As a transitional casting episode, The Gift introduced us to one of the primary plot arcs for the next season or more, 7 of 9's sometimes-difficult reversion to being as fully human as her residual Borg implants will allow. The secondary plot, Kes leaving the ship (and show) actually seemed somewhat underdeveloped, with so little explanation that it almost felt like a hurried deus ex machina to help usher the character off as quickly and with as little fuss as possible. Aside from an emotional scene with Janeway, this particular plot had little power and less resonance.
In the 7 of 9 arc, I found a couple things troubling. One, Janeway (and the engineering people) was extremely negligent in keeping a close eye on *everything* 7 of 9 was doing. Posting some random yellow-shirt to hang around was hardly a believable security measure from Captain Janeway, given the treacherousness the Borg had displayed JUST ONE EPISODE AGO and the clearly-fervent connection 7 of 9 felt for the Borg even when disconnected from the Collective. It made no sense, especially when Janeway introduces 7 to the engineering group and implied that 7 was trustworthy and sincere and didn't need to be treated with suspicion (at least our lovely resident half-Klingon was smart enough to do so.) Another problem I had was how *terrible* Janeway was at argumentation. Though she references the danger 7 represented a couple times, she seemed to be speechless at 7's clearly fallacious arguments about how she's being treated. Janeway doesn't bother to point out that 7 had brought it on herself, or that there were clear differences between being thrown into the brig and being forcibly assimilated, or that the Borg had already demonstrated that they'd take Voyager without a second thought (a Borg should easily understand the logic there) or even that 7 was demonstrating why she shouldn't be immediately set free even as she stood in that cell. That was just bad writing and not in keeping with what we've seen of the character of Captain Janeway.
My last problem comes from the end of the episode, where we clearly made a time jump into the future. It was lazy. All of the sudden, Janeway feels 7 can be trusted, the Doctor has pared down her Borg physiology as far as he could, and 7 seems to be practically friendly. That's an awful lot of character development y'all just skipped over, buddies. Tacking that ending on made your jobs easier, to be sure, but it also worsened the series by taking the easy way out.
(Also, why did Tuvok not receive a security alert immediately after 7 took control of room in Engineering? He would never have turned those off -- he's Vulcan and meticulous about his job as Chief of Security. And, without any further information being shared as the situation is resolved, the captain is talking to him as though he'd been privy to everything that had been happening all along.)
In the 7 of 9 arc, I found a couple things troubling. One, Janeway (and the engineering people) was extremely negligent in keeping a close eye on *everything* 7 of 9 was doing. Posting some random yellow-shirt to hang around was hardly a believable security measure from Captain Janeway, given the treacherousness the Borg had displayed JUST ONE EPISODE AGO and the clearly-fervent connection 7 of 9 felt for the Borg even when disconnected from the Collective. It made no sense, especially when Janeway introduces 7 to the engineering group and implied that 7 was trustworthy and sincere and didn't need to be treated with suspicion (at least our lovely resident half-Klingon was smart enough to do so.) Another problem I had was how *terrible* Janeway was at argumentation. Though she references the danger 7 represented a couple times, she seemed to be speechless at 7's clearly fallacious arguments about how she's being treated. Janeway doesn't bother to point out that 7 had brought it on herself, or that there were clear differences between being thrown into the brig and being forcibly assimilated, or that the Borg had already demonstrated that they'd take Voyager without a second thought (a Borg should easily understand the logic there) or even that 7 was demonstrating why she shouldn't be immediately set free even as she stood in that cell. That was just bad writing and not in keeping with what we've seen of the character of Captain Janeway.
My last problem comes from the end of the episode, where we clearly made a time jump into the future. It was lazy. All of the sudden, Janeway feels 7 can be trusted, the Doctor has pared down her Borg physiology as far as he could, and 7 seems to be practically friendly. That's an awful lot of character development y'all just skipped over, buddies. Tacking that ending on made your jobs easier, to be sure, but it also worsened the series by taking the easy way out.
(Also, why did Tuvok not receive a security alert immediately after 7 took control of room in Engineering? He would never have turned those off -- he's Vulcan and meticulous about his job as Chief of Security. And, without any further information being shared as the situation is resolved, the captain is talking to him as though he'd been privy to everything that had been happening all along.)