10 Greatest Star Trek Courtroom Episodes

This episode arrives close to Deep Space Nine's second season finale, and has got to be one of the more brutal 'O'Brien Must Suffer' episodes from the lot. This story sees Miles arrested by the Cardassians on false charges, designed to destabilise peace-talks, using his history of fighting in the war against him.

Cardassian justice, if it can be called that, is on full display here. The verdict is always known before the trial begins, with the courtroom serving simply as an examination as to how the guilt was ascertained. If O'Brien had been a Cardassian citizen, he would have been killed shortly after the credits rolled.

However, with a lot of help from Odo, and absolutely no help from his own 'defender', O'Brien's innocence is actually proven - something of a first for a Cardassian court - thanks to the Changeling's dogged search for the truth. Though O'Brien's lawyer may end the episode with his head in his hands, everybody's favourite Chief manages to return to the station with his own head still attached.

That tooth extraction scene is fairly wince-inducing, you have been warned.