the assignment ds9

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine : “The Assignment”/“Trials And Tribble-ations”

“The Assignment” (season five, episode five; originally aired 10/28/1996)

In which O’Brien sleeps with someone who is not his wife…

Hostage plots are a mixed bag. They’re tempting to writers, because they come with immediate, visceral stakes—“Oh no! My wife/husband/daughter/son/parent/cousin/gerbil has been taken away!”—and, more intriguingly, those stakes force characters to make difficult choices. Not just difficult choices—choices that  run counter to those characters’ established behavior. In other words, you have a hero, it’s pretty easy to predict what he’ll do when trouble arises, because you’ve seen him deal with trouble dozens of times before; plus, just being a hero brings with it certain basic ethical requirements. But if that hero has been coerced into acting in order to protect the wellbeing of someone he cares about, that range of behavior shifts. O’Brien is one of DS9 ’s most reliable protagonists. Being reliable is, in fact, one of his defining traits. He’s not really the cunning mastermind that Sisko is (although he has his moments); he’s not as idealistically pure as Bashir, or as determined to track down the truth as Odo; and he’s certainly not as morally ambiguous as Garak. He’s just a gifted engineer and stolid “reasonable man” type, someone not destined for high command, but incredibly important when it comes to making sure everything’s working properly. Yet “The Assignment” has him at odds with his closest friends, sabotaging the inner workings of the station, and fighting against an ancient alien race. And it’s all because some idiot ghost being decides to kidnap Keiko.

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But I said “mixed bag,” didn’t I? Because as tempting as hostage plots are for the writers, it’s hard to get excited about them as a viewer. The beats are predictable: lots of “I WANT TO TALK TO MY [missing so-and-so]!” and stalling tactics from the hero, and you know the whole thing probably won’t get resolved until the end, which means there’s some uncomfortable lying and nervous tension and whatnot. It’s rarely ever a good idea to tell an audience what’s going to happen next, and then have that happen next, without much variation, and while that’s not exactly what happens in this sort of storyline, the simple act of kidnapping sets up a specific obstacle that has to be resolved. Not just “beat the bad guys” or “don’t die,” but “I have to get my [missing so-and-so] back.” It’s a small difference, but it makes everything a little more tedious. You end up waiting for the kidnapping to be taken care of so the real story can get underway, but generally, the kidnapping takes up the whole running time. In a weird way, the very emotional resonance that makes the plot so tempting also makes it frustrating, because it happens all the damn time. Or maybe this is just because I covered 24 for a few seasons, and that seemed to be the go-to plot twist for stalling out another hour.

Regardless, there is, as mentioned, a kidnapping plot in “The Assignment,” and it’s pretty much the only plot the episode has. Yet it works, and works brilliantly, another fantastic entry to the pantheon of Bad Days for Miles O’Brien. There are smart choices throughout. For one thing, Keiko doesn’t disappear, exactly. When she returns from a trip to Bajor at the beginning of the episode, O’Brien is nervous about telling her her bonsai plants have died (Bashir over-watered them), but within seconds, Keiko casually tells him the real crisis: she’s not exactly Keiko anymore. An alien force has taken over Mrs. O’Brien, and will only release the lady if O’Brien follows that force’s specific instructions. Until this happens, the alien will be running Keiko (who I will henceforth refer to as “Fake-o” because it makes me laugh), and threatening her with a brain hemorrhage if O’Brien gets any bright ideas about rebellion. The back and forth between hero and villain is usually a highlight in this kind of storyline, and here, there’s the added attraction of Fake-o using O’Brien’s very real love for his wife against him in a present and undeniable way. Rosalind Chao has a lot of fun with the part, and whether or not it’s intentional, the fact that Fake-o isn’t that much different from the real Keiko makes the whole thing all the more unsettling.

It also helps that Fake-o is smart, ruthless, and entertainingly pleased with itself; the creature, using knowledge of O’Brien gleaned from Keiko’s brain, is able to stay ahead of the chief for most of the running time, smirking the whole time, which keeps the story moving at a good clip. The important point being, the villain is never dumb just for the sake of expedience. One of the silly parts of hostage plots is that the bad guys aren’t just trying to coerce the hero into committing a crime—they’re using one of the hero’s nearest and dearest to do so, a loved one who has to be close to the hero, or else the whole scheme would be worthless. (“We’ve kidnapped your second grade teacher!” “Who?” “Mrs. Tozier.” “Who?” “The one with the limp.” “Wait, the one who failed me at vocab?” “Hold on, I’ll check… Yes. Yes, that’s her. She says she hopes your cursive improved. Now you must do our bidding!” “Look, I’ll call you back.”) But that also means the bad guys are going out of their way to make sure the hero has a very real, and very emotional, reason to want to shut you down. (Watch Commando if you want to see how badly this can turn out.) But Fake-o has mostly circumvented this problem by putting itself in its victim’s body, thus making it almost impossible for O’Brien to stun or incapacitate the creature before it has time to murder his wife. The threat never becomes distant or removed from the action, and that pressure makes for a better episode.

And of course making O’Brien the center of the action helps to keep everything balanced. As he makes clear from the start, as much as he loves his wife, there is no way O’Brien would be willing to hurt anyone on the station. For most of the episode’s running time, we have no idea what the modifications Fake-o orders the chief to perform are meant to accomplish, which adds a bit of mystery, and helps keep O’Brien’s actions in a sort of moral gray area. Even when his work draws the attention of the main crew, the closest he comes to out and out villainy is punching Odo in the face; which isn’t great, but there are no betrayals here that will linger long after the hour is over. That makes the episode more fun—and make no mistake, as creepy as it sometimes gets, and as upset as O’Brien is (he even breaks a glass in his hand, the classic “I am suppressing a lot of feelings right now” move), this is a fun one. It’s structured like a game. The rules are, O’Brien has to follow Fake-o’s commands, and give no obvious sign of disobedience, while simultaneously making sure his work goes unnoticed by his friends and co-workers and figuring out what Fake-o’s plans are, and how to stop them. It’s a seemingly insurmountable task, especially when you factor in the time restrictions (Fake-o wants the whole thing finished in 13 hours). And that’s where Rom comes in.

Here’s another reason to dig “The Assignment”: The cold open looks like a toss-off, one-joke bit, but it’s actually fairly crucial to the rest of the episode, getting us up to speed with the ups and downs of Rom’s engineering career, and reminding us how eager he is to make friends with his new co-workers. Rom is still stuck on the night shift (working on waste-extraction units, which must be fun; also, is this the first time anyone has ever mentioned “waste extraction” on Star Trek?), but he’s determined to make it work despite Quark’s snide commentary, even to the point of ordering one of O’Brien’s standard breakfast meals. This is a nice piece of business that makes it easy to empathize with both sides. We want Rom to succeed, because he obviously wasn’t having much luck under Quark’s tutelage, while at the same time understanding Quark’s obvious discomfort at seeing Rom try to push aside his own heritage to fit in. The scene is played for laughs, but there’s a complexity to it that makes it linger. Rom is doing what he needs to do to be happy; but that doesn’t necessarily come without a cost.

This all looks like some kind of ill-advised B-plot; while O’Brien rushes around trying to rewire the station, Rom will be doing his thing. This would’ve been a terrible choice. When you’re telling a story as intentionally suspenseful and claustrophobic as a hostage plot, the last thing you want is to keep reminding viewers that there are other people on the station leading their lives. It’s a distraction, especially with a character like Rom, who tends to have more comedic plots. But Rom actually turns out to be crucial to O’Brien’s efforts, in a deeply satisfying way. The deadline Fake-o imposes on O’Brien’s work has him running around like a crazy man, but Rom is the first (and for a while, only) person to notice anything wrong, mainly because he picks up on one of the changes O’Brien made. So O’Brien lies to him, and recruits him for the work. It gets really uncomfortable when Odo starts asking about the changes, and O’Brien is forced to turn over his guileless, eager-to-please assistant to the cops. But Rom keeps quiet, and even better, Rom figures out what O’Brien has been too distracted to put together himself: The modifications Fake-o has ordered are designed to turn the station into a big chroniton laser, aiming directly at the wormhole.

There’s a lot of just-on-the-edge-silliness stuff about Fake-o being a Pah-Wraith (the Pah-Wraiths are supposedly mythical creatures living in the fire caves on Bajor; and that just happens to be where Keiko was visiting during her trip), and the Pah-Wraiths wanting revenge on the wormhole aliens, and so on. It’s never overplayed, which helps to sell the idea; we never see any actual physical evidence of the wraith, and the wormhole aliens don’t make an appearance at the end to thank O’Brien for his efforts. It’s just the barest of justifications for everything that happens, which, in stories like this, is all you really need. In the end, O’Brien saves the day and his wife and daughter, and Rom, for his troubles, gets promoted to the day shift. It’s really just business as usual on Deep Space Nine, and another reminder of the lengths O’Brien will go to to protect his family. He never seriously steps over the line, but he dances with it a bit, and there’s no sense of soul-searching on his part for doing what needs to be done; Keiko and Molly are his life, and it’s great to get such thrilling, ultimately heartwarming proof of that. Here’s hoping Odo doesn’t mind the sore jaw.

Stray observations:

• So it looks like Odo is a lot easier to knock out as a solid. Also, he’s smiling a lot more than he used to. I almost wish the show would spend more time with him, just to get a sense of how much his personality has changed since the body-shift; there’s a looseness about him now, oddly. (It’s not like he’s missed a step as an investigator, though.)
• Bashir and O’Brien bantering about Keiko’s dead plants is just another reminder that they’re the more reliable comedic duo on the show. (Something we’ll get even better examples of in the very next episode.)
• Rosalind Chao really does excellent work here. She never tips over into cackling villainy, but her clear amusement over O’Brien’s concerns, and the way she smiles as she threatens him and Molly, is very effective.
• “Rom, everybody on the station knows your name.” “Right. But I won’t confirm it!”—O’Brien, questioning Rom’s clandestine skills

“Trials And Tribble-ations” (season five, episode six; originally aired 11/4/1996)

In which a tribble explodes, and Dax wears thigh-high boots…

“The Trouble With Tribbles” is one of Star Trek ’s successful forays into comedy, and while I have a few reservations about it, it holds up well. I mean, they don’t make commemorative plates for Voyager episodes, right? (God, what a terrible way to diet: punishing yourself every time you finish a meal.) William Shatner normally gets stuck playing the straight man whenever wackiness happens, and “The Trouble With Tribbles” is no exception to the rule; he seems to be having more fun than usual with the premise, though, and some of his reaction shots here are Leonard Nimoy-level hysterical. Kirk’s growing frustration and bemusement could’ve come off as smug, but it doesn’t. Instead, he sets the tone for the entire episode; playful, often silly, with just enough of a grounded storyline to keep from floating away com—

Hold on a second. This is starting to sound a little familiar. (And over-written.) Let me just re-adjust my temporal display, and… there. That should do the trick.

“Trials And Tribble-ations” is a confection, a delight, a lark; a standalone episode on a show usually neck-deep in continuity that serves no greater purpose than to pay homage to the past. Produced in part as a tribute to the original Star Trek ’s 30th anniversary (speaking of Voyager , it did its own tribute with “Flashback”; anybody know if it’s any good?), the hour has Sisko and his crew getting sucked back in time, where they intermingle with events from “The Trouble With Tribbles” in an attempt to stop the future (well, present) version of that story’s villain from succeeding where his younger self failed. Confused? Don’t be. The plot is barely relevant, serving (with little pretense) as an excuse for DS9 ’s heroes to wander around the old Enterpris e, dressed up in classic costume and even occasionally stumbling into old footage. It’s not tightly plotted, and once the initial rush of nostalgia fades, there isn’t a lot of depth or suspense to replace it. But there are laughs, more than enough to justify the experiment, and the nostalgia never fades away entirely.

The playfulness starts straight off, as two men from the Temporal Investigation Bureau arrive on the station with questions for Sisko about a recent adventure. (If any Star Trek concept cried out for a spin-off, it’s the Temporal Investigation Bureau.) Dulmer and Lucsly (anagrams for “Mulder” and “Scully”) are there to make sure that nothing untoward happened during the Defiant’s trip through time, and Sisko, only moderately irritated by their presence, sets out to tell them a tale—said tale accounting for the bulk of “Trials And Tribble-ations.” Given the number of time travel episodes we’ve seen on the various Trek series (and on film), this is a clever way to distinguish this particular jaunt right from the get go. Usually, time travel is treated like an incredibly dangerous, and possibly universe threatening, mistake. Here, it’s just a goof, and the sort of goof that causes irritating, irritated bureaucrats stacks of paperwork and hours of headaches. Their collective groan when Sisko mentions James T. Kirk’s name speaks to years of aggravating, control freak busywork.

There is, or was, something on the line, though. It begins with the Defiant taking a trip to Cardassia to pick up the Bajoran Orb of Time. (If that name sounds hilariously generic, well, just wait for the scene when Kira casually masters the orb’s seemingly magical properties by just opening and closing its box.) While orbiting the planet, they also pick up an apparent stray, a human named Barry Waddle (Charlie Brill). One terrific gag about Worf’s smell later, and the Defiant finds itself hurled back to the 23rd century. “Barry,” it turns out, isn’t actually “Barry.” Nor is he a human being. His real name is Arne Darvin, and he’s a Klingon who’s been genetically altered to appear human, all to pull of the scheme that drove the story of the original “Trouble With Tribbles” episode. Why Arne never bothered to get his looks altered back to normal isn’t explicitly explained, but Worf does say his failure to defeat Kirk made him an outcast among his own kind, so… you do the math.

DS9 has brought back cast members from the original show before, and Brill’s appearance is a canny way to give the whole hour a feeling of continuity; conceptually, it’s even more effective than the use of digitally altered footage from the original episode. Strangely, though, the script doesn’t make all that much use of him. He’s only in two scenes, and while Brill does fine by the dialogue he’s given, the character has about as much depth as the orb that starts all this nonsense in the first place. It’s not a major flaw, but it does show how much the episode is depending on our good will towards its premise. If you don’t particularly care for the original series. If you don’t like watching the modern cast goofing around and playing hooky from all the seriousness of the Dominion War, you aren’t going to find much else to occupy your time.

Thankfully, I dug it. As a critic, I wouldn’t have minded a tighter script, but as a fan, I was mostly just enjoying the goofy grin on my face from beginning to end. The homage is played lightly; there are a few comments about how great Kirk is, and Sisko makes a point of meeting the captain before he and his crew travel back to the present, but this isn’t some breathless eulogy for a bygone age. When Dax expresses enthusiasm for an old tricorder design, there’s a joke built into the tribute. “Trials And Tribble-ations” is as much about fandom as it is about time travel. For the run of the episode, Dax and Sisko and the others are as much breathless, captivated enthusiasts as they are protagonists with a job to do, and that sense of shared joy easily overcomes the plot’s minor inadequacies. Dax gets to speak rapturously about Spock’s devastating attractiveness and mention how she slept with McCoy in a previous life. Plus she loves the uniforms. It’s hard not to cheer for that.

As for the effects work that blends new characters into the old, it works well enough. Sometimes you can see the seams, especially in the close ups, but perfection in special effects is never as important as our willingness to accept the illusion; and the enthusiasm that drives all of this makes the occasional fuzziness easy to ignore. The bar fight is as fun as it was in its original form, and the few times we see Kirk, Spock, and others (and if I’m remembering right, all of the main Enterprise crew from “The Trouble With Tribbles” is on screen at some point, even if our heroes don’t interact with all of them) make sure all those shots of long corridors and rebuilt sets seem utterly authentic. And hell, the attention to set design and detail is terrific. This is the bright side of fan-service, folks; briefly indulged with care, wit, and craft.

In the end, everything turns out as it should. Arne’s plan is foiled when Sisko and Dax are able to find the tribble with a bomb inside, and the Temporal Investigators are appeased that nothing drastic was altered or brought back to the present. There’s only one slight drawback. As befits an episode that looks to mimic TOS , “Trials And Tribble-ations” ends with a button joke, this time in the form of a promenade full of the small, furry aliens which give both episodes their names. When the Defiant returned to the present, there was a tribble on board, and now the aliens have infested the station. And so we end with a shot that gives you something you didn’t even know you wanted: Quark, frowning stoically, surrounded by small, cooing balls of fur. And he thought root beer was bad.

• I didn’t mention all the jokes, mainly because that would’ve doubled the length of the review, but Worf’s stoic “We do not discuss it with outsiders,” re: the forehead ridges, is the sort of perfect lamp-shade hanging of a joke that makes you proud to pay attention to continuity. (Worf’s revelation that tribbles are considered an enemy of the Klingon empire is also great.)
• O’Brien and Bashir are teamed up for most of the episode, and it’s as great as you’d imagine. I especially liked O’Brien’s awed horror when looking over the insides of the Enterprise ’s machinery, and his glee about lying to Kirk after the bar fight.
• Bashir gets a “I’m a doctor, not a [something that is not a doctor]” line in, which is nice. Oh, and he also briefly entertains the thought that he was destined to be his own ancestor when he bumps into an attractive ensign on the elevator. Ah, the sexy, sexy perils of time travel.

Next week: Things get heavy again with “Let He Who Is Without Sin…,” and we take another jaunt back in time with “Things Past.”

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – The Assignment (Review)

The Assignment is perhaps the most conventional episode of the fifth season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . It is also one of the most disappointing.

The Star Trek franchise has long been fond of “possession” and “imitation” stories, dating back through Whom Gods Destroy and Turnabout Intruder to Lonely Among Us and Datalore and Power Play . It is easy to see the appeal of these stories from a production standpoint. An effective possession story can likely be filmed on standing sets and relies primarily upon an established member of the ensemble. For an actor, it provides an exciting opportunity to play against type, which is a great way to keep a weekly television series exciting.

O’Brien must suffer… through a terrible script.

However, it is very much a stock plot. There are only so many variations that a long-running franchise can put on the tried-and-tested formula before it begins to feel a little tired. Deep Space Nine has already had more than its fair share of “out of character” plots, from  The Passenger to Dramatis Personae through to Crossover and all the other mirror universe episodes. It gets to the point where “there’s an evil alien inside Keiko O’Brien” feels like a fairly bland iteration of this particular type of Star Trek story.

In a season where Deep Space Nine spends so much time pushing the boundaries of Star Trek , it is frustrating to see the show offer up such a generic installment.

Rom is in a bit of a fix…

Deep Space Nine has a somewhat complicated relationship with its elder siblings, which makes a great deal of sense. After all, it is the first Star Trek television show to launch while another was still on the air and the only Star Trek show to share the entirety of its run as one of several Star Trek television series on the air. In many ways Deep Space Nine was always going to be “the other Star Trek show” , existing in the shadow of higher profile (and more conventional) starship-bound siblings.

More than that, every Star Trek show has a unique relationship with what came before. It took Star Trek: The Next Generation quite some time to reconcile itself with the original cast and crew; Ira Steven Behr had to fight tooth and nail to include the name “Spock” in Sarek , for example. In contrast, Star Trek: Voyager almost immediately sought the comfort and safety the formula established by its predecessor. Star Trek: Enterprise tried to strike out on its own, but quickly reverted to pale imitation.

“Don’t worry. Nobody will remember this episode by the week after next.”

The production team working on Deep Space Nine had a strong affinity for the original Star Trek . After all, the writers had conspired to include three classic Klingons in Blood Oath and revisit the mirror universe in Crossover . Even then, Ira Steven Behr had been reluctant to commit to taking part in the big thirtieth anniversary celebrations for the franchise, almost passing on the opportunity to produce Trials and Tribble-ations because he was worried about Deep Space Nine compromising its own identity. (He would later laugh at his own reflexive anxiety.)

Indeed, Deep Space Nine frequently seems quite anxious and uncertain about its relationship to the rest of the canon. Most notably, The Jem’Hadar celebrated the end of The Next Generation by taking the opportunity to destroy a model of a Galaxy-Class starship while Defiant made a point to tie into the release of Star Trek: Generations by featuring a guest appearance from Jonathan Frakes as William T. Riker’s disenfranchised (and rebellious) twin. This is to say nothing of minor tweaks, like the suggestion Jake Sisko is a much more interesting Wesley Crusher.

“We’re celebrating your recovery from the Agrathi ordeal!”

Even the larger themes of Deep Space Nine demand to be read by reference to the larger context of the Star Trek franchise, with the series best read as a response to (or an interrogation of) many of the underlying assumptions that Star Trek takes for granted. Homefront and Paradise Lost suggested that mankind’s utopia was more fragile than it would first appear. Inquisition would suggest that the Federation was not afraid to get its hands dirty. The entire fifth season is an extended meditation on whether it is possible to construct a Star Trek war story.

This is not to suggest that Deep Space Nine is inherently better or worse than any other Star Trek show, but to demonstrated the complex relationship that exists between it and the rest of the franchise. The simple fact is that Deep Space Nine works a lot better when it is playing off conventional Star Trek storytelling, rather than simply playing into it. This was particularly clear during the show’s first season, when episodes like Q-Less , Dax , The Passenger and If Wishes Were Horses found the series doing a pale imitation of The Next Generation .

“Consider this payback for Power Play .”

The major problem with The Assignment is that it feels very much like the kind of generic Star Trek story that is better suited to The Next Generation or Voyager than to Deep Space Nine . After all, this is not the first time that the O’Briens’ marriage has been disrupted by a sociopathic body-hijacking entity. In some ways, The Assignment is a reversal of the dynamic in Power Play ; this time around, it is a possessed Keiko O’Brien that holds Miles hostage. (Although pah!wraith! Keiko is at least more subtle than body!jacked! Miles.)

The problem with the premise of The Assignment is in many ways the same problem that haunts a lot of the later mirror universe episodes. The leads on The Next Generation and Voyager are typically presented as unambiguously heroic, so there is some fun to be had in flipping that idea on its head and seeing those actors play scenery-chewing bad guys. On Deep Space Nine , the characters tend to be a lot more ambiguous and nuanced. The Assignment was broadcast directly following … Nor the Battle to the Strong , an episode in which a panicked Jake left Bashir to die.

A sharp drop in quality.

As a result, sticking in an “evil alien possession” plot thread feels clumsy and heavy-handed. To be fair, it is great to see Deep Space Nine giving Rosalind Chao something to play beyond “loving wife” or “angry at or disappointed in Miles” , and she relishes the opportunity. However, pah!wraith! Keiko feels too much like a cartoon villain for this episode to work. More than that, the episode hinges on a miraculous technobabble solution to work, with Miles effectively engineering his way out of the problem using “a massive chroniton array.”

To be fair, the story plays reasonably fair. pah!wraith! Keiko has forced Miles to construct a weapon to murder the wormhole aliens. Once Miles deduces that pah!wraith! Keiko is a wormhole alien herself, it is a perfectly logical leap to use the weapon against her instead. Helpfully, pah!wraith! Keiko even cues Miles into the fact that the weapon works fast enough to stop her from killing her host. “The blast’ll last only a fraction of a second. They’ll all be dead before they even see it.” Of course, the wormhole aliens don’t perceive time like that, but let’s go with it.

“There can be only one!”

Still, it feels like an overly tidy resolution to an overly contrived premise. Somehow, pah!wraith! Keiko trusts Miles to operate the weapon even after he has explicitly confirmed that he knows it can kill wormhole aliens. Conveniently enough, it is quick enough that the alien cannot murder its host. Everything ends up neatly filed away, and business continues as usual. Compared to the messy resolutions of episodes of earlier fifth season episodes like Apocalypse Rising or The Ship , it all feels rather safe and bland.

The Assignment is the first script credited to writers David Weddle and Bradley Thompson, who had contributed the story for Rules of Engagement during the fourth season. The duo would join the Deep Space Nine writing staff at the end of the fifth season, following the departure of veteran Robert Hewitt Wolfe.In some respects, this is remarkable. The fourth and fifth seasons of Deep Space Nine featured scripts from Michael Taylor, Lisa Klink, Jane Espenson and Bryan Fuller. It seems strange that Weddle and Thompson should end up on staff.

“What’s got two ears and a plan to murder the Prophets?”

Thompson recalls the constructive and inclusive process employed by Ronald D. Moore when developing Rules of Engagement into a teleplay, and cites it as very helpful in prepping The Assignment for the show :

We heard them take our idea, bend it, twist it, and forge it into what became Rules of Engagement. Ron wrote the teleplay. It came out great. We thanked him, and he sent us copies of every draft. That was where our education truly began, because it was revision after revision — as the writers honed the show into the final shooting draft. Later, on the strength of an X-Files spec we wrote, Ira gave us a chance to try a teleplay, The Assignment. They were impressed with the work and gave us a chance to do another when they bought our story, Business as Usual. At that point, Robert left DS9, and the remaining guys asked us to join them. In the crucible of the next two seasons, Ira, Ron, Rene, and Hans turned us into television professionals.

However, Weddle and Thompson would prove one of the least reliable writing teams on the staff. They produced great episodes like Inquisition and Treachery, Faith and the Great River , but they were also responsible for generic scripts like One Little Ship , Time’s Orphan or Extreme Measures .

Combing the record for clues.

Indeed, The Assignment demonstrates many of the same problems that haunt Weddle and Thompson’s weaker scripts. It is a generic science-fiction premise, usually hinging on a fairly large plot contrivance and lacking in a strong character hook. It is an episode that could just as easily have been pitched to The Next Generation or Voyager , reliant on technobabble to drive it. There is no emotional core to the episode, which explains why Weddle and Thompson’s two “O’Brien must suffer” episodes are the weakest of the bunch by a considerable margin.

After all, the best “O’Brien must suffer” episodes hinge on the character’s everyman appeal, the charming relatability that Colm Meaney brings to Miles Edward O’Brien. Regardless of the sci-fi high concepts that drive them, episodes like Whispers and Hard Time tap into some very basic and recognisable fears. In Whispers , O’Brien comes to suspect that his friends and colleagues are keeping secrets and conspiring behind his back. In Hard Time , O’Brien is confronted with the prospect that he might be a fundamentally violent man.

Take my wife…

Both The Assignment and Time’s Orphan flirt with recognisable anxieties. The Assignment would work rather well as an analogy for divorce, for O’Brien discovering that his wife has changed suddenly or that she is not the person that he believed her to be. Time’s Orphan could tap into the fears that all parents face about children growing up too fast and finding themselves alone in the world. However, both The Assignment and Time’s Orphan are ultimately too in love with their crazier concepts to grapple with the more interesting subtext.

To be fair, there is a sense that the production team recognise the problems with The Assignment . Given that Ira Steven Behr had voiced his frustration about the generic nature of episodes like The Passenger , it makes sense that the writing staff would make little tweaks and adjustments to integrate The Assignment into the larger framework of Deep Space Nine . Hinging rather heavily on Bajoran mythology, The Assignment insists rather aggressively that it is not a throwaway episode. The script strains to tie itself back into the world of the series.

Who Prophets?

It does this by introducing the concept of the pah wraiths, a concept that will become important to the show as it presses forward. Keiko becomes possessed by the pah wraith while visiting “the fire caves” , a location mentioned in The Nagus and which will eventually appear in What You Leave Behind . In fact, the concept of the pah wraiths dates back to earlier drafts of The Nagus , wherein there was a reference to “watching out for pagh-wraiths” in “the fire caverns.” The spelling is notably different than that employed in their actual appearances.

The introduction of the pah wraiths in The Assignment is another example of the fifth season pushing forward, introducing major new concepts that will be vitally important to the series’ endgame. In fact, given the major impact that the pah wraiths have on the overall arc of the show, it is surprising that they are introduced in such a generic and bland episode. Then again, that is the way that Deep Space Nine works; the production staff very rarely map out the finer points of the show’s future arcs, instead preferring to develop stories organically.

Sleeping with the enemy.

Over the course of Deep Space Nine , a number of vital elements have had rather inauspicious beginnings. Gul Dukat only appeared in two episodes of the first season, Emissary and Duet . Garak only appeared in a single episode of that first year, Past Prologue . Weyoun was killed off in his first appearance, in To the Death . Damar was little more than a named extra in his own debut, Return to Grace . Rom’s early characterisation in episodes like The Nagus and Necessary Evil can be hard to reconcile with his later characterisation.

Similarly, characters who were introduced to fill seemingly important roles in the story were frequently dropped entirely. Shakaar Edon was introduced in Shakaar as a major political force on Bajor, but he only appeared in two further episodes of the series ( Crossfire and The Begotten ) which emphasised his role as Kira’s boyfriend. George Primmin was introduced as Odo’s Starfleet equivalent in  The Passenger and Move Along Home , but never appeared again. It seems clear that the writing staff were not always sure what concepts or characters would work out of the gate.

Looking out for his family.

Despite their subsequent importance to the long-term arcs of Deep Space Nine , the introduction of the pah wraiths in The Assignment feels like a serious misstep. It would be bad enough if this were their only appearance, but the show seems to double-down on the ill-advised decision in virtually every subsequent episode focusing upon them. Covenant is perhaps the exception that proves the rule, and is undoubtedly the episode that makes the best use of the pah wraiths as a concept.

The problem with the pah wraiths is that they are, by their nature, reductive. They make Deep Space Nine more generic and more conventional by their presence. They are the sort of scenery-chewing one-dimensional antagonists that have never really existed on Deep Space Nine to this point. After all, it is impossible to imagine a script rendering the pah wraiths as tragic as The Abandoned or Hippocratic Oath makes the Jem’Hadar or Treachery, Faith and the Great River makes the Vorta.

“He’s really phoning it in to these briefings.”

Indeed, the pah wraiths serve as the most obvious and blatant signifier of “evil” in the cosmology of Deep Space Nine . They have all the more complexity or ambiguity of the avatars of good and evil that were assembled in The Savage Curtain . More than that, their presence corrupts and taints other characters. Although Deep Space Nine adopts a reductive approach to Gul Dukat in Waltz , it is his flirtation with the pah wraiths that really solidifies the character’s transformation into cartoon supervillain, complete with the murder of a regular character.

The same is true of Kai Winn. For most of the series’ seven seasons, Winn is a fascinating character. Motivated primarily by her own self-interest, Winn is driven by her own sense of self-righteousness. She is quite clearly an antagonist, but one very much grounded in the real world. Winn feels like the perfect embodiment of the self-serving autocrat that embodies everything that Deep Space Nine fears about authorities and structures. However, aligning her with the pah wraiths in The Changing Face of Evil feels reductive.

A whole new array of problems…

In fact, the introduction of the pah wraiths even serves to undercut the wormhole aliens, by forcing one of the show’s strangest concepts into a much more conventional role. After all, The Assignment frames the pah wraiths in terms of traditional Christian demons, and later episodes run with that characterisation. As William Cassidy reflects in What Evil Lurks Beyond the Stars? :

Keiko’s possession allows us to make specific references to earthly religions, especially Christianity. Any reader of the Gospels of the New Testament is well familiar with the miracles of Jesus. Prominent among them are the exorcisms of demons from human beings. Most of the time the reasons for possession are obscure; it seems that humans are simply comfortable abodes for demons. But these demons are generally understood to be in league with Satan, who tries unsuccessfully to subvert Jesus’ mission by tempting him with earthly glory. But there is a case of possession in which Satan’s plan reflects that of the Pah-wraith: to destroy the good by human interference. The Gospels of Luke and John state that the betrayal of Jesus by Judas is preceded by a possession: “Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was one of the twelve; he went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers of the temple police about how he might betray him [Jesus] to them. Jesus knows that he will be betrayed and identifies Judas as the betrayer. Were these modern writers, we would understand the description metaphorically, but ancient writers lived in a world where people routinely believed in the reality of demonic possession. In some of the Gospels, then, Satan uses Judas as a means to accomplish the death of Jesus. He does this by entering into him and causing him to do evil. Once the act is accomplished, Judas is remorseful and commits suicide (according to both Matthew and Acts). The parallel between these possessions for the purpose of accomplishing cosmic evil is crystal-clear.”

According to Rom’s summary of the Bajoran religion, “the Pah-wraiths used to live in the wormhole. They were part of the Celestial Temple.” Then “they were cast out of the Temple, exiled to the caves where they were imprisoned in crystal fire cages and forbidden to ever return lest they face the wrath of the true Prophets.” In short, they are very much “fallen angels” in the tradition of Christian belief.

Food for the soul.

The pah wraiths are not only a clumsy and simplistic idea of themselves, they have the effect of making the Prophets seem a lot less interesting. With the pah wraiths cast as demons, the Prophets are cast as more traditional religious deities. From around this point in the show, the Prophets are more firmly tied to Christian iconography and concepts. They provide Sisko with prophetic visions of looming apocalypse in Rapture . They provide a twist on the parting of the Red Sea in Sacrifice of Angels . Sisko is cast as Jesus in Shadows and Symbols .

This is all very conventional, and this is without getting into the generic “good versus evil” dynamic that informs the conflict between the Prophets and the pah wraiths that bubbles through the rest of the show, most notably in the apocalyptic fight for Bajor’s future in The Reckoning and in the definition of Sisko’s function as Emissary in What You Leave Behind . The pah wraiths are defined as monsters and demons, which leaves the Prophets to be cast as gods and angels. It is a very hokey (and pseudo Christian) slant on the show’s mythology.

Crawl good, baby. Crawl good.

It also erases a lot of the more interesting aspects of the Bajoran religion on Deep Space Nine . In some ways, the Bajoran religion could be seen as an expression of Michael Piller’s contemporary fascination with New Age theology and spirituality, an obsession that would infuse his later work like Tattoo or Star Trek: Insurrection . However, Deep Space Nine never felt quite as condescending or patronising (or even awkward) in its handling of Bajoran spirituality. Although the religion seemed vaguely eastern in aesthetic and style, it also felt unique.

The Prophets were part of this. The Prophets were much more interesting in the first four seasons of the show, existing as aliens who existed outside of time and beyond concepts of good and evil. There is a very strong sense of the Prophets as “other” in the larger context of Deep Space Nine , as something looming beyond mankind’s capacity to comprehend. After all, there is something horrific about their casual manipulation of Grand Negus Zek in Prophet Motive , all for the crime of offending their sensibilities.

Plenty of Rom in the holding cells.

More than that, the first four seasons thread an interesting line with the Prophets, wondering whether the Prophets are simply sufficiently advanced aliens or whether they are actually gods. One of the more interesting aspects of Deep Space Nine is the show’s willingness to accept that both possibilities might be true, that “god” might just be a label assigned to concepts that exist beyond human comprehension. It was a dynamic that was distinct from any other in the Star Trek franchise, the Prophets existing apart from characters like Trelane or Q.

The Assignment brushes all of that away in a casual manner, all for the sake of a throwaway “alien possession” story. Whereas earlier episodes suggested that the Prophets were neither good nor evil, the presence of the pah wraiths slips the balance. Not once does Deep Space Nine explore why the pah wraiths were cast out of the celestial temple, which might have made for an interesting Miltonian twist on the narrative. Never does Deep Space Nine suggest a motive for the pah wraiths beyond seizing the wormhole and killing the wormhole aliens.

A heartfelt reunion.

If the pah wraiths are to be cast as unambiguously evil, as The Assignment makes clear, then the Prophets are slotted into the role of “unquestionable good.” It feels like an simplistic moral distinction in a show that favours ambiguity. While the Dominion are very clearly constructed as an evil empire, Deep Space Nine still affords them some sympathy and nuance. The show demonstrates that the Founders have good reason to fear “solids” , and that the Federation is itself not above clandestine operations and biological warfare when the chips are down.

Interestingly enough for an episode that hinges on such a key part of the Bajoran religion, Kira Nerys is entirely absent. Her absence is particularly conspicuous during the obligatory exposition scenes at the birthday party, when Miles comes to realise exactly what has taken up residence inside his wife. Without Kira present, it falls to Jake and Odo to first mention the concept of the pah wraiths, which is a rather odd character choice. It is hard to imagine Odo gossiping about Bajoran folklore to Jake, for example.

A wife hangs in the balance.

The reason for Kira’s absence from the episode is quite reasonable, as is the somewhat clumsy way that the story works around it. Actor Nana Visitor had actually gone into labour on the set, as she recalls in Hidden File 04 :

I’m of the era that… “Actor, you’re lucky to be able to have a baby and keep your show.” And they didn’t… they didn’t put me in the background. They didn’t just have me holding things in front. I was pregnant. They wrote it in. What a gift that was, that I could just keep doing interesting work that whole time and I didn’t have to feel like I was hiding. However, I took it to an extreme. I became… “No one is going to feel the fact that I am pregnant. I am not gonna let this affect anyone.” As a matter of fact, if someone brought me a chair, I’d say, “No, no, no. That’s okay. I can stand.” I was in labour on the set, hunched down. “Are you okay?” “Yeah, let’s keep going.” I really played it too tough on myself. I took two weeks off to give birth and then went right back to work. And it was physically really punishing. It was really hard. I wouldn’t do it like that again.

That shows a phenomenal commitment to the show, which is a huge credit to Visitor as a performer. It is also a credit to the production team, whose top priority was finding a way for Nana Visitor to stay involved in the production of the show.

The wraith of pah(n)…

The birth of Django would keep Visitor away from the set during the production of Let He is Without Sin… , which ultimately meant that Visitor had the good fortune to miss out on the fifth season’s two weakest episodes.

You might be interested in our reviews of the fifth season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine :

• Apocalypse Rising
• Looking for Par’Mach in All the Wrong Places
• … Nor the Battle to the Strong
• The Assignment
• Trials and Tribble-ations
• Let He Who is Without Sin
• Things Past
• The Darkness and the Light
• The Begotten
• For the Uniform
• In Purgatory’s Shadow
• By Inferno’s Light
• Doctor Bashir, I Presume
• A Simple Investigation
• Business as Usual
• Ties of Blood and Water
• Ferengi Love Songs
• Soldiers of the Empire
• Children of Time
• Blaze of Glory
• In the Cards
• Call to Arms

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: bradley thompson , david weddle , o'brien must suffer , pah wraiths , star trek , star trek: deep space nine , the assignment |

15 Responses

I think the central problem in this episode is the use of Rom. Specifically, that he is in this episode at all. The key to the success of all the good torture O’Brien episodes, Whispers, Hard Time, etc, is that O’Brien usually feels very isolated from everybody, and initially this episode continues on this trend, but then about half way through he and Rom begin to share the spotlight, which wrecks the tension, as all the claustrophobia evaporates. That said, I do like some aspects of this episode. The music in this episode is quite good for the Rick Berman era, and foreshadows the excellent music to come in episodes like Call to Arms and Sacrifice of Angels. I also really like Rosalind Chao’s performance in this episode, especially the scene where she calls O’Brien while combing Molly’s hair.

I should confess that I rewatched Warlord shortly after writing this.

A significant section of my Warlord review is spent insisting The Assignment isn’t THAT bad.

I’m going to assume that means you found Warlord truly terrible. The main thing I remember about it is that it gives Jennifer Lein a chance to act like she is in the mirror universe.

Oh, it is truly spectacular terrible. Lien is trying, though. (And she’s far from the weakest member of that cast.) A lot of my issues are basic scripting problems, and a reminder of how good the DS9 writers’ room was that even their subpar effort worked a lot better than Voyager’s riff on the same basic concept.

It is nice for Rom to finally get the Chief’s attention but yeah, the best of this sub-genre are when he’s forced to suffer alone which puts The Assignment in the same company with The Storyteller rather than any of the classic ones like Whispers and Hard Time.

That’s a very fair point, actually. I mean, Rom figures it all out.

I like the Pah’Wraiths, and some of my favorite episodes center around them. Then again, I like practically everything about DS9 minus the Bajoran politics that was featured in the first two seasons, aka “DS9 The Boring Years”

On a totally esoteric nerdy note, the Pah-Wraiths look like the Ori from the last two seasons of Stargate SG-1, just not totally lame 😛

I’d respectfully disagree. I much prefer the early Bajor stories to the later ones. The pah wraiths just make everything much simpler.

I’m admittedly with the popular opinion here that I geniuenly dislike most of the first two seasons of DS9, it’s all incredibly boring, esp most of the early Bajor, which afaik is why they ditched that focus

They’re simplistic villainy is ill-suited to DS9’s world of light and shade. DS9 is most effective when we don’t know who the bad guys are from the good guys.

One area where The Assignment is original is it’s a supporting character that’s possessed rather than a member of the main cast, which wouldn’t attract as much suspicion. And for all of its flaws, The Assignment has perhaps Rosalind Chao’s finest acting on the show. She quietly underplays the Pah-Wraith’s malevolence as she pulls O’Brien’s strings from one scene to the next. It’s Chao that saves the episode from being a total write-off. And I always thought O’Brien should have kept it to himself at the end that he knew about the Pah-Wraith’s plot and acted like he was still in the dark before playing his hand.

That’s a fair point. And Chao is pretty great. I always felt that she was under-utilised.

I also do like that O’Brien thinks he’s getting some kinky body possession roleplay in the teaser. I suppose that’s one way of working through what happened in Power Play.

When it comes to *anything* involving the Prophets, their non-linearity should be front and center. The Pah-Wraiths could have worked well if the writers could have emphasized personal stakes for Sisko in the matter, by showing that there was no great dissension among the wormhole aliens until Sisko explained linear time to them. The Pah-Wraiths, with a desire to interfere in the lives of linear beings, could have still served as villains without being EEEEVILL.

Indeed, *that* could have been Sisko’s task at the end of the series: to work to heal the divisions he inadvertently helped cause among the wormhole aliens, and bring the Prophets and the Pah-Wraiths back together.

That’s not a bad angle. It’s a shame that the later seasons of Deep Space Nine drifted away from the more vague and surreal spirituality of the first few seasons in favour of stock Christian iconography. To be fair, there’s ample evidence that audiences hated the Bajor/Prophets stuff from the first few seasons, like they hated the Ferengi stuff, but on rewatch I remain convinced that there’s a wealth of underappreciated and underdeveloped material there.

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Let’s Watch Star Trek

[DS9] The Assignment

[DS9] Season 5, Episode 5: The Assignment

There’s some nice creepy flavor in this one, particularly thanks to Rosalind Chao’s performance, and the time-bomb style plot works pretty well. The “good-guy-compelled-to-help-bad-guy-with-a-hostage” conceit can be a tough one to pull off, since there always has to be an airtight, believable reason why the hero can’t seek help or clue in their friends. This episode does a solid enough job keeping that conceit up, even if you can still feel the strain here and there. Plus there’s a good Rom thread!

Read more at Memory Alpha

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The Assignment

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• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

The Assignment

Keiko O'Brien returns from the Fire Caves on Bajor possessed by an alien entity which demands that Chief O'Brien follow its every instruction if he doesn't want his wife to die.

Max Grodénchik

Rosalind Chao

Judi M. Durand

Majel Barrett Roddenberry

Patrick B. Egan

Rosie Malek-Yonan

Mark Allen Shepherd

Cast appearances.

René Auberjonois

Alexander Siddig

Cirroc Lofton

Colm Meaney

Armin Shimerman

Michael Dorn

Avery Brooks

Terry Farrell

Episode discussion.

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (TV Series)

The assignment (1996), full cast & crew.

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The Assignment Stardate: Unknown Original Airdate: 28 Oct, 1996

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Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 104: The Assignment VHS

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• Package Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.32 x 4.19 x 1.12 inches; 6.13 ounces
• Run time ‏ : ‎ 1 hour and 46 minutes
• Release date ‏ : ‎ July 10, 2001
• Date First Available ‏ : ‎ October 25, 2006
• Actors ‏ : ‎ Avery Brooks, Rene Auberjonois, Cirroc Lofton, Alexander Siddig, Colm Meaney
• Studio ‏ : ‎ Paramount
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000003K8U
• Writers ‏ : ‎ Michael Piller, Rick Berman

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Keiko O'Brien

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Professor Keiko O'Brien (née Ishikawa ) was a 24th century civilian botanist aboard the USS Enterprise -D and on Bajor , as well as the primary school teacher aboard the starbase Deep Space 9 .

• 1 Personal life and family
• 2.1 USS Enterprise -D
• 2.2 Deep Space 9
• 3.1 Appearances
• 3.2 Background information
• 3.3 Apocrypha
• 3.4 External links

Personal life and family [ ]

Keiko giving the ink brush to her obaachan .

Keiko Ishikawa, daughter of Hiro Ishikawa , was a native of Japan , Earth . Her mother , born in 2269 , was a resident of the city Kumamoto well into the 2360s . ( TNG : " Disaster "; DS9 : " Emissary ", " Dax ")

Keiko had a strong bond with her family and past; as a child, she used to help her grandmother , whom she called obaachan (Affectionate Japanese term for "grandmother"), with her Japanese brush writing or calligraphy . Young Keiko would fill an old chipped cup with water and bring it to the table for her grandmother to use for cleaning the ink brushes . Keiko would sit beside her and watch the most beautiful characters come from her brush – the whole time, she would hum to herself. ( TNG : " Violations ")

Keiko's and Miles' wedding in 2367

Keiko was introduced to Miles O'Brien by their mutual friend, Data . ( TNG : " Data's Day ") While on Earth together, Miles and Keiko visited McKinley Park , where Miles gave Keiko a gold bracelet . ( TNG : " Power Play ") The two eventually wed aboard the Enterprise -D in a wedding ceremony that combined Irish and Japanese traditions. Data served as the "father of the bride." ( TNG : " Data's Day ")

One of Keiko's favorite foods was plankton loaf with kelp buds and sea berries . Following her marriage to Miles, she prepared a plankton loaf for lunch one day, much to the dismay of Miles. ( TNG : " The Wounded ")

Together, Miles and Keiko O'Brien had their first child, Molly , who was born in early 2368 . Keiko gave birth to the child in the Enterprise 's Ten Forward lounge during a ship-wide systems failure. Worf coached Keiko during her labor and later delivered the baby. ( TNG : " Disaster ", " The Game ")

Keiko was part of a woodwind quintet on the Enterprise -D in which she played the clarinet . ( TNG : " In Theory ")

Keiko, an apparent follower of fashion, was replicating longer dresses in mid- 2370 to keep up with the style. ( DS9 : " Paradise ")

USS Enterprise -D [ ]

Keiko was assigned to the USS Enterprise -D as a botanist , working primarily in the arboretum . ( TNG : " Data's Day ") She was also the head of the plant biology lab , when the Enterprise got caught in the Tyken's Rift . In mid-2368, Keiko was assisted by young Clara Sutter in planting several nasturtiums . ( TNG : " Night Terrors ", " Imaginary Friend ")

For years, Keiko saw an old cup in her memory , but could never recall what it was or why it was important. Following an encounter with a Ullian named Tarmin , a telepathic historian , she was able to recall the significance of the cup – she thought that it was a wonderful experience. Following a series of telepathically-induced comas , Doctors Crusher and Martin did a neurological work-up on Keiko, since she was the only person aboard the Enterprise to experience the memory probe , in order to see if there were any residual effects from her experience. ( TNG : " Violations ")

Keiko and Molly were among those taken hostage when three aliens possessed Deanna Troi , Data and O'Brien. ( TNG : " Power Play ")

Keiko after reverting to the age of 12

In 2369 , Keiko, Guinan , Ro Laren and Jean-Luc Picard visited the planet Marlonia , where Keiko found a specimen of Draebidium calimus , which she brought back to the Enterprise on her return trip. Moments before docking on the Enterprise , their shuttlecraft , Fermi , became enveloped in an energy field , and their subsequent emergency transport caused the group to be transformed into children. She was eventually returned to her normal state after she and her transformed colleagues helped to retake the ship from a group of renegade Ferengi . Keiko was particularly grateful to be returned to her normal adult self because while she was transformed into a child, her own daughter Molly didn't recognize her. ( TNG : " Rascals ")

Later that year, Miles was transferred to the new Federation outpost Deep Space 9 . Keiko and Molly moved to the station as well, even though Keiko was not very happy about the move. ( DS9 : " Emissary ", " A Man Alone ", " Captive Pursuit ")

Deep Space 9 [ ]

Keiko with Major Kira in 2369

On DS9, she found there was no need for a botanist, so with the permission of Benjamin Sisko , she opened a school for the children living on the station. ( DS9 : " A Man Alone ") Within a few weeks of opening her classroom, she took her eleven students on a field trip to Bajor to visit the grain processing center in Lasuma . ( DS9 : " Dramatis Personae ") Later that year, the school became embroiled in a dispute with the Bajorans . They believed that Keiko was teaching her Bajoran pupils that the Prophets were only " wormhole aliens". Keiko argued that it was her duty to expose students to knowledge, not to hide it from them, and refused to teach about the Prophets in religious terms. The school was then destroyed by a bomb; fortunately, no one was in the school at the time. Commander Sisko held Vedek Winn responsible for the bombing. ( DS9 : " In the Hands of the Prophets ") When Bajor was on the verge of revolution in early 2370 , i.e., shortly after the school bombing, Keiko and Molly were evacuated to the Korat system . ( DS9 : " The Siege ")

In early 2370 , after the situation on the station and on Bajor had normalized again, Keiko invited the Cardassian teenager, Rugal , to move in with her family. ( DS9 : " Cardassians ") When Miles believed that he was getting old after Bashir destroyed him in a racquetball game , Keiko encouraged him to train and beat Bashir in their upcoming match that was being staged by Quark . Before the game, Keiko adorned Miles with a traditional Japanese hachimaki , but neither of them knew that Quark had fixed the game in Miles' favor in order to clean up on the wagers that were heavy in Bashir's favor. ( DS9 : " Rivals ") Not much later, Miles had been reported killed in an explosion while destroying nano-biogenic weapons for two alien races. Keiko viewed the tape of the incident and was convinced that the tape was a fake. Miles was shown drinking coffee in the afternoon, and she insisted that he never drank coffee at that time of day. This caused Sisko to investigate and find out that Miles was alive and that the races were trying to kill him in order that no one would know the secrets of the bio-weapons. Ironically, even though Keiko's suspicions proved correct, she later found out that Miles drank coffee in the afternoon all the time. ( DS9 : " Armageddon Game ")

Miles was replaced by a replica during arrangements for a peace conference. He had been captured by rebels on Parada and his duplicate was programmed to assassinate one of the delegates. Keiko knew about the switch, but had to pretend that she did not so the duplicate would lead them to the real O'Brien. ( DS9 : " Whispers ") Later in 2370, Keiko was gone for over a period of a week, attending a hydroponics conference on Rigel IV . ( DS9 : " The Wire ") On vacation, Keiko and Miles were captured by the Cardassians, and Miles was put on trial for aiding the Maquis . ( DS9 : " Tribunal ")

Due to a recent Dominion attack on Deep Space 9 and the continuing threat of further incursions, most Bajorans and their families left the station in early 2371 . Keiko eventually closed her school down because the only children left were " Jake , Nog , and a lot of empty chairs". ( DS9 : " The House of Quark ") Later that year, Keiko joined an agrobiology expedition on Bajor with Miles' encouragement, where she served as chief botanist. It was projected to be a six-month expedition and its first study region was the Janitza Mountains . ( DS9 : " The House of Quark ", " Civil Defense ", " Fascination ") While Keiko was on Bajor, Miles began to focus more on his hobbies to allow time to pass quicker, including playing more racquetball and picking up the game of darts . ( DS9 : " Fascination ", " Prophet Motive ")

Keiko greets her husband after his return from Argratha

In early 2372 , Keiko and Miles got into an argument because Miles set up a workshop in their bedroom. Miles justified his decision by stating that, since his wife was only on the station a few days at a time, he was the one who is really living in the quarters. Therefore, having a workshop in his bedroom was his right. Keiko saw this as Miles trying to "live like a bachelor again", and that he was living a "subconscious desire" to push her out of their quarters . ( DS9 : " Hippocratic Oath ") Later that year, Miles was arrested by the Argrathi on charges of espionage and subjected his mind to altering that imprinted twenty years of prison into his synaptic pathways . Keiko had a very difficult time in trying to make him comfortable and readjust to a normal life. ( DS9 : " Hard Time ")

Keiko ended her work on Bajor in 2372 and returned to Deep Space 9, after becoming pregnant with the O'Briens' second child. Keiko, however, was hurt in a shuttle accident and the child had to be relocated into Kira's womb in order to save Keiko and the child's life. Due to the dense nature of the multiple blood vessels formed between mother and child in a Bajoran pregnancy, the baby had to remain in Kira even after Keiko recovered from her injuries, prompting Kira to move in with the O'Briens so they could feel closer to their baby. ( DS9 : " Accession ", " Body Parts ") The child, Kirayoshi , was born in 2373 . ( DS9 : " The Begotten ")

Keiko O'Brien possessed by a Pah-wraith

Keiko's body was taken over by a Pah-wraith who threatened to kill her if O'Brien did not help it destroy the wormhole; while fully aware of everything, Keiko was effectively a prisoner in her own body, unable to act. The Pah-wraith forced O'Brien to convert the station into a gigantic chroniton emitter , but Rom realized its purpose and informed O'Brien, who in turn realized the nature of the Pah-wraith and how it was related to the Prophets . Miles took the possessed Keiko to a runabout . Once in position near the wormhole, Miles activated the emitters on the station, but targeted the runabout instead of the wormhole, instantly killing the Pah-wraith and leaving Keiko unharmed. ( DS9 : " The Assignment ")

In mid-2373, Keiko and Molly visited her parents on Earth for an extended period of time. ( DS9 : " The Darkness and the Light ")

When war with the Dominion was almost a certainty by the end of the year, and with Deep Space Nine looking like one of the most likely targets for attack, Miles and Keiko decided that she and the children should leave the station for their own safety. Keiko, Molly and Kirayoshi then lived on Earth for almost a year ( DS9 : " Call to Arms ", " Change of Heart "), returning to the station by the end of 2374 when things were looking safer. ( DS9 : " Time's Orphan ")

Keiko had to deal with the loss of Molly who, while on a picnic on Golana , fell through a time portal three hundred years into the past. Molly returned as an eighteen-year-old who had grown up in a prehistoric era and could not adjust to the modern era. After attempts to rehabilitate her failed, Keiko and Miles let Molly return through the portal, where the older Molly found her younger self and returned young Molly to her parents. ( DS9 : " Time's Orphan ")

Miles asked Jadzia Dax to check in on Keiko and the kids while he was away, participating in the first Battle of Chin'toka . ( DS9 : " Tears of the Prophets ")

Keiko and Kirayoshi in 2375

The family would remain together aboard DS9 throughout the remainder of the war. Miles turned down a visit to the holosuite with Bashir in favor of having dinner with his family in early 2375 . ( DS9 : " Chrysalis ")

Keiko made some crab rolls for Dr. Bashir as he worked to find the cure for Odo 's morphogenic virus . ( DS9 : " Tacking Into the Wind ")

Keiko left Deep Space 9 to live permanently on Earth when Miles took a job teaching at Starfleet Academy in late 2375 . ( DS9 : " What You Leave Behind ")

Appendices [ ]

Appearances [ ].

• " Data's Day " (Season 4)
• " The Wounded "
• " Night Terrors "
• " In Theory "
• " Disaster " (Season 5)
• " Violations "
• " Power Play "
• " Rascals " (Season 6)
• " A Man Alone " (Season 1)
• " If Wishes Were Horses "
• " In the Hands of the Prophets "
• " The Siege " (Season 2)
• " Cardassians "
• " Armageddon Game "
• " Whispers "
• " Tribunal "
• " The House of Quark " (Season 3)
• " Fascination "
• " Accession " (Season 4)
• " Hard Time "
• " Body Parts "
• " Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places " (Season 5)
• " The Assignment "
• " The Begotten "
• " Time's Orphan " (Season 6)
• " What You Leave Behind " (Season 7)

Background information [ ]

Keiko O'Brien was portrayed by Rosalind Chao . Dawn Cleveland portrayed young Keiko's hands during the flashback sequence in " Violations ", and the young Keiko who appeared in the episode " Rascals " was played by Caroline Junko King .

Patti Yasutake was also a contender for the role of Keiko O'Brien but the role was cast with Chao. [1]

Apocrypha [ ]

Keiko has appeared in more than twenty-five novels. In the DS9 relaunch novels , Keiko relocates to Cardassia with O'Brien and her children when she joins the Interstellar Agricultural Aid Commission and becomes the project leader of agricultural planetary renewal for the post-war Cardassia. When the second Deep Space 9 is completed, Keiko and her family relocate there.

Her mirror universe counterpart ( β ) is introduced in the Shards and Shadows short story "A Terrible Beauty". She is an operative of Memory Omega who eventually manages to escape from slavery on the Korvat colony in 2375 . Keiko and 98 other slaves make their way to Terok Nor and she joins the Terran Rebellion in 2375 . By Saturn's Children , she and the rebellion's leader General Miles "Smiley" O'Brien had became lovers. After the defeat of the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance in Rise Like Lions , they married and settled down on Inis Mór, a small island off the western coast of Ireland . They had a daughter named Molly in 2380 .

Keiko O'Brien of the alternate reality

The alternate reality version of Keiko O'Brien appears in the Star Trek: Ongoing story arc The Q Gambit where she is a member of the Free Federation Resistance and captain of the USS Defiant , with her husband Miles as first officer .

External links [ ]

• Keiko O'Brien at StarTrek.com
• Keiko O'Brien at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Keiko O'Brien at Wikipedia