I feel certain that the writers of Inner Light intended a comparison with The City On The Edge Of Forever, and it's good to see it recognized by Star Trek affictionados, and reviewers here.
The premise of how Picard enters this alternative life, is not particularly strong, any more than how Kirk and Spock enter their's in search of McCoy, but it doesn't matter because what then follows is totally believable and totally absorbing. We are allowed to lose ourselves completely in the non-Federation story line and the Enterprise and its crew are sensibly left almost completely out of it. In Inner Light we see the Enterprise only as a reminder of where Picard should be, but for the rest of the time we enter his world and alternate life as fully as he does. Giving the painfully private Picard an entire family is genius. He was the only man in TNG that could have been chosen by the Probe. And it ends like waking from a blissful, though heart-renderingly sad dream. Brilliant acting, stupendous writing and totally absorbing, it puts Inner Light up there with Time Squared and Darmok as the best TNG episodes for me. and yeah, I cry when I watch it too.
The premise of how Picard enters this alternative life, is not particularly strong, any more than how Kirk and Spock enter their's in search of McCoy, but it doesn't matter because what then follows is totally believable and totally absorbing. We are allowed to lose ourselves completely in the non-Federation story line and the Enterprise and its crew are sensibly left almost completely out of it. In Inner Light we see the Enterprise only as a reminder of where Picard should be, but for the rest of the time we enter his world and alternate life as fully as he does. Giving the painfully private Picard an entire family is genius. He was the only man in TNG that could have been chosen by the Probe. And it ends like waking from a blissful, though heart-renderingly sad dream. Brilliant acting, stupendous writing and totally absorbing, it puts Inner Light up there with Time Squared and Darmok as the best TNG episodes for me. and yeah, I cry when I watch it too.