TNG Pitch Involved an Unexpected Love Triangle

The “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episode “The Inner Light” is often listed as one of the series’ best. Its premise is unique: a passing space probe zaps Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) in the brain, rendering him unconscious. He wakes up on the distant planet of Kataan next to a woman named Eline (Margot Rose), who claims to be his wife. She tells Picard that his real name is Kamin and that he is from Kataan. She says he suffers from amnesia and that his life as Picard was just an elaborate hallucination.

Picard is suspicious, but after several months, he begins to feel that Eline is right. They begin to develop their relationship and Picard, now Kamin, settles into a comfortable life. Many years pass and Kamin becomes an old man, fathers children, and then sees his grandchildren. Picard, previously a loyal professional with no romance in his life, became a patron of the family.

Throughout Kamin’s life, however, the action returns to the Enterprise bridge, where Picard lies unconscious on the ground. Kamin’s life is a mere simulation, and the probe that zapped him was the last vestige of Kataanian civilization. It’s a tragic twist for an emotional episode.

The episode’s writer, Morgan Gendel, spoke at length about “The Inner Light” with Nerdist in 2017, and he explained his creative process and some of his early story ideas. Gendel admitted that when he was brainstorming ideas for “The Inner Light,” technological ideas preceded any ideas about Picard’s emotional journey. Indeed, Gendel initially imagined a story in which Picard, Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Ensign Ro (Michelle Forbes) are all afflicted by the probe and teleported to the same dream space. Gendel even said that a love triangle would develop between the three characters. This idea was rejected by the “Star Trek” writing team.

When Gendel presented the episode, he was just a freelancer. “Star Trek: The Next Generation” was one of those rare television shows that accepted fan scripts and developed whatever ideas they liked. Gendel worked with one of the show’s big bosses, Michael Piller, to turn his “hallucination probe” idea into a story. He said his original concept was “What if the Enterprise encountered something very strange, like a probe, and the next thing you know, Picard, Riker and Ro Laren end up on another planet?” He also said that the idea for such a probe came to him while he watched the Fuji Film airship pass by his window.

Obviously, it was Piller who suggested that “The Inner Light” focus exclusively on Picard and offer the character the type of family life he had previously given up. Gendel wanted a threesome with Picard, his first officer, and the fiery ensign who had just joined the crew. Indeed, it seems that the trio would stay in the imaginary world for so long that the two men would end up falling in love with Ro. Gendel originally said:

“[I]it was going to affect [Picard, Rike, and Ro]they were all going to be mutually involved in this affair, and at one point there was even a romantic triangle. But when I brought this up, they decided to give the whole story to Picard. And I had been nervous about saying that in the pitch meetings, but Michael Piller jumped on that idea, just giving Jean-Luc Picard the family life he’d never known.”

In the end, the uniquely Picardy story worked wonderfully, and Gendel said his script inspired Stewart to give one of his best performances. Gendel would go on to write “Starship Mine”, an action episode inspired by “Die Hard”. It’s also really, really good.