Darmok

Darmok was an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that aired in 1991. It featured Captain Jean-Luc Picard meeting an alien whose language consisted of metaphors and references. Joel Mintz considered it to be a "total classic". (PROSE: Return of the Living Dad)

When Bernice Summerfield first saw it airing in 1994, she thought it was a documentary. (PROSE: The Left-Handed Hummingbird)

Behind the scenes
Darmok was referenced in the novel Return of the Living Dad by Russell T Davies. The basic sysnopsis of a hero trapped on a planet with an alien who can only speak in metaphors and references was a likely inspiration for Russell T Davies' episode Midnight:

""In 2008, I wrote a Doctor Who episode called 'Midnight.' Is it like 'Darmok'? I don't know. But stripped down to its essentials, it's a story about a hero, an alien, and words. That's practically the same billing. Maybe the two shows are profoundly different, but I know for a fact that all those years of wondering about 'Darmok' led me to that script.""

- Russell T Davies