5.25 — “The Inner Light”
Plot: Picard is transfixed by a beam from a mysterious satellite, which sends him into a strange coma. He awakes as Kamin, an iron weaver on the planet Kataan. Kamin is married to Eline, who has concerns about her husband’s strange memories.
Thoughts: Simple grace touches this story in memorable small moments. Like Picard/Kamin’s advice to his daughter: “Seize the time, Meribor. Live now. Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.”
A light touch masks a story which raises deceptively complicated issues and feelings. Picard lives 30 years in 25 minutes. Inexorably we forced to confront simple truths: Time is relative. The past is an illusion. All we know of reality is our perception. Meaning found in life is as durable as lifelong commitment, and fragile as a popping soap bubble.
Second chances, alternate lives…this episode has qualities that make the reviewer turn gassy.
For reasons like these “The Inner Light” won the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1992, the first episode of television to do so since “The City on the Edge of Forever” in 1967. IMDB users like this episode better than any other, giving it a crazy high rating of 9.4. While I’m not sure ratings are comparable across series, “The City on the Edge of Forever,” DS9’s “Trials and Tribbleations,” and Season Three’s “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” all have a 9.3.
While a whole different life is created for Picard, it is, like his shipboard career, a seemingly perfect life in an environment free of conflict. This seems integral to the appeal of the TNG brand.
More energy and detail is expended in set dressing and clothing than I remember in any other episode. They do fabulous things with light, making me believe several scenes are filmed outside when they were mostly filmed on a sound stage. Qualities of light resonate many ways with this story about a dying planet, a beam, and memory.
The episode is named after a Beatles song by George Harrison, with lyrics adapted from the I Ching. The lyrics are surprisingly on point. The song does not appear to be on YouTube, but I found a live cover here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XcwjQ82b4E
5 out of 5 Ressikan flutes. What do you think?
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