Trek Thursdays: Trekking Towards Sixty #14 — ‘The Inner Light’ And ‘Future Imperfect’

On September 8th, 1966, an intrepid crew of explorers boldly went where no one had ever gone before on television. At that moment, Star Trek was born. A series that launched a franchise that has kept a firm grip on audiences for decades.

As the sixtieth anniversary approaches, we here at Comicon are ready to celebrate one of the greatest science fiction franchises. While Star Trek has graced the silver screen, most of its life has been on our television screens. So, that’s where our focus shall remain.

Every week through September 8th, we’ll be spotlighting two Star Trek episodes, from any and every iteration, that we feel are some of the greatest. At this point there are over 950 episodes of Trek, so it goes without saying some favorites won’t make the cut for this list of 60.

Imagine waking up or passing out and suddenly finding yourself living a life that is unlike the one you recall. It could be totally different and you’re a different person, or it could be very similar but somehow, you’ve lost literal years of your life to get here.

In the immortal words of the bards Talking Heads, “And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife, and you may ask yourself, ‘Well … how did I get here?’”

That’s the premise of the episodes chosen this week. Two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation where two of the main cast very much are asking that question of themselves at some point. One where a captain finds himself living out the dying days of a long-passed civilization and another where his first officer faces a strange seeming future.

At least one of them got a flute out of it. Though, the other did get to tell off his boss in this moment so maybe he actually won.

-RED ALERT: SPOILERS FOLLOW-

“The Inner Light”
Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season 5, Episode 25 (06/01/1992)

Synopsis: An encounter with a strange alien probe leaves Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) living out the life of another man long gone. The crew of the Enterprise tries to shake the probe’s influence as their captain must live through the final, dying decades of a homeworld and its people.

Yep, it’s the flute episode.

Okay, yes it’s known for that in some ways, but there is so much more to this episode. As TNG entered its last few years, the series began to really shift — giving characters more focus and allowing actors to stretch far more than they often could in the more standard “adventure of the week” approach.

Episodes like this were the closest that Trek came to serialization, until the later seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Small elements were carried into other episodes, such as Picard having and playing the flute, giving the series more flavoring beyond the usual science fiction trappings. One could argue that this sort of approach kind of began with Picard himself, after the whole “Best of Both Worlds” Borg assimilation plotline which carried some scars into future episodes.

This episode is one that really stands out for the basic premise. Picard lives the life of a man named Kamin, while at first still knowing that he is Picard and wanting to get home. Eventually he begins to live the life, caring for his family and trying his best to warn about the catastrophe that is coming for their homeworld.

A people creating a probe that will allow their memories to live on by beaming the simulation into others’ minds is an intriguing premise. Their world was doomed but they didn’t want to die forgotten. What happened to the residents of Kataan lives on within that probe and now the mind of Picard himself.

There’s a sad and poignant beauty to this episode and what it does. It puts a spotlight on a character but also the overall topic of climate change and drought and how people can ignore what is before them until it’s far too late.

Watching Picard get to have the life that he never realized he might want, embracing things like having children, and the bittersweet nature of how it’s going to end really hits. He becomes Kamin while never losing what made him Picard, and really loves this family that came from the lifetime which passed in the simulation. The loss of them all something that surely stuck with him, and colors some of his future feelings about things.

Having the probe only create one thing at the end and it being the flute of Kamin was another grand touch. Ending with Picard playing it, a really somber and haunting tune from a dead people was a choice. A good one at that.

“Future Imperfect”
Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season 4, Episode 08 (11/12/1990)

Synopsis: When an away mission interrupts Commander Riker’s (Jonathan Frakes) birthday celebration, the officer suddenly finds himself waking up in sickbay sixteen years in the future. Working to put together the pieces about the sudden shift and the changes to his life, the now captain of the Enterprise begins to suspect something darker might be at work.

This is one of those episodes that definitely falls into the bank of rewatchability for me. A simple premise that is very at home in science fiction, executed in a way that could almost work as an alternative look at the future. Instead, it turns out to be a con within a con within a con of sorts.

Frakes really plays the confused, intrigued, and then eventually very angry Riker so darn well here. As noted above, the episodes in these latter seasons with more character focus and depth are so good. Hell, this one again deals a bit with canon and serialization connections as the reveal of Riker’s “wife” is a callback all the way to first season of the series.

Honestly, I truly love when Riker begins to piece together things are off after the wife, Minuet (Carolyn McCormick), reveal. He interrogates Geordi La Forge (Levar Burton) about how a level one diagnostic shouldn’t take him this long, because Geordi is incapable of that level of incompetence. He demands Worf (Michael Dorn) to explain one of his scars and gets no answer from a Klingon of all people. Riker puts Data (Brent Spiner) on the spot to do calculations and then catching the android suddenly using contractions which the real Data would never do. Oh, and then the moment when he turns on Admiral Picard:

“I said shut up! As in close your mouth and stop talking.”

Also, gotta love employing Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) in a typical far-too-obvious way as she tells Riker she senses he is angry as he’s yelling at people. In this case, the usual silly way to use her powers at least makes sense for it being a poorly put together simulation.

Episodes like this where the actors get to play differently than normal are always fun. They’re playing their usual characters but with shifts and have to also play their characters kind of in an “inferior” way to their usual, since this is a simulation realized with limited resources where more and more holes start to pop up to give Riker the breadcrumbs he needs to reach the end.

Having the “culprit” be an orphaned alien child who just wanted to connect is a nice touch at the end. The child wanting Riker as a father fits, because that guy would be an awesome dad. He’s not just a bad ass — Riker’s whole thing is being the very caring and fatherly first officer who would do anything for those in his charge.

Also, props to this episode for predicting eventually a Ferengi would be in Starfleet.

Telling your boss, even in a simulation, to shut up still might beat getting a flute. Then again, that flute an piece of music is pretty cool.

Come back next week as we dive into two more of Star Trek’s greatest episodes.