Product Details

• Actors: LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden
• Directors: LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Language: English, French
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Paramount
• VHS Release Date: January 1, 1998
• Run Time: 46 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304614071
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,007 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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  #1 in	Video > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Television > Star Trek: The Next Generation
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
When the Enterprise detects a foreign object floating in space, a relatively primitive probe of some sort, the crew members are surprised when a beam of energy is able to penetrate their shields. Before they know it (and before the credits), Captain Picard is knocked down and psychically linked to the probe through the beam. In Picard's head, he is on a desert planet where everybody thinks he is Kamin, a man recovering from a fever, even his wife. He quickly ascertains that he is not in a holodeck program, that he's not a prisoner, that there is no way to find--much less contact--the Enterprise, and that everybody thinks he is nuts for believing he is a starship captain. On the bridge, Dr. Crusher and company are trying to understand the beam's effect on Picard, while on the desert planet entire years are passing. Kamin gives up on ever finding the Enterprise. Over the years he falls in love with his wife and starts a family. Though previous episodes have explored the fact that Picard has foregone personal relationships in favor of his career, here he is forced to live a stable family life and, in so doing, finds out that not only is he good at it, but he likes it. When the beam turns itself off 20 minutes later, Picard emerges changed, having been given the chance to live the life he never thought he wanted. Excellent acting supports a strong and thoughtful script. --Andy Spletzer

From the Back Cover
An alien probe approaches the Enterprise and fires a mysterious particle stream which renders Picard (Patrick Stewart) unconscious. He wakes in unfamiliar surrounding and learns that he is "Kamin", a simple iron weaver living on the planet of Kataan.

Meanwhile, on the Enterprise, the crew is unable to revive Picard. Only seconds have passed, but on Kataan it has been five years and Picard is settling into his new life.

While the crew traces the probe back to Kataan, a planet that has been dead for a thousand years, Picard learns that his new home is being destroyed by drought. As time passes, he becomes a father and a grandfather, but the drought continues to worsen. Desperate to keep their memories alive, the people of Kataan launch a probe into the future - the same probe which brought Picard to their world!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the most amazing hours of television ever...., August 23, 2001

By	L. Feld "lowkell" (Arlington, VA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"The Inner Light" is one of the most amazing hours of television that I've ever seen, and quite possibly the greatest Star Trek (original, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager) episode of all. And the thing is, it's not even really science fiction per se..."just" a great story filled with excellent acting, directing, ideas, and emotion! Not much!! :)

Where do I even begin to praise "The Inner Light?" Well, for one thing, Patrick Stewart is amazing as Kamin, a married man (to a beautiful woman named Eline) living in the community of Ressic on the planet Kataan, which is in the midst of what people think is just a very bad, extended drought. What really is happening is that the planet is dying, and there's nothing the inhabitants can do except to save a piece of their world in the form of a probe whose purpose is to find "someone who could be a teacher, someone who could tell the others about us." A thousand years later the probe finds that "someone" - Picard - who it locks onto in order to allow him to live most of a lifetime in only 20 or 25 minutes!! What this does is allow Picard to experience everything he never could as a Starship captain - a wife, children, rootedness in a community, and much more. This episode is worth watching for that alone, but there's so much more!

Besides Patrick Stewart as Kamin, let me just list a few other great things about this episode (in no particular order): 1) Patrick Stewart's real-life son Daniel does a fine job as Kamin's son Batai (named after Kamin's late best friend); 2) Kamin's passionate -- and classic -- advice (knowing that the planet is dying) to his daughter, Meribor on whether she should marry her boyfriend Danek "sooner rather than later" is powerful: "Seize the day, Meribor. Live now! Make NOW always the most precious time! Now will never come again" (Meribor's response: "I love you father"); 3) the oily 'Administrator,' who condescendingly assures Kamin that his idea for atmospheric condensers will be considered (Kamin, of course, knows that "there will be no condensers"); 4) the beautiful, haunting music, especially of the flute that Kamin plays; 5) the end of the show, when Riker hands Picard the same flute and leaves Picard to hug the flute to his body as he tries to hold on to what he has just experienced, the woman he loved, the children and grandchild he had, etc.; 6) the friendship between Picard and Council Member Batai; 7) the love that grows between Kamin and his wife, Eline, and in particular the scene where Kamin says he wants to build something but needs her permission first, and the look on Eline's face when he says "a nursery," and much more.

What's amazing about "The Inner Light" is that, although not a phaser is fired, and although 95% of the show takes place off the Enterprise, this is still a great Star Trek episode - maybe the best ever (ranking up there with "City on the Edge of Forever" and "Yesterday's Enterprise"). Poignant, thought-provoking, dramatic, mind-boggling - these are just some of the adjectives that come to mind with "The Inner Light." In sum, this is one of the most amazing hours of television ever. Buy it now; watch it now!

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bittersweet, January 14, 2000

By	Paul Lopez "Stop the Madness" (Albany, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Anyone who says television is a barren wasteland has never sat and watched "Star Trek:TNG". "The Inner Light" has to be one of, if not the best, moments in TV history! This episode will make you smile, bring a tear to your eye, and perhaps win you over to the "world" of Star Trek(if you are not already there!). Watch as Picard "lives" an entire lifespan, a brief moment in "real-time", as a mysterious probe imparts the final chapter of a long-dead civilization into his mind, and leaves a parting gift, a simple flute(seen again in later episodes), as a "Thank You" and tender reminder of his "experience". It don't get no better than this!

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars PHENOMENAL, November 2, 2000

By	Dean Smith (Crane Hill, Alabama United States) - See all my reviews

This has to be the most amazing episode in Star Trek history!!! I never wanted it to end. Very rarely do I encounter a piece of television where it should never end. I shared every moment, sympathized and empathized. I laughed, and also shed a tear. this episode could have lasted all day I would have loved every minute!! To see Picard as a normal person, without all the starfleet pomp and circumstance, clearly was emotional (especially when the viewer realizes his true worth as a captain).

Well done patrick and a big thumbs up to the writers.