Ask any Star Trek TNG fan to list their five favorite episodes and The Inner Light will make almost every list. Rightfully so. This is one of the best episodes in Star Trek lore. Maybe the best and built on a good story. Other reviews have described the plot of Picard living another lifetime in 20 minutes while mentally tethered to an alien probe. It is poignant, touching, beautiful, painful. What strikes me is the unseen epilogue.
Think about it. How can a person resume one life after experiencing another? From Picard's standpoint, he lived about 30 40 real years as someone else, only to be dropped back into his Starfleet life in an instant. Can he even remember how to be Captain after that long? Can he remember procedures and technical details and even the names of people he hasn't seen in decades? How painful his grief must be to have lost his wife years before, then his children. He outlived them all, and nobody else he encounters has any memory of them. In fact, it never really happened at all. Where is a support group for this? Recovering from a Borg assimilation seems almost pedestrian by comparison. He has lost a family, a world and a life. He is further tasked with honoring the wishes of a dead civilization that longed to be remembered. One wonders how a man as private as Picard will be able to tell of these people and share his pain and deal with his grief.
In all likelihood, he would handle this mostly in private. Maybe he would pull out the old flute the only tangible reminder of his other life and play it in the quiet of his own quarters. Great idea. The simple little melody is incredibly poignant as it speaks in just a few notes of the loss he must feel. It seems most viewers feel that loss as well. This viewer certainly did the almost tangible sadness has made the tears well up some at the end. Kudos for a great episode.
Think about it. How can a person resume one life after experiencing another? From Picard's standpoint, he lived about 30 40 real years as someone else, only to be dropped back into his Starfleet life in an instant. Can he even remember how to be Captain after that long? Can he remember procedures and technical details and even the names of people he hasn't seen in decades? How painful his grief must be to have lost his wife years before, then his children. He outlived them all, and nobody else he encounters has any memory of them. In fact, it never really happened at all. Where is a support group for this? Recovering from a Borg assimilation seems almost pedestrian by comparison. He has lost a family, a world and a life. He is further tasked with honoring the wishes of a dead civilization that longed to be remembered. One wonders how a man as private as Picard will be able to tell of these people and share his pain and deal with his grief.
In all likelihood, he would handle this mostly in private. Maybe he would pull out the old flute the only tangible reminder of his other life and play it in the quiet of his own quarters. Great idea. The simple little melody is incredibly poignant as it speaks in just a few notes of the loss he must feel. It seems most viewers feel that loss as well. This viewer certainly did the almost tangible sadness has made the tears well up some at the end. Kudos for a great episode.