An Early Pitch For A Classic Star Trek: TNG Episode Involved An Unexpected Love Triangle

The "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "The Inner Light" is often listed as one of the best of the series. Its premise is novel: a passing spatial probe zaps Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) in the brain, rendering him unconscious. He awakens 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's a native of the Kataan. She says he's suffering from amnesia, and that his life as Picard was all an elaborate hallucination. 

Picard is suspicious, but after several months, begins to feel that Eline is right. They begin to re-develop their relationship, and Picard, now Kamin, settles into a comfy life. Many years pass, and Kamin grows into an old man, fathering children, and then seeing his grandchildren. Picard, previously a stalwart professional with no romance in his life, became a family patron. 

Throughout Kamin's life, however, the action cuts back to the bridge of the Enterprise, where Picard lies unconscious on the floor. The life of Kamin is a mere simulation, and the probe that zapped him was the final remnant of the Kataanian civilization. It's a tragic twist to an emotional episode. 

The episode's writer, Morgan Gendel, spoke at length about "The Inner Light" with Nerdist back in 2017, and he walked through his creative process and some of his early story ideas. Gendel admitted that when he was brainstorming ideas for "The Inner Light," the technological ideas preceded any ideas about Picard's emotional journey. Indeed, Gendel originally thought up a story wherein Picard, Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Ensign Ro (Michelle Forbes) are all afflicted by the probe, and beamed into the same dreamspace. Gendel even said that a love triangle would develop between the three characters. That idea was shot down by the "Star Trek" writing staff.

When Gendel pitched the episode, he was a mere freelancer. "Star Trek: The Next Generation" was one of those rare TV shows that accepted scripts from fans, and would develop any ideas they liked. Gendel worked with one of the show's head honcho's, Michael Piller, to workshop his "hallucination probe" idea into a story. He said that his original concept was "What if the Enterprise comes across something very strange, like a probe, and next thing you know, Picard, Riker and Ro Laren would find themselves on another planet?" He also said that the idea for such a probe came to him while he was watching the Fuji Film blimp pass by his window. 

Evidently, it was Piller who suggested that "The Inner Light" focus on Picard exclusively, and provide the character with the type of family life he had previously forsworn. Gendel wanted it to a three-hander with Picard, his first officer, and the feisty ensign who had just recently joined the crew. Indeed, it seems that the trio would be in the imaginary world for so long that both men would come to fall in love with Ro. Gendel said that, originally:

"[I]t was going to affect [Picard, Rike, and Ro], they were all going to be mutually in this thing, and at one point there was even a romantic triangle. But when I brought all that up, they decided to turn the whole story over 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 had never known." 

Ultimately, the Picard-only story worked wonderfully, and Gendel said that his script inspired Stewart to give one of his best performances. Gendel would go on to write "Starship Mine," an action-forward episode inspired by "Die Hard." It's also really, really good.