It may not be the best Trek episode, if you hold to what Roddenberry envisioned Star Trek to be, but it is one of the best television episodes. In series TV, episodes are spread about all the actors and the guest stars may play a big role. But this episode takes all the supporting TNG actors off the stage and just focuses on Picard. The same with the guest actors. They are there but you know something is up because you know the situation. So it becomes an acting tour de force, and that is something Stewart is certainly capable of. And the pay-off is the final scene when he realizes what has happened. It's almost like one of those great Twilight Zone episodes. A totally self-contained episode with one key point. Like the one where Burgess Meredith only wants to read books and does not care about the rest of the world....then the nuclear bombs hit and he is finally alone to read all his books, and he stumbles and breaks his glasses. The entire episode was the build up to that point, just like the entire Inner Life episode was a build up to the point where Picard realizes what has happened. TV episodes really don't follow that kind of format anymore.
It's always fun watching an episode of a series you love for the first time. I think for me, the last episode of TNG I remember watching was Face of the Enemy. I always kept missing it when it came out so when the DVDs were coming out, I was able to see this episode finally and it's become my favorite Troi episode of the series. Glad you liked Inner Light. It's a marvelous episode with a tour de force performance from Sir. Stewart.
Maybe I should mention, I dont mean the originals , i was wondering if someone somewher made replicas of them that are available to buy. Its a long shot, but I have to try :-)
This may have been stated already, however the way I understood his semi-quick recovery as I do when I come out of a very intense dream- one of those dreams that seems to be real, but when you wake up you realize after awhile it is not real but still affects you slightly for awhile. This event did affect Picard as did the even with being assimilated by the Borg.
That is exactly what I thought the first time I ever saw this episode. I was just sitting there like "whoa, that was pretty heavy man" at the end of the episode. One of the best epsiodes of Next Generation, in my opinion.
Why would you think Picard is the one, most suitable person in all of Starfleet? The most suitable of the bridge crew, yes. Possibly not even the most suitable on the Enterprise. I'm reminded of "Running Scared" by Roy Orbison, another classic that's all about the high note. TIL is definitely on the Star Trek A-list, and there are definitely people who don't like it.
Morgan Gendel, who wrote the episode, recently gave a talk all about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTuUozZGC5Y It's an hour long, and he makes some pretty interesting commentary on the episode as well as the original development of the idea.
One of the best standalone episodes in all Trek. But on the subject of The Inner Light; do you think the Kataanians actually looked human or did the probe tech just adapt to the user/Picard, Kamin's son looks suspiciously like Jean-Luc? Was Kamin just a name, perhaps of the probe's inventor, and the family merely a construct for the user/Picard's emotional investment? If so would that undermine the episode's message?
This episode is one of those where TNG actually treats the show as a "character piece," that's meant to explore a what-if scenario, instead of, perhaps, treat the episode as something more literal. That I'm OK with, but the logic of these people to use their resources in this way, their planet dying and such, to drill into someone's head from lightyears afar ... it's lazy writing, actually. And, being an Artist myself, I mean ... yes, we're all individuals, but an Artist community is never going to look like that. It's going to have dynamic street Art, creative festivals, colourful graffiti and murals. The people are going to have personality ... not like what we're seeing here, where Ressik's creativity seems, well ... constipated. There's some weird pots and some attempt at an interior design motif. But in the main, it's anything but an Artist Community, I'm sorry. But the lack of urgency of these people to take an active interest in their shared fate is very distracting from Picard's tale, here. Because it keep coming up, only to be casually dismissed. And it's like ... "why?" And Eline had no chemistry with Sir Patrick, whatsoever. Kamin only seemed to marry her because she was "there." And when she's about to give up the ghost and he's all like, "... you always did have a flare for the dramatic," it's like ... Picard, who the hell are you talking about? Because I know it's not Eline. I do love Meribor, I think she's very beautiful. Very sweet. And I don't know why, but I do, sort of, buy her as Picard's kid. I'm so glad that TNG tried to do something like this with Picard, to take on the challenge of showing him in a different light. But it all went awry, someway. I don't know how. The script seemed sort of rushed to me, for one thing. These people are dying, it would be nice to give the audience a reason to care, beyond just Humanitarian reasons. There's truly nothing special about them and the script is very persistent on this point. Everyone we meet is just sort of low key and goes about their daily lives ... It's not fair to the audience to rush something like this, when the script presents so much that really does need to be supported and still fleshes out ... nothing. And then to give PIcard this consolation prize of a damn flute, of all things! Only Sir Patrick could've sold that exchange with Riker, nobody else. The direction of this show is very manipulative I'm noticing, too and I hate that shit, because it's cheap. Instead of developing a storyline assigning reasons to care, we get these occasional moments intended to tug at our heartstrings. The wort of it, the absolute worst of it is that the episode is so self-aware that it's presenting an "important" story for Picard. It would've benefitted a lot from not working from a rough draft ...
I didn't realize one needed a reason to care about the entire population of a planet being wiped out beyond the fact that they seem to be good people who are being wiped out.
My favorite TOS episode has Spock & Kirk literally sweeping up around an early 20th century soup kitchen, for most of it. I think The Inner Light is just fine as a premise, & Stewart's performance sells the whole thing. It's not perfect, but so what?
I thought the episode was just fine until the end when the plays the flute. I'm a very cynical person that doesn't get upset about stuff but I got emotional at the end. The ending sort of put the episode on another level for me.
Yea, I don't like the episode at all. The characters are flat. I'm like yawning and wishing their sun would go super nova sooner. And I just don't know if I would want to have a baby if I knew that the world was going to burn up before the baby was 7 or so. It's a depressing episode and he spends 50 years playing that one song and it Still sounds Terrible.
Although I have always liked this episode, this is a point that I have an issue with. I certainly wouldn't want to raise a child in that environment. On the other hand, it seems unclear just how long these people have left. Even though the story gives the impression that death and doom are close at hand, we really don't know how many more years the planet has before it becomes completely uninhabitable. At the end of the episode they appear to still be living decent lives so maybe the child would still have acceptable quality of life. I don't really know.