I have a vague recollection of seeing "The Gift", but mostly for Pedro's horrible performance.  Whether this is an accurate memory or not, I remember the little boy saying, "I do not know where he is from.  I only know he is my friend." in monotone.

I think on so many levels, B5 could not have been the story it was post-9/11. 

I think he's more the "Eh, I don't believe in any God" kind of atheist rather than the "YOU FOOLS WITH YOUR ANTIQUATED RELIGIONS!" kind.  Therefore, he can approach elements of faith purely in terms of character and story, instead of as a cudgel of agenda.

You mean how "Thirdspace" takes place entirely between the first two scenes in an episode?

Right, there was that whole Lyta/Vorlon subplot here.  The review didn't even mention it.

And strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

I do really like "Passing"— it's probably one of the strongest "one-shot" episodes… but you're right that it's a little too pat, the pieces fit too easily.  But I think the performances are what really saves it.  Also it was a nice use of Death of Personality, though after the concept had essentially "paid off",…

I think you hit right on it: I like the idea of it far more than the execution of the idea.  But the execution gives me hope for someone whose grasp matches their reach to pull something off.

HUMANS ARE SUPERIOR!

@avclub-5e5e0bd5ad7c2ca72b0c5ff8b6debbba:disqus is right, it was Madman of the People— a show that highlights how high NBC was on their Must-See-TV Ruling The Airwaves vibe at the time.  Mad About You, Friends, Seinfeld and ER were pretty much the #1-4 shows every week, and Madman was… #9.  So it got cancelled, pretty…

"Of course, my child.  I can only imagine how filthy your clothes must be, given the choices you make in you life."

@avclub-0c3e626d1a287cdc48c77515c8dcc243:disqus Though in that case, at least they made it that core of the Doctor's moral breakdown came from choosing Harry over Ensign Whosherface, because he knew Harry well and she was just Enisgn Whosherface.  But, yeah, it was kind of crazy the idea that you would have a…

I've attempted, but even the semi-professional ones were too poor on the writing/acting front for my tastes.  Even Of Gods And Men, which features a good chunk of legit Trek actors, was something I couldn't get through.

My favorite was Lindsay Ballard, Harry's dead best friend from the Academy, who had been on Voyager for years before she died… but we don't actually see her until she comes back from the dead. 

Indeed, they made a whole episode about how Samantha MIGHT die, and then she didn't… but they seemed to forget that she didn't.  And Naomi only hung around Seven and Neelix for the rest of the series.

In the Federation, if you can pull any variant of the Twinkie Defense ("Energy beings were in my brain!" "I had a mating cycle artificially triggered!"), you just get a chuckle and a slap on the shoulder.

All the guest actors do nicely.  The two who are the security team have a nice buddy-energy going on.  It's just a couple lines between them ("Maybe we should introduce ourselves."), but you get a good sense that these are two people who've worked together for a while.

To be fair, "You were hopped up on Icy Hot at the time" is FAR TOO OFTEN used as an excuse in Trek for people doing horrible, horrible things.  "Oh, Data, you took over the ship and put all our lives at risk, but that's OK, because someone pushed your 'don't give a damn' button.  Let's try not to have that happen…

You know, I've seen this season multiple times, and seen Don't Tell Mom multiple times, and it only just now occurred to me that this reunited them from the latter.  And in that, they played brother and sister. (Though they don't really do much together…)

You hit on one of my biggest problems with "Stone"— the whole episode is triggered by John being a cold jerk to Chiana for to real reason.  She comes to him with something serious, and he's all, "Yeah, whatever, I've got a thing".   It seemed very a very out-of-character way to get the episode going, and thus badly…