The Inner Light (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

"The Inner Light (Star Trek: The Next Generation)"

"The Inner Light" is the 25th episode of the fifth season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. The episode was written by freelance writer Morgan Gendel based on his original pitch; Gendel is credited as writer of the story and co-writer of the teleplay with Peter Allan Fields. It is the penultimate episode of the season and was first broadcast on June 1, 1992. The episode has an average rating of 4.8/5 on the official Star Trek website, and has been listed by several fan surveys as one of the two best episodes of the Next Generation series, along with the episode Family. The flute melody was composed by Jay Chattaway and has since been re-arranged for full orchestra. In 1993, "The Inner Light" won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

Plot

Stardate 45944.1. The Enterprise has just finished a magnetic wave survey of the Parvenium System, when they encounter an unknown probe which scans the ship and sends an energy beam to Captain Picard, rendering him unconscious. Picard wakes up to find himself on the surface of Kataan, a non-Federation planet; A woman identifies herself as his wife, Eline, telling Picard that he is Kamin, an iron weaver recovering from a feverish sickness. Picard talks of his past memories on the Enterprise, but Eline and their close friend Batai, convince Picard that his memories were only dreams, and acclimate him into their society as Kamin. Picard begins living out his life as Kamin in the village of Ressik, starting a family with Eline, and learning to play the flute. As the years pass in Kamin's life, he begins to notice that the planet is suffering a worldwide drought due to increased radiation from the planet's sun. He sends reports to the planet's leaders, who seem to ignore his concerns.

Years pass and Kamin grows old, outliving his wife. Kataan's sun continues to raise the temperature of the planet toward a level beyond what life can tolerate. One day, while playing with his grandson, Kamin is summoned by his adult children to watch the launch of a missile. As he walks outside into the glaring sunlight, Kamin sees Eline and Batai, as young as when he first saw them. They explain that he's already seen the missile; he saw it just before he came there. Knowing that their planet was doomed, the planet's leaders placed the memories of their culture into a probe and launched it into space, in the hope that it would find someone who could tell others about their species. As he watches the probe launch aboard the missile, Picard suddenly recalls his earlier life aboard the Enterprise.

Picard wakes up on the bridge of the Enterprise to discover that only 25 minutes have passed. While he was unconscious, the crew of the Enterprise tracked the probe's course back to a scorched and desolate planet whose sun went nova 1000 years previously. The now inactive probe is brought aboard the Enterprise and the crew finds a small box within it. A somber Riker gives the box to Picard who opens it to find Kamin's flute. Picard, now adept at the instrument, plays the melody he learned during his life as Kamin.

Title

Morgan Gendel named the episode after "The Inner Light", a song written by George Harrison and released by The Beatles as a B-side to "Lady Madonna":

Without going out of my door

I can know all things on earth
Without looking out of my window

I could know the ways of heaven

The lyrics of Harrison's song are in turn based on the 47th chapter of the Taoist Tao Te Ching:

Without going outside his door, one understands (all that takes place) under the sky; without looking out from his window, one sees the Tao of Heaven. The farther that one goes out (from himself), the less he knows. Therefore the sages got their knowledge without travelling; gave their (right) names to things without seeing them; and accomplished their ends without any purpose of doing so.

According to Gendel, the song "captured the theme of the show: that Picard experienced a lifetime of memories all in his head."

Ressikan flute

After the episode aired, Picard's flute could occasionally be seen in its box sitting on his desk. Its final appearance was in a deleted scene from Star Trek Nemesis; Lieutenant Commander Data picks it up and examines it while discussing human life with Picard. The original placement of this scene was to have been immediately following the wedding ceremony shown in the opening scenes.

The flute is considered a lasting reminder of Picard's virtual life on the planet throughout the rest of the series. It plays a role in the episode "Lessons" where Picard develops a romantic relationship with a stellar cartographer assigned to the Enterprise, Nella Daren, who encourages his musical side, and with whom he performs a duet version of the "Inner Light" theme. Later, Picard is seen recording a piece on the flute in the beginning of "A Fistful of Datas."

Picard's instrument resembles a "penny whistle" or a "tin whistle", in which a similar sound as Picard played can be produced.

The simple theme that Picard plays on his flute was later developed into a full orchestral suite for the 30th anniversary of Star Trek.

Christie's Auction

The brass Ressikan flute was one of the items up for bid at the Christie's official studio auction of Star Trek memorabilia, which took place on October 5–7, 2006. The prop flute, which cannot actually be played, was originally estimated to have a sale price of US$300. Auction directors admitted that their estimates for many items did not "factor in that emotional fury generated around this kind of material". The estimate was later raised to $800–$1,200 on Christie's web site.

In the days leading up to the auction, Denise Okuda, former Trek scenic artist and video supervisor, as well as co-writer of the auction catalog, said: "That's the item people say they really have to have, because it's so iconic to a much-beloved episode." The final bid for the flute at the auction was US$40,000. Including the additional 20 percent fee Christie's collected on all items from the winning bidder, the total price for the flute was $48,000.

Critical reaction

The episode is considered by fans to be the most touching of the series' episodes, along with the similar Family episode. It is the favorite episode of actors Patrick Stewart, who played Captain Jean-Luc Picard, and Wil Wheaton, who played Ensign Wesley Crusher. Star Trek writer Susan Sackett notes that it is also her favorite episode even though not one she wrote. "The Inner Light" was ranked among the top five episodes in a "viewers' choice" marathon that was broadcast just prior to the premiere of the series finale.

This episode won the 1993 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. The award was given at the World Science Fiction Convention in San Francisco. "The Inner Light" was the first television program to be so honored since the original Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever" won in 1968. The other Hugo Award-winning Star Trek episodes are "The Menagerie" (the only two-part episode of the original series) and "All Good Things..." (the series finale for The Next Generation).

Cultural references

The Inner Light has been compared to the Japanese folktale, "The Dream of Akinosuke.

On the episode "Big Man on Hippocampus" of the animated series Family Guy, the Griffin family are contestants on the game show Family Feud. The category is "Something you'd like to receive as a gift", and Peter Griffin answers: "The flute Captain Picard played first in his imagination, then in real life, in the episode The Inner Light from Star Trek: The Next Generation." It turns out that "Picard's Flute" is indeed one of the answers, a fact Peter knows because he was one of the people surveyed.

Further reading

• Bond, Jeff (1999). The Music of Star Trek. Lone Eagle Publishing Co. ISBN 1580650120.
• Gendel, Morgan (1992-03-24). Star Trek: The Next Generation - "The Inner Light" #40275-225. Paramount Pictures Corporation. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Richards, Thomas (1997). The Meaning of Star Trek. Doubleday. ISBN 0385484372.

External links

• The Inner Light at Memory Alpha
• The Inner Light at StarTrek.com