The Inner Light

What a beautiful day outside and I spent quite a bit of the morning on a tractor spewing poo at my parent’s house. The rest I guess has just been uneventful which is ok for me!

Elliptical Machine- Calories: 907, Miles: 5.14

The Inner Light

The Enterprise encounters a mysterious space object that appears to just be floating, that is until it probes the ship and zaps Picard. The rest of the show operates in a series of vignettes, so I will describe them as such.

Scene 1-

Picard wakes up in a strange house in unfamiliar clothes and with a woman attending to him. He is told that he has been sick for several days and has just woken up from a deep sleep. His name is Kamin and the woman says she is his wife, Eline. Picard does not believe her and leaves the house in order to find the Enterprise or at least the truth in the situation. He comes to the city center where his friend Batai is glad to see that he has recovered. Picard returns to his home later that evening and finds that he is apparently stuck where he is for the time being. This vignette ends with Picard unconscious on the bridge with Crusher trying to find out what the problem is and the rest of the crew examining the probe.

Scene 2-

Kamin is working on his telescope when Batai comes by to collect him to talk to the minister of the planet. Kamin attempts to persuade the minister to create atmosphere condensers to help solve the draught problem. Kamin returns home to his wife Eline and apologizes for being so distant the last few years as he was occupied with his past life on “that ship”. To apologize he asks her if he may buy a nursery so they can start their lives with a family. This vignette ends with Data attempting to sever the probe’s connection on Picard but this ends in near disaster as it almost kills the captain.

Scene 3-

Kamin now an aging man with two children and one that they are just naming as this vignette opens. They name their son after Batai, who died one year ago. Kamin and his daughter later on at a more advancing age, are doing research on the water problem. They discover that the planet is dying and that there is only a limited amount of time available on before the planet’s whole population will die. This vignette ends as Kamin’s wife dies.

Scene 4-

Picard is still unconscious and on the bridge the probe sent out by Riker finds that the object was sent by a planet that has apparently died over 1000 years earlier. Kamin is playing with his grandchild when his daughter, son and grandson come to get him. They are going to watch the launching a probe. Suddenly everyone that Kamin has ever known surrounds him and they are asking him to share the memory of their dead planet.

Scene 5-

Picard comes to after the probe shuts down automatically. Crusher explains that he has been out for 25 minutes when Picard feels he has been out for nearly 45 years. He is unsure how to deal with this change and while reflecting in his quarters Riker delivers a box that was found in the probe. The box contains the flute from his life on the planet, the show ends with Picard playing the familiar melody on the flute.

What a touching episode this is and is rightly on several top ten lists for the series. Patrick Steward delivers an incredibly moving performance as a man moving through his life span. I cannot understand how this performance was not nominated for an Emmy and how this show didn’t garner any writing or drama nominations from the Emmy’s and the Globes. It is a shame the science fiction is never fully recognized for its dramatic credits. Another fun fact to the show is that Kamin’s son Batai is played by Patrick Stewart’s real life son.