Despite its having significant weaknesses and being the sort of episode that many fans of the show automatically dislike (a love story for Wesley!), I personally enjoy this episode too much to rate it any lower than three stars. Granted, nostalgic affection may play a role here; still, I genuinely think that its strengths outweigh its weaknesses. The relationship between Wesley and Salia is the heart and soul of the episode, and although even it isn’t perfect, it does mostly work. The annoying guardian character is a bigger problem, and the shape-shifting stuff doesn’t really serve the episode well, but neither of these things is bad enough to ruin the episode.
It’s in episodes like this one—along with others from around this point in the show—that the “sense of family” that the first season occasionally tried to convince us existed among the officers of the Enterprise actually begins to seem authentically present. In the previous episode, the going-away party scene in which Wesley urged Data to tear the wrapping paper on his gift offered a taste of it, but it emerges even more fully here. Notwithstanding the painfully misguided aspects of the Wesley character, this is actually something that the character is useful for; as a teenager growing up among the officers, he provides a plausible and effective focus for forging this “family” sensibility. Plausibility issues aside, for instance, I enjoy how he and Geordi generally interact and work together on the show. In this episode, the bit where Geordi sends him to acquire a tool, but he sees the girl in a corridor and ends up getting distracted and forgetting to complete the errand, I find both effective and endearing—and ditto for Geordi later calling him on being too lovesick to be useful, and sending him packing. The device of him going to various characters, one after another, to ask advice about women is also amusing (and presages similar sequences in later episodes). This is a story that probably works better this season—with Wesley’s mother away—than it would have in any other season; it’s one of many coming-of-age-type stories for the character, and the absence of his parents thrusts the rest of the characters into the roles of surrogates in a way that works well.
The actual love story isn’t extraordinary, by any means, but it also doesn’t need to be. Its simplicity makes it believable given the youth and naivete of both characters, and it feels genuine enough to be both involving and slightly touching—and that’s good enough. Salia’s separate story about feeling trapped in her destined role, meanwhile, is passable, but not enthralling (mainly due to being pretty underdeveloped, I think). As for the shape-shifter business, it feels a bit pointlessly thrown in and extraneous, and the conflict stirred up between Wesley and Salia over it seems utterly bogus; I don’t buy it at all, and I would call it the episode’s most serious flaw. Since it doesn’t ultimately ruin what I find engaging and worthwhile about the Wesley story, though, I find myself inclined to give it a pass.
All in all, then, this is a genuinely character-focused episode, and one that I remember fondly, even if some of its story elements don’t really work. That sounds like a pretty straightforwardly three-star episode to me!