“O’Brien Must Suffer” is a unique subgenre of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode, but which one is best for the audience and worst for Chief Miles O’Brien (Colm Meaney)? Originating in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Chief O’Brien became a regular member of the Star Trek: DS9 cast because the producers wanted to give Colm Meaney a bigger role. Promoting the show a month before it aired in the Official Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Magazine #1, Meaney said that O’Brien was the same as he was in TNG, but just had “to deal with many more problems“.
Colm Meaney’s words turned out to be eerily prophetic, as it was soon decided that once or twice a season the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine writers would put Chief O’Brien through the wringer. These episodes later became known as “O’Brien Must Suffer” stories, and many of them make up the canon of Chief O’Brien’s best Star Trek episodes. Writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe explained why it was so important to the DS9 writers to “torture” O’Brien once or twice a season in the DVD special feature, Crew Dossier: Miles O’Brien on the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 5 boxed set. Read Hewitt Wolfe’s quote below:
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 6, episode 15, “Honor Among Thieves” is something of an oddity, playing out more like a cop show than an episode of Star Trek. However, it ticks the box of making O’Brien suffer by placing him inside the Orion Syndicate to expose a Starfleet mole. Over the course of his investigation, O’Brien also discovers that the Dominion are using the Orion Syndicate as trigger men for an assassination attempt against a Klingon ambassador.
O’Brien’s information is passed from Starfleet Intelligence to the Klingon Empire, who will execute the would-be assassins. If that wasn’t morally dubious enough, O’Brien has become close to one of the men, Bilby, whom he’ll be sending to his death. To save his friend’s life, O’Brien is forced to admit his betrayal, but it’s not enough to convince Bilby not to walk into a Klingon ambush. The final scene in which O’Brien cares for Bilby’s cat is brutal, showing how traumatized Miles is by the whole ordeal.
In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 3, episode 7, “Visionary”, O’Brien contracts a rare form of radiation sickness that allows him to travel through time. These time jumps allow O’Brien to unmask a Romulan conspiracy to destroy both DS9 and the Bajoran Wormhole to prevent the Dominion from entering the Alpha Quadrant. To foil the Romulans’ plot, O’Brien has to keep shifting into the future, which increases the fatal effects of the radiation sickness.
As in “Whispers”, Chief O’Brien again has to watch himself die, as the time traveling version encounters the corpse of his future self, the victim of sabotage. In the climax of the episode, the time traveling version of O’Brien finally succumbs to his radiation sickness, and sends his future self back in time to replace him. It’s a mind-boggling paradox that must have made life quite difficult for O’Brien in the immediate aftermath of the events of “Visionary”.
“Armageddon Game” is the episode that bonds Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s two best friends, Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) and Chief Miles O’Brien (Colm Meaney) for life. Having been targeted for execution by the Kellerun, Bashir and O’Brien have to go on the run, hoping that eventually their crewmates will come to their rescue. The only problem is that everyone on DS9 believes the lies that O’Brien and Bashir perished in a tragic accident. It’s only due to Miles’ wife, Keiko O’Brien (Rosalind Chao), that Commander Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) realizes that he’s been lied to.
While not officially the start of the “O’Brien Must Suffer” trend, the Chief does suffer a great deal during Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 2, episode 14, “Armageddon Game”. Not only is he forced to spend time with the youthful and arrogant Dr. Bashir in close quarters, O’Brien gets infected by the very bioweapon that he and Julian were sent to destroy. A cure is eventually found, and the Chief’s life is saved, but it’s fair to say that he’s been through hell and back, made worse by the fact that Dr. Bashir thinks he and O’Brien are bonded for life.
The first proper example of an “O’Brien Must Suffer” episode, “Whispers” follows an increasingly paranoid Chief O’Brien as he comes to believe that the entire crew of Deep Space Nine have been replaced by impostors. In reality, the audience is actually following a replica of O’Brien, who is a sleeper agent programmed to assassinate a visiting dignitary. However, O’Brien’s strength of character is so great that his replicant sets out to solve the mystery rather than succumb to his programming.
Technically, the real Chief O’Brien is unconscious for almost the entire runtime of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 2, episode 14, “Whispers”. So it’s DS9‘s O’Brien replicant that truly suffers, experiencing paranoia, alienation, isolation, and ultimately death. Still, the existential horror of the real Chief O’Brien looking into the dying eyes of his replicant is more than enough to categorize “Whispers” as the first true example of the “O’Brien Must Suffer” episode in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 5, episode 5, “The Assignment”, Keiko returns from Bajor to reveal that she’s the victim of demonic possession. During a visit to the Bajoran Fire Caves, Keiko is possessed by a Pah-wraith, essentially the demons of Bajor’s religion. In “The Assignment”, the Pah-wraith embodying Keiko threatens to kill her unless Chief O’Brien assists it in destroying the Celestial Temple of the Bajoran Prophets. Family is everything to Chief O’Brien, so there’s a particular type of pain for him witnessing his wife being inhabited by a malevolent force.
O’Brien is stringing the Pah-wraith along so that he can eventually save Keiko and avert the destruction of the Wormhole. However, O’Brien still has to shoot his wife with a chroniton beam to remove the Pah-wraith from Keiko’s body. O’Brien and Keiko were Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s emotional core, the everyday family put under the extraordinary pressure of living in the Star Trek universe. It’s for that reason that “The Assignment” feels particularly gruelling as this down-to-earth husband and wife are placed right in the center of a conflict between angels and demons.
The O’Brien family are tested once again in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 6, episode 24, “Time’s Orphan”. When Molly O’Brien (Hana Hatae) falls into a time portal, she returns as a teenager, who has gone primal after spending so many years alone. It’s a unique parenting challenge for both Miles and Keiko, who struggle to cope with their young adult daughter. Events reach a head when Molly tears up Quark’s Bar and stabs a patron with a broken bottle. This crime forces the Federation to order that Molly be sent to a special facility, something that Miles and Keiko oppose.
With no other options, the O’Brien’s break Molly out of prison, with help from Constable Odo (Rene Auberjonois). Returning to the planet where they lost Molly, the O’Briens were fully prepared to never see their daughter again by destroying the portal and leaving her to live in her own time. Thankfully, this outcome is averted when the older Molly finds her younger counterpart and reunites her with her parents. It’s a brutal episode for both Miles and Keiko as they’re forced to consider some huge moral issues as parents.
It’s well known from Star Trek: The Next Generation that Chief O’Brien hates Cardassians, due to his experiences in the Federation-Cardassian War. This fact is used against him in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 2, episode 25, “Tribunal”, when he’s framed as a Maquis traitor. DS9 reveals that the Cardassian legal system is utterly brutal, as it’s based on a presumption of guilt. This means that Chief O’Brien’s verdict has been sealed long before he goes on trial. Sentenced to execution, O’Brien is forced to live out a miserable life in a brutal Cardassian prison until his sentence is carried out.
As if O’Brien being sentenced to execution and brutal prison treatment isn’t enough, “Tribunal” also reveals that one of his old friends, Raymond Boone (John Beck) had been killed and replaced by a Cardassian spy. Worse still, O’Brien’s life is being used as a political bargaining chip, with his trial designed to discredit the Federation during the ongoing Maquis crisis. There’s some small consolation that, by being at the heart of a conspiracy, O’Brien is like Captain Kirk (William Shatner) in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, but Miles truly suffers in “Tribunal”.
The most brutal, and therefore the “best” of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s “O’Brien Must Suffer” episodes is “Hard Time”. Once again, Chief O’Brien is on the receiving end of alien justice, as he’s wrongfully accused of a crime, and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Normally, this would allow plenty of time for Captain Sisko and the crew to prove O’Brien’s innocence and get him out of jail. That’s not the case in “Hard Time”, however, as the Argrathi punish their criminals by instantly implanting twenty years of prison memories, meaning that O’Brien serves his full sentence before Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) gets him back to DS9.
It’s heartbreaking to watch O’Brien struggle to readjust to life aboard Deep Space Nine, experiencing hallucinations of the cellmate that he “killed” as his mental health rapidly deteriorates. O’Brien even considers suicide in one of the most devastating scenes in the whole episode. It’s thanks to the love of his family, the support of his crew, and his friendship with Dr. Bashir that O’Brien ultimately pulls through one of the harshest ordeals in all seven seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
All episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are available to stream on Paramount+.