Star Trek: The Next Generation ~ S5 E25: The Inner Light

There is a reason people write guides to assist in the binge-watching of iconic shows like Star Trek, the X-Files, and Lost. While Star Trek was a huge influence on the pop culture consciousness, the reality is that not every episode of every twenty five episode season is a winner. People value their time (yes, even binge watchers), and very few people are happy to throw away forty five minutes of their time on the origin of Jack's tattoo. Those poor souls who have suffered this misfortune, then, are often inclined to create elaborate documents in the hopes of preventing future viewers from committing the same folly.

If I were the author of one such guide, I would surely recommend that viewers skip this particular hour of programming. The reason? The Inner Light, the penultimate episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation's fifth season is, in so many words, kind of a turd. Let's talk about it.

A Hallucination is Worth a Thousand Words

After a routine survey of some star system (hell, pick any one you like), the Enterprise is attacked by one of Star Trek's favorite tropes an unidentified probe. Rather than serenade them with beautiful whale song, the probe targets and attacks Captain Picard. This sets up the episode's B story, which has the ship's crew scrambling to wake him from his probe-induced catatonia.

Dorothy! Dorothy dear, it's Aunt Em darling!

In the A story Picard wakes up on the planet Kataan, Here, a woman named Eline calls him Kamin and claims to be his wife. Knowing nothing of The Federation, she chalks it up to an illness that recently befell Kamin when he says he's the captain of a starship. She tries to stop him from leaving, but his totally fierce runway strut leaves her stunned as he makes his exit. Tyra would be proud.

I demand to know what you've done with my sleeves at once, ensign!

On his jaunt Picard stumbles upon the Ressik town square, where he finds Kamin's friend Batai planting a shrub. Here he learns more about Kamin's life, as well as the drought that threatens the people of Kataan. He chats with Batai, who tries to convince him to return home and rest, but Picard does what he wants like a teen mom on Maury. He goes on a walkabout.

The truth is out there Scully.

When he finally decides to return home, Picards finds that Eline has been waiting up for him. A hot meal and a good scolding later, he says "what the hell" to all of that outer space hooey and decides to really go for the whole Kamin thing. He and Eline start a family. He throws himself into local politics, working to sell the government on a plan that will save the people of Kataan from the nearby supernova that threatens their species. He takes up the flute. 

Settle down everybody, settle down. I still have seven rounds of Frère Jacques to go.

While the crew of the Enterprise flaps around like a brood of headless chickens, Picard blissfully continues about his idyllic life in the bucolic, if dry, town of Ressik. Days pass, then months and years as Picard fully immerses himself in the role of Kamin. While Doctor Crusher sits on her hands, befuddled, Picard grows old. He watches his little girl turn into a woman, and experiences great joy. He watches his little boy turn into a weird young man, and experiences regret.

Father? I'm changing my name to Flynn.

He crushes it on the flute.

When he's like 70, he learns from his teenage daughter that all of the bacteria in Ressik's once-healthy soil has died. This spells doom Kataan's people. Picard expresses sadness in knowing that his daughter won't have the chance to live a full, rich life.

When my weird son told me to call him Flynn, I flipped my shit.
Took twenty years off of my life. That boy was never right.

Picard tries again to convince a government representative that their people are in danger and action must be taken. The representative informs him that the government has already reached the same conclusion. Unfortunately, they simply lack the technological capacity to do anything about it. Everyone is going to die. Never the patient type, Eline decides she'd rather just die now and get it over with. More years pass.

The Enterprise crew enjoy a cocktail in Ten Forward.

Then he becomes a reclusive scientist who performs genetic experiments in
human-animal hybridization on his secret island in the South Pacific. The end.

In the final days, the Kataanites (yes, that's what I finally landed on) launch a probe into space. Meanwhile, the show launches a probe right into Exposition Town. You see, the probe they're sending out now is the very same probe encountered by the Enterprise a thousand years later. The whole thing was a hallucination. We know this because all of Kamin's dead friends are now here, telling him. They forced him to live out an entire lifetime as Kamin because they knew they were doomed and wanted someone to know about them.

They forced him to live out an entire lifetime, in his mind, because they wanted someone to know about them.

Now, as upsetting as this is to me, it is not a revelation. We've known all along that this was all some kind of illusion created in Picard's mind. We see his unconscious body on the ship, and we know that whatever's happening to him is being done by the probe. We know that he isn't growing old on Kataan because he's unconscious for, like, twenty five minutes. That's the main problem with The Inner Light. It's a mystery episode in which the central mystery is not a mystery at all.

There were never any stakes either, nor was there any real tension. Yes, there was the whole thing with life on Kataan being ended by its sun going nova. Sure. But again, we knew all along that it was just a dream. The final revelation that Kamin and company were long dead was something that was basically spelled out earlier in the episode, when Data pointed out that all life on the planet from which the probe originated had been extinct for a thousand years. Picard was basically Kataan's Tommy Westphall. Except that all that stuff actually happened, in the past. I'd like to take a moment to mention that this episode actually won a Hugo award in 1993.

That makes me sad, somehow.