I have said it often and loudly. Surprisingly, I've never said it here.
Ask me what episode of Star Trek, any series, is the best of the lot and there's only ever one answer.
The Inner Light.
Picard lives the life of a simple citizen scientist in an agrarian community on a planet that's been destroyed by a nova some thousand years ago. He awakes on an unknown planet as himself, lives for years among the locals, has a family and experiences all the joy and pain that entails, for all intents and purposes leaving Jean-Luc Picard behind as a memory and living as Kamin until old age.
The make-up is as good as any aging make-up I've seen on television.
Margot Rose provides a believable, if long suffering, wife to Sir Patrick Stewart.
Most importantly, there's zero action, no fighting, no phasers (much to Worf's chagrin) and no enemy to defeat.
What you have here is some of the greatest science fiction ever filmed. The people who launch the probe that eventually finds Picard do exactly what we here on earth do every time we launch something beyond our gravity well. They send a message to the unknowable future and an unimaginable recipient that says "this is who we were, remember us, please".
Stewart acts up a storm, easily his greatest work on the show. The writing is tight, the direction intimate and the creators keep the 24th century portion of the story to a minimum. It's a tour de force across the board.
Don't even get me started on the flute. Whoever added that little detail deserves an Emmy of their own, just for that.
The writers stuck with "less is more" for the important bits. It would have been so easy to over write the death scene of Kamin's wife, but instead, Margot Rose's Eline reminds Kamin one last time to put his shoes away...
It's so real. So quiet. So...perfect.
Even after seeing it at least half a dozen times over the years, I tear up every single time I see it.
Like just now.
Every. Single. Time.
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