10 Most Satisfying Star Trek Moments
1. The Ressikan Flute In The Jeffries Tube
Easily the most touching moment in the entire franchise of Star Trek comes in the episode Lessons of The Next Generation. Captain Picard unintentionally disturbs the work of Lt. Commander Nella Daren in Stellar Cartography and is at first wary of her, then comes to appreciate her as time passes for them.
As the restrained romance between the two of them is allowed to blossom, they discover their mutual love for music. Nella takes Jean-Luc into the Jeffries tubes to find the place with the best acoustics on the ship, where she sets up her piano and Picard brings his Ressikan Flute, the instrument that defined his life in The Inner Light. In that singular instance the audience is reminded of the entire life that Picard once led, the family he had, the love he had to leave behind and all of his choices. The emotion in the scene is woven into the music and it soars beyond any moment in Star Trek before or since.
In one of the Main Engineering side-rooms, Geordi comments to Data that he heard music, but Data says that he cannot hear anything. Geordi then wonders why it stopped. We're then shown the tender moment of passion between Picard and Nella as they kiss in the depths of the ship.
The episode would later go on for the two to realise that their relationship could never work in the long run, as her superior, Jean-Luc would be forced to order her to perform hazardous duties and their feelings could cloud their judgement. Jean-Luc realises that he has chosen a life of duty and with that comes loneliness, making this moment of music bittersweet. But for just a moment, they were happy with each other's melodies.
They're not all about ships shooting one another. Sometimes the best moments, the most satisfying, are the realisation of character and a chance at happiness, in whatever form that might take.