nice to see Wesley growing up even though first female attraction for him is not quite what he imagined it to be.

I'm sure many found this charming. For me, it was just so so. If it weren't for the implications of the young woman's presence, it wouldn't be all that gratifying. The Enterprise acts as envoy to take a teenaged girl (or so we think) along with her guardian to hopefully settle hostilities on a couple warring planets. Wesley Crusher sees her and it's lights out. Suddenly, his work begins to suffer and he seeks advice on how to woo her. The funniest is Worf who explains Klingon mating rituals. Wesley is flabbergasted. Meanwhile, the guardian tells Picard to keep Wesley away from the young woman. She has big fish to fry and doesn't need distractions. This character is a shape-shifter and is able to take on the presence of an enormous creature or a silly looking bear-like thing. The young woman has the same powers and so any dalliance with Wesley is compromised. There is a touching scene where he shows her some of the holodeck projections from other celestial locales and they have a nice moment together. We still know where this is going. A pleasant episode and a bit of development for Wesley's character. Worth seeing, certainly.