Hey, Keith
You said suburban Ohio — are you the AV Club writer from Toledo? I know one of you is. Anyway, me too. I'm a few years younger, and was quite a few points less cool, and was discovering most of these records a good bit later. But otherwise my experience would sound much the same.

Get Lonely left me cold, at first. For most artists, the break-up record is the scary and dark one. But compared to his usual subject matter of drugs, death and disaster, it seemed both too tame and just depressing. It's grown a lot on me over the years, though. "Maybe Sprout Wings" and "Moon Over Goldsboro" are…

I seem to remember even Sirtis, bless her heart, is pretty fun in Power Play.

That's pretty sad, actually. Didn't the episode even HAVE a director? I mean, SOMEBODY is supposed to read the whole script and get this stuff straight, right? But I guess I believe it.

@CFAmick — the legal staff of the Alien Influence Bureau will have their work cut out for them next week with "Power Play."

Obligatory Next Week Thread?
What've we got? "Power Play." I remember a decent pulpy little story. Meaney and Spiner chewing scenery. Not too bad. Solid B+?

Yeah, it seemed like they were setting up the failure of the relationship there, but they backed away from it, and made them cute again. Stupid.

"I am healthy / I am whole / But I have poor impulse control / And I want to go home / But I am home."

"Finally, "MacDuff" just doesn't sound Jewish to me."

Hosted by Alistair Cookie!! I'm on board.

Oh, I don't know, Alurin. It's an interesting reading, though I doubt it was intentional. I mean, they'd already done an Israel/Palestine story in big gigantic letters with "Ensign Ro."

Well, there's something to that, Mrs. God. The egregious example was the Klingon attack on the station, led by Fake Martok. There are a lot of grim preparing-for-battle, with Bashir warning about heavy casualties and whatnot. Then, the Klingons actually show up and get their asses handed to them by a bunch of humans…

Colby — well said. I agree that he became one of the top five Trek characters of all time by the end. (I put Picard and Spock ahead, the rest is doubtful.) And he must have appeared in more episodes than anyone else, right?

Yeah, LOTWTC has aged pretty well.

Yeah, Spot. Must wash brain. Of all cringe-inducing Trek romances, that was the cringe-inducing-est. It blighted the end of that series.

@ Prick Decay — A singalong at the end of the world. Brutal. Cheers, brother.

Doesn't lead to anything, though, since he never mentions her once he shows up on DS9. And he's into Klingon women again, though he can't stick with it. Once you've had a smooth skull, there's no going back.

And Psychic — "This is an empty country…" I don't know that one, but I'm going to check it out. I'm a huge fan, but it's a huge body of work, and there's lots of stuff I haven't heard.

God, "Dilaudid." Chills.

That does sound pretty good, and I've never seen a single episode of Voyager. But I'm going to pre-emptively scream DS9 Did It Better! "Whispers!"