Star Trek: 10 Times Chief O'Brien Suffered
4. The Storyteller
The Storyteller is the earliest episode in which O'Brien and Bashir's friendship begins to bloom, though here O'Brien has been saddled with the doctor, rather than choosing to spend any time with him. The early scenes were not the greatest depictions of the man that Bashir would become, with The Storyteller depicting him as brash and somewhat arrogant.
Poor O'Brien was given the thankless job of accompanying him to a Bajoran village that is being terrorised by a cloud creature. When the village protector, the Sirrah, dies, O'Brien is named as his successor.
The episode flips between serious drama and outright comedy as O'Brien tries to rally the villagers around him, using their collective energy, plus a fragment from a Bajoran Orb, to ward off the Dal Roc. He is spared from this when one of the villagers, the Sirrah's previous assistant, takes over.
This would be the first of many fish-out-of-water episodes for O'Brien, with Colm Meany absolutely nailing the discomfort and embarrassment that followed along with these stories.