“The Inner Light genuinely explored the human condition , which this franchise does better than any other when it does it well.”

As the decades pass, the crippling drought on Kataan gets progressively worse. Kamin, now an elderly widower, watches his friends and loved ones pass away as his planet slowly dies. Finally, on the day of a long-awaited spacecraft launch, Kamin learns the truth: Kataan has been gone for millennia, destroyed by a supernova its residents were powerless to prevent. The probe was launched in a desperate attempt to preserve something of their civilisation for future generations. This interactive time-capsule contained the lifetime experiences of a single person: Kamin. The interstellar message-in-a-bottle eventually found Jean-Luc Picard.

When Picard awakens on the bridge of the Enterprise, having accrued over 30 years of memories as Kamin, he struggles to comprehend that just 25 minutes have passed on the ship. Visibly shaken, he retreats to his quarters and is visited by Commander Riker bearing a gift. The probe, now disabled, contained one final keepsake for Picard: the flute that had become Kamin’s lifelong pastime. Riker departs, and Picard clutches the relic to his chest. In the episode’s wordless final scene, Kataan’s sole emissary puts the flute to his lips and begins to play.

“Now we live in you. Tell them of us, my darling.” Eline’s last words to Picard

Taken too literally, the story of “The Inner Light” is an easy target. One might point out the implausibility of a primitive civilisation (facing its own extinction, no less) managing to beam a 30-year-long interactive life simulation directly into the brain of whichever space-faring alien happened upon their probe. Or, you might take issue with the sci-fi trope of white, English-speaking, humanoid extraterrestrials. But these criticisms are largely irrelevant to the central thrust of the episode, which is a beautiful twist on the Enterprise’s mission to seek out new life and new civilisations.

“The Inner Light” is a hauntingly significant contemplation on our own mortality, and - crucially - on the importance of storytelling to our culture. In a scene cut from the final episode, Data manages to decipher the inscription on the outside of the probe: Inside each of us lives an entire civilisation. This was inspired by a Talmudic proverb to the effect that killing a single person (and thereby his or her descendants) is like murdering an entire people. Faced with their own extinction, the people of Kataan sought to preserve their existence - not with genetic samples, as suggested by Kamin - but simply by finding someone who could walk in their shoes and tell their story.

“I always believed that I didn’t need children to complete my life. Now, I couldn’t imagine life without them.” Picard as Kamin, father to Meribor and Batai

“It demonstrates the potential of genre fiction to astonish us and move us ... it manages to be beautiful, hopeful, and devastating all in its final scene.”

Like many of the best episodes of The Next Generation, it’s also a character study. Jean-Luc Picard, the serenely stoic starship captain, explores his personal road not taken - he falls in love, starts a family, and nurtures an introverted passion for music. Picard’s quiet life on Kataan in some ways mirrors that of his reclusive brother Robert, as seen in “Family”, the final part of the “Best of Both Worlds” trilogy. This isn’t the first time Picard has had the chance to explore the ‘what-ifs’ of his past - the omniscient super-being Q gave him a similar opportunity in the sixth season episode “Tapestry”.

However, therein lies one of the biggest flaws with “The Inner Light”, and it extends to The Next Generation as a whole. The episode is, in many ways, the epitome of the perfect science-fiction short story - it’s thoughtful and moving within its limited runtime, but largely a self-contained entity. The consequences of Picard’s experience - which would surely have been profound - are left almost-completely unexplored, a failing demonstrative of the show’s reluctance to capitalise on the serialised nature of television.

In the show’s defence, The Next Generation was never conceived of as a serial. As writer Michael Piller explained, “We try to tell stories that can be told in one hour, and that’s what we do very well.” In practise this means that the so-called ‘reset button’ is hit at the end of every episode, and the events of the preceding hour - no manner how momentous - are largely forgotten, the next episode thus starting on a clean slate.

What’s more, “The Inner Light” is actually bestowed with more in the way of follow-up than most episodes. “We were after a good hour of TV,” explained series producer Ronald D Moore. “The larger implications of how [Picard’s experience] would really screw somebody up didn’t hit home with us until later.” As such, the show’s production team contented themselves with a spiritual successor in the following season (“Lessons”). Episode writer Morgan Gendel actually published his own webcomic sequel when his idea for a follow-up episode was rejected, on the grounds that The Next Generation “didn’t do sequels”. Eagle eyed fans might also spot a few trivial references that might pass for easter eggs: the Ressikan flute makes a background appearance in a deleted scene from 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis.

Picard’s sojourn on the long-lost world of Kataan feels like it should be the start of a much grander story. Beautifully acted and wonderfully written though they may be, episodes such as “The Inner Light” feel somehow lacking when viewed as part of a larger Trek universe.

Indeed, watch The Next Generation today and one cannot help but imagine a Star Trek with the rich, sprawling, interweaving plot-lines inherent to a heavily-serialised TV drama.

There’s just one small problem... it’s already been done.