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Episode
131
The Dauphin
Wesley is in love. With a girl. Maybe. Most of the time she is a girl. The rest of the time, she is not even human. Puppy love! Shape shifting! Planet saving! It is just another day on the Enterprise when we put The Dauphin in the Mission Log.
Where is it!! The dauphin is broken…*sniffle*
You totally beat me to the Space: 1999 Series 2 monster reference! (I was wondering whether the spirit of Freddy Freiberger had snuck back onto the Trek set.) Didn’t know the ‘morphing’ was hand drawn. I’ll be kinder about that, then, cause I thought it was not-ready-for-prime-time-cg. Anyway — this ep makes zero sense. But, what the hey… Wesley got some.
Agreed on all points.
Is it just my phone? All other podcasts will load for me except thisun right here.
Did the problem clear up? Seems to be working on my iPhone. Not sure what may have caused that for you.
Compare and contrast this to Wes’ mom who is fine with boning a Trill who is wearing Riker’s body (uh — that’s gotta be a violation of the terms of service, guys), but draws the line when he becomes a chick. So, maybe not being 100% OK with dating a glowy ball with cactus leaves (I haven’t seen it in awhile, and that’s my best recollection of her form before transporting) is just how he was raised.
Bev is probably just not attracted to women. It’s allowed to be heterosexual. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with Wesley’s upbringing.
I kind of look at it as the attraction ending either way (hairy monster, glowing ball, etc.), but Wesley finally had some camaraderie and respect for her (and their time together) once Salia was ready to go. Now what would be interesting is if Salia came back in the physical form of a man. Wesley might have some confusion over that too.
Shades of DS9, with Bashir’s attraction to Jazdia Dax — whose former Trill host was male.
I’m very interested in this Beverly x Trill-Riker pairing you teased and the backstory. I certainly have no recollection of it.
“Dauphin” comes from the French word for “dolphin” (indeed, the animal is a “dauphin”). The feminine version “Delphine” is still a common girls’ name. Dauphin was a common name in the family that ruled the Viennois, in the Rhone valley and French Alps. Eventually the name became so associated with the family that it became their title (think of Caesar).
In 1349 the last Dauphin sold his land and title to the King of France. As part of the deal, the heir to the throne of France would be the ruler of the Viennois (or rather the Dauphiné de Viennois as it was then called) and bear the title of “le Dauphin”. This continued throughout the various dynasties of French monarchs.
This is similar to the title “Prince of Wales” in Britain.
Today, the French still call any heir apparent, for example, in a corporate hierarchy, the dauphin. And the region of the Alps around Grenoble is still called “le Dauphiné”. For example, the regional paper published in Grenoble is called “Le Dauphiné libéré”. And we love eating gratin dauphinois (au gratin potatoes).
So, john champion could have been one of my first adolescent crushes….food for thought. ^_-
Ha! I will wear that distinction proudly – the “almost” adolescent crush.
I find it interesting that Worf might have found Anya attractive and Laforge would likely respect her from what we know later about his character. In fact i find it interesting that they didn’t find each other to be more worth engaging with.
As to the mention of “Those who are different to you are always a threat.” That’s true… but at the same time everyone is different from you and thus everyone is potentially a threat. The problem is when you’re paranoid and over estimate that threat.
‘That’s true’??
No, it isn’t true!
In theory anyone at anytime can be a threat. It’s actually much easier to be hurt by those who are ‘similar’ because those people are more trusted and would be easier for them to cause harm if they wished.
Anyone not you is different from you, thus a threat. It’s true in a very broad sense.
However Anya meant more in the a “racist” way, but not quite I think as I get the feeling that she and her people have experienced the threat of others as the changlings speak of in their history later in DS9.
Well, people hurt themselves all the time, which means that yourself would be a threat as well. So everyone, different or the same, is a threat. YAY EXISTENCE!
I completely agree with Wesley being far to open with his romantic feelings. A 16 year old telling his co-workers about this problem? Wesley really does need some friends…
This is another episode that had a lot that it could have dealt with.
This would have been a good story to deal with duty, Anya trying to decide between what she wants and what she has a duty to do.
This could have dealt with racism (“Those who are different to you are always a threat.”)
But all we got was Wesley being hormonal
John, ever since I first saw this episode years ago, I have thought same thing – Maya from Space 1999.
Same kind of monsters, right? Just put ’em in a big furry suit with giant, scary eyes.
I always find myself filling in plot holes with my own made up stuff. Anya is obviously the same race of being as Salia, but is supposed to be a neutral caretaker in the civil war. The moon she was originally from must have been colonized by the people of the planet before the turmoil and they clearly kept out of the whole mess. This means almost nothing for the story, but there has to be some reason that Anya and Salia are both shape-shifters, but Anya is supposed to be outside of the conflict.
This is why shelly isn’t doing leo’s laundry….
This is why shelly isn’t getting leo’s laundry done.
from time to time I google the actors/guest stars to see what they are up to..IMDB..Salia/Jamie Hubbard got out of acting and went on to be a therapist/counselor. Interesting…. Man those furry costumes were brutal…hahaha cousins of the Founders? maybe not….
Jamie Hubbard, “The Dauphin” Salia became a therapist…
Another theme to be considered with this one is that old standby: Does the ends justify the means? Anya was ready to execute the infected crewman because of the very slim chance that the disease might break out and threaten her charge. Picard and Crusher argued that this was unacceptable, but obviously Anya, facing a threat that she wouldn’t have been able to personally combat, thought the risk too great.
I love posting to a thread where the last post was two years ago. It’s Spring 2017 now… I just saw this one rerun recently and was curious to listen to Ken and John’s thoughts. I have a lot less trouble with Wesley and his awkward “first love” response. He does much better than I would have at that age (I wouldn’t have been able to even approach her). However, it does seem like Wes should have been aware of Starfleet protocol about who can talk to heads of state being transported (or any passengers for that matter). His telling her that she could stay on the ship instead of doing her destined duty was not merely the naivete of puppy love; it was something that the Federation would have had a fit about. Not to mention whatever government is on Salia’s planet.
Far more troublesome than the puppylove theme, for me was the total lack of explanation of how her mission was supposed to work. How do you resolve a civil war by taking away a child of mixed parentage for up to 16 years and then bringing her back? The only possible scenario I can think of is that she was some sort of heir to a throne (as suggested by the title of the episode), but I don’t believe that ever was said. Was it in the story premise? Even so, what have the people of this planet been doing for 16 years? Still fighting? Is she going to overthrow a usurper who has been ruling all this time, merely by appearing as the “presto” true heir to the throne? It just doesn’t makes sense. Throw the audience a bone, at least to make it sound possible.
I was not put off by Wes’s pouty hurt reaction to the revelation that she was a shape changer, because a teenage boy geek with so little experience of anyone his own age might very well react to the situation with extreme feelings of rejection and anger. It would indeed seem like Salia was faking it and just playing with him. Especially considering how forward she was. I think there was a bit of the Kelvins going on: she was experiencing human feelings and (having taken teenager form) human hormones (and with none of the social inhibitors in place). Like the Kelvin’s she was overwhelmed by the experience of her own puppylove, bowled over by the innate “cute boy alert” response.
I could not help thinking of Charlie X too — how can she be at all functional having been raised in complete isolation without any society? Did Nanny take the form of other people to give her the sense of interacting with others? That was what was sad, for me. She could have been such a cool character (and was) but being raised by a paranoid xenophobe completely removed from her culture (and apparently doing nothing but academic study for her whole childhood!) could not have produced the poised, self-posessed and kind young woman we see. Quite apart from a “princess” who is going to arrive on a planet (completely alone!) to unify warring factions she has never met. Just sloppy writing that.
Lastly, I was reminded of the Organians. “Pure energy beings!” But no: in TNG we get an explanation without awe. Polasky (the ultimate downer) says they can change their molecular structure. Big deal. And when she turns into swirly light, Wes is a little awed, but Riker seems completely unfazed. “Oh, yeah, women do that to me all the time, Wes.” And they turn themselves into ugly monsters? Shades of “Man Trap.” Wes is lucky he didn’t get all the salt sucked out of his blood (let alone the iron). What do elasomorphs eat? Clearly not chocolate…
I enjoyed this on a very superficial level. I found Wesley to be adorable- if maybe unrealistically naive. There was a lot of humor in this episode that worked, in my opinion. My tv crush on Riker only grew stronger.
I think it’s nice to have episodes every once in a while that sweat the small stuff. It won’t always be creatures with godlike powers attacking the ship or potential interracial war.
This episode did something pretty creative and subtle. There’s this thing in teenage brains where they don’t understand that they won’t always feel a certain way (hence the melodrama, or more seriously, suicide rates). Inside Wesley’s hormone-addled, currently-remapping-prefrontal-cortex brain, things feel urgent and dramatic. This episode successfully shows his perspective by giving this episode an almost fish-eye lens feel. The filming is close-up for much of the episode. Maybe it’s me, but the camera feels lower to the ground as well. The editing builds drama and longing, despite very little happening.
Sometimes, when the show decides to do an episode around a specific character, they don’t get the perspective correct. It ends up being about them rather than through their eyes (see: Troi in The Child). But they nailed this.
I’ll agree it had some problems, and wasn’t the best episode, but I think the filming/editing should get some more credit.