A really beautiful episode and apparently one of his favourites. That moment at the end where he realises what's happening - "Oh, it's me! I'm the one it finds!" - so touching and such a wonderful performance.
I think, with this many decades of hindsight, it is not unfair to claim The Inner Light is TNG's City on the Edge of Forever.
It's every performer in the episode hitting on all cylinders on a script that is doing what science fiction is for.
ETA: Having poked at it a bit, I have just learned that Morgan Gendel and Peter Allen Fields shared a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation for that script... The first time a Star Trek script won a Hugo since the previous award to Harlan Ellison for the script for City on the Edge of Forever. Nice to know there's a semi-objective metric by which the episodes are already rated as equivalently impactful.
Richard Riehle, the friend in that episode passed on quite recently as well. Was also in Office Space and a fantastic satire about scope creep in projects for the military, of all things.
A really beautiful episode and apparently one of his favourites. That moment at the end where he realises what's happening - "Oh, it's me! I'm the one it finds!" - so touching and such a wonderful performance.
I think, with this many decades of hindsight, it is not unfair to claim The Inner Light is TNG's City on the Edge of Forever.
It's every performer in the episode hitting on all cylinders on a script that is doing what science fiction is for.
ETA: Having poked at it a bit, I have just learned that Morgan Gendel and Peter Allen Fields shared a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation for that script... The first time a Star Trek script won a Hugo since the previous award to Harlan Ellison for the script for City on the Edge of Forever. Nice to know there's a semi-objective metric by which the episodes are already rated as equivalently impactful.
Richard Riehle, the friend in that episode passed on quite recently as well. Was also in Office Space and a fantastic satire about scope creep in projects for the military, of all things.
Yes it's my favourite too. For some reason I had set the VCR when it first aired and I'm really happy I did.
I learned today that the son in that episode is Patrick Stewart's son.
It's a wonderful episode, always in the Top 10.
I thought it was a lovely version of an ancient idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi_(book)#%22The_Butterf...