Patrick Stewart, who we all know played Captain Jean-Luc Picard on ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’, held an AMA session on Reddit where he was asked about his favorite episode of the series.
It turns out his favorite just happens to be one of the most critically acclaimed episodes of ‘TNG’:
“My favorite episode is “Inner Light.” It was a beautiful script, which for me was almost entirely located away from the Enterprise—and its crew! And because I was given the chance to perform what Picard would have been like if his life experience had been different. But another important reason is that I had a son in that episode who was played by my son, Daniel Stewart. And if you care to see how he has grown up, watch my new series Blunt Talk.”
What’s interesting about this episode is that the majority of it takes place off the Enterprise. An energy beam hits Picard, knocks him out and sends him into a dream state where he’s an entirely different person.
In this state, Picard wakes up as a man named Kamin living on the planet Kataan. He has a wife and a son, and when he tells people that he’s actually Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise, no one believes him.
We see Picard, as Kamin, living out the rest of his life, to the point where the viewer wonders if Picard’s time on the Starship Enterprise was actually a fever dream. However, Picard is eventually revived, and the episode ends with a beautiful moment where we see that Picard’s time on Kamin has a profound effect on him.
“The Inner Light’ was written by Morgan Gendel who co-wrote the teleplay with Peter Allan Field. It won the 1993 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. You can watch the full episode over at CBS.
Source: Reddit
