Star Trek: 25 Greatest Next Generation Episodes

3. The Inner Light

Even though not many people can resist a fast paced, morally ambiguous, even violent episode of TNG, similar to I, Borg, which premiered the week before this episode, the drama in this episode is quite literally perfect.

The Enterprise encounters an ancient probe adrift in space, when a beam of light incapacitates Picard. He wakes up over a thousand years in the past as Kamin, a respected member of a small community on the planet Kataan, and he has run a high fever and suffers from delusions of grandeur, notably the delusion of being Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation starship Enterprise.

Over the course of 25 minutes, Picard lives out an entire lifetime as Kamin, eventually coming to terms with the idea that Kataan is his real home. He has a wife, children and a grandchild, and lives a full life. However, he discovers evidence that a supernova is imminent, and in his final moments he witnesses the very probe that he saw years ago being launched to seek him out.