Star Trek: 10 Times Chief O'Brien Suffered

There was a running joke throughout Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's seven-year run. Each year, they would take Chief O'Brien, who was perceived to be one of the most popular characters in the audience's eyes, and put him through various levels of torture. The gamble was that the writers would make him hurt so badly that the viewers couldn't help but feel for the poor man.

By and large, the gamble worked a treat.

Year after year, the poor Irishman was thrown into the deep end. He would be cloned, he would be tortured, he would be imprisoned. He would drink with Worf - no mean feat in itself - and yet he would always survive. The joke carried over into the retrospective documentary, What We Left Behind. The writers got together to plot a potential eighth-season opener, which initially was going to see O'Brien killed in the cold open.

They changed their minds, killing poor Nog instead, but even after twenty years away from airing, O'Brien still has a target on his head. Here are just some of the times he suffered so that we didn't have to.

In this early example of O'Brien going through hell, he and Dr. Bashir are helping the T'Lani and Kelleruns retire their Harvesters. These biogenic weapons of mass destruction are left over from a dreadful war, with this last being the final full-stop in the peace treaty. Unfortunately for them both, they get caught up in a web of intrigue - and O'Brien gets infected by the weapon.

The episode is marked as one of the first examples of Bashir and O'Brien's friendship. It was actually originally written with Dax in O'Brien's place, though the producers felt that she had been overused at this point. Alexander Siddig loved the episode, claiming that it was crucial for his relationship with Colm Meaney, but also showcased some great moments for Bashir.

While playing O'Brien as infected by the Harvester, Meaney was forced to look like death warmed up, which translated into his performance. Despite O'Brien's pain and suffering, Sisko makes a point of saying what a valuable and affable man he was to Keiko, which would begin the trope of people saying the nicest things about him...while he was in tremendous pain.