Star Trek: 10 Times Chief O'Brien Suffered
2. Whispers
This episode focuses entirely on O'Brien - or at least, a version of him. This story sees a replicant version of O'Brien, a word deliberately chosen by the writer to differentiate him from androids and clones, slowly realising that everything around him is a little bit off. This episode posed a challenge, not just for Meaney, but for the writers as well.
First, there could be no B plot. The whole point of the episode was to dial up the paranoia that O'Brien feels, so having cutaways to other characters discussing him would have broken that rising tension. This led to the episode running short on runtime. The flashback motif, with O'Brien effectively telling the audience that something is very wrong, was conceived to fill that gap.
The episode plays like a noir detective story, one that gradually begins to turn the finger of suspicion on every character. The final revel - that the audience hasn't been following O'Brien at all - is a shock twist. Ira Stephen Behr lamented that somewhat ironically, the episode ends too quickly. There wasn't enough time to sit with the realisation that the replicant must have been feeling. He simply dies, but not before asking his real self to tell Keiko that he loves her.