Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Julian Bashir

If the character of Doctor Bashir wasn't well received in the beginning, then it was, in part, because he was written in to that unamiable corner. As Alexander Siddig stated in The Making of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "There was a definite proviso from the production office to make Bashir naïve and arrogant". Far from avoiding such a challenge, however, Siddig embraced it, deciding to play Bashir at the start as "completely imperfect in almost every aspect".

Back when the cost of complaining was the effort of a letter, the studio received hundreds of them in disapproval of "Bashir's personality," as further related in The Making of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Some of the press at the time certainly didn't seem to disagree. One article in the Philadelphia Daily News from December 1993 simply went with the title "Bashir's A Pain, But Actor Loves Him".

In Crew Dossier — Julian Bashir, Ira Steven Behr acknowledged the initial fan resistance to the "too wet-behind-the-ears" Bashir but noted the determination to change perceptions. "We [were] going to make this character great because Sid is a great actor," Behr concluded. In a 2023 interview with The CloneStar Podcast, Siddig credited the episode Our Man Bashir for changing fans' minds, fans who had "openly vilified" Bashir only the week before.

Whether or not Kukalaka — Doctor Bashir's 'first patient' and teddy bear — made Julian appear like more of a grown-up is another matter, but it did help bring him down to Earth/Bajor and provided for some excellent comedy in In The Cards. Besides, we're all allowed to nourish our inner child. Only those 'Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy' would say otherwise.