Anna Daniels
With holodecks, telepathic aliens, and omnipotent space gods, Star Trek has lots of ways of forcing illusions on its characters. When it comes to these illusions, perhaps no other Trek story proves as harmful to one of its heroes than DS9‘s “Hard Time.” Showing the dark descent of one of its regular characters, “Hard Time” is genuinely tough to watch.
While visiting the Agrathi, Chief O’Brien is wrongly convicted of espionage. Rather than maintaining physical prisons, the Agrathi punish criminals by implanting memories of incarceration including hunger, isolation, and torture. When Kira (Nana Visitor) arrives to pick up Miles, he’s only been in their custody for a few hours but he has memories of twenty years worth of prison.
The Miles O’Brien who returns to DS9 is a changed man. He prefers to be alone, he’s angry, he refuses to see his therapist, and he threatens his best friend Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig). He eventually gets violent, assaulting Quark (Armin Shimerman) for taking too long to serve him a drink and even coming close to hitting his daughter. It’s revealed that during most of his time in the virtual prison, Miles has a kind, patient cellmate named Ee’char (Craig Wasson). After 20 years in the cell with him, wrongly believing his friend is hiding food from him, Miles murders Ee’char. Hallucinations of Ee’char appear to O’Brien on DS9, only disappearing when — on the brink of suicide — O’Brien finally accepts help from Bashir.
Written by: Looper
