O’Brien is externalising his inner emotional state to make it easier for him to acknowledge and talk about. “Well, some people think ...” There’s no contradiction just character complexity.
I agree. They were showing hypocrisy at its finest. Literally within a few minutes of each scene, the audience sees the two faces of O' Brien. Is this not the every-man? This was not an accident. Not only does he realize it, he then goes in order to apologize to one of the Cardassians, and then later is sent on board the other ship of his former captain. I think it was a pretty enjoyable episode and natural character development.
Its amazing how many Trekkies lack a basic understanding of the human emotional state, but I guess thats the whole reason Troi exists, to explain feelings to emotionally stunted man-children.
True. It is also worth comparing Obrien and Maxwell's hatred of Cardassians to Worf's hatred of Romulans. On the surface, yes, they are letting emotions cloud their judgment and choosing to pre-judge the other group as villains, but they do have understandable reasons to be so bitter. Worf's parents were killed in a ruthless raid by the Romulans and both Maxwell and Obrien personally witnessed senseless bloodshed and cruelty by the Cardassians, saw innocent civilians and their fellow Federation officers slaughtered by them, not to mention Maxwell's wife was killed by them as well. Of course they're going to be traumatized by that stuff. The difference is that Obrien eventually started to move beyond his hatred and see the "humanity" in them. They're not 2D bad guys or pure evil. They're just people who happen to be related to the ones he fought. He was able to recognize his own shortcomings and attempted to be the bigger man. Maxwell couldn't. Also, both of these groups (the Cardassians and the Romulans) are major threats to the Federation, as Picard himself realized by the end. Maxwell was right, they were arming in preparation for a possible war with the Federation, and their were weapons on that ship, in violation of the treaty. Yet, Maxwell wasn't appointed to decide on behalf of the Federation that it was time to end the treaty and start a war. Instead of reporting his findings, he decided to take matters into his own hands.
They might have already been thinking about DS9 at this point, which would explain why the Cardassians were introduced, and would explain O'Brien's development. It's also possible that they simply needed an alternative threat, given where their Romulan and Klingon storylines were going to go. One of my all time favourite episodes.
It's not that O'Brien didn't remember how he'd acted in the turbolift, it's just that he didn't understand why he felt the way he did. I don't think it's particularly uncommon for people to have feelings about something despite knowing, intellectually, that there's no logical reason to feel that way. When he was referring to "some people" he was actually talking about himself. It wasn't "why do _some people_ still feel this way even though the war is over" it was "why do _I_ still feel this way". I think this episode is a strong contender for a Top 10 TNG Episodes list. It deals with real issues that people have.
I don't understand why they didn't get that. It's quite obvious that he was talking about his own negative feelings, he just didn't want to expose them to Keiko.
Hah those dice rolls were hilarious, I'm afraid I'll always think of that every time I'm rewatching this episode, thanks guys...:) But a great episode nonetheless, probably in my TNG top 10 (it would be really cool to hear your top 10s after you finished all the reviews!).
O'brien's rank is treated very inconsistently throughout (both) the series. Sometimes he's in charge of stuff and sometimes not. I don't think the writers knew what a petty officer is, or about enlisted vs. commisioned ranks in general. So his position is often whatever the plot needs him to be.
That cardasian is the same guy that met Riker on a planet, and pretend to be a long lost friend in starfleet but he was fake. Riker tested his knowledge of their time together but he couldn't recall anything.
Another example where Worf is proved in the long run to be right, the Gul is obviously trying to probe the Enterprise’s internal security with his one operative, yet the Federation’s default “we signed a treaty, we have to trust them!” is eventually proved wrong in DS9.
I just noticed, the actor who plays one of the cardassians, the one caught looking at the console- is the same guy that played the hologram of Riker's friend in like, season one, on that episode with the weapon probes on that dead planet "what is the compliment of the Lollipop? What are it's weapons?" pretty sure, anyway. Mouth structure and eyes seem like it
Picard specifically tasks Troi with making sure none of the Enterprise crew freak out about having Cardassians on board. The moment they beam over, she notices O'Brien is freaking out and does NOTHING! For the rest of the episode O'Brien is a ticking time-bomb whenever the Cardassians are around and Troi never councils him or tells Picard about it. The woman is utterly useless! 🤣
What if Section 31 was giving Maxwell proof of Cardassian duplicity and that's why he said information comes his way but couldn't site official sources
The universal translator can probably translate mosquito into something similar on Cardasia Prime close enough that he understood what O'Brien was talking about.
I was thinking that but I am not sure it would work, say for example what if the person is pointing to a litural mosquito, would that translator automaticly change? Also we hear other alien animals.
@@LiamHaHaX the UT might say something like, “small earth insect” and just translate the Cardasian word for insect instead. If someone points to something, then the Cardasian would just have to use context clues to try and figure it out, I guess.
I like your comments about "a major threat out of nowhere". The plot feels like it was supposed to be for the Romulans but they couldn't make the timeline work with the emotional intensity they wanted.
Maxwell's whole conversation with Picard about stopping or possibly delaying war was all true, either Maxwell had great hindsight about what was going on or the writer ran out of good ideas and go back to somebody over
Creating the caradasins out of the blue may have been weird but man did it up paying off in deep space 9 but then somehow they made creating the fergini worth it too. In fact slightly ironcly the thing that they never could make worth it in the end was the maquis.
The D&D bit made me literally LOL. Sounds great to have an actual laugh out loud moment. Except I was eating a candy chew made of spicy ginger. It went down my throat while I'm in a fit of laughter. I get that wrong pipe cough and spicy ginger burn with it. A little bonus...I was driving. I had to pull over to finish coughing and laughing. Thank you for this hilarious review.
This was the episode where TNG really jumped the shark. So they have Picard, who KNOWS there are weapons on the transport, but just lets it slide, and then trashes a colleague's career to cover it up. Oh, and in a few years the Cardassians do start a war anyway. First, that's not realistic. Imagine a Captain of a US Navy destroyer gets confirmed intelligence that there's radiological material on an Iranian fishing vessel from a P-8 orion. Does he stop and detain and search the vessel? Nah, he's got a hunch that higher ups wouldn't like that. NOT REALISTIC. Second, it's out of character for Picard both morally and shows complete lack of strategic understanding.
I don't give this episode an "A". Perhaps a "B", because Picard didn't seek out the truth. I expected Picard to both send O'Brian to the Phoenix, and later send an officer to the transport to seek the truth about Captain Ben's theories.
There is a scene at the beginning of the episode where Troy looks back at O'Brien. I cant figure out if she is thinking what's his problem? Or if she is wondering just how bad of a councilor she is for not pointing out that having the dude with PTSD be the primary point of contact was a dumb idea.
O'Brien is great. And very broken as far as writing. Him and Keiko are like strangers. Troi almost shat her jumpsuit, that's how much hate he's got. He's also genuinely amazed that 'some people' still don't like Cardassians. He's also sincere about turning into something else. In Power Play he romantically proclaims to his Wife and BABY that he would have totally murdered that disembodied spirit inside him, if at all possible. Good thing they approved, you don't want to anger whatever O'Brien has turned into. He's no mosquito conservator. He's the best tactical officer there is, and a madman.
Even if Maxwell went off the deep end it seems very unlikely to me that the rest of the crew would have just blindly gone along with him. Especially not given the excruciating moralizing we constantly see from Starfleet personnel.
We see in this episode that Maxwell must have been a very charasmatic man in the past (now, it has just become a mask to hide his hatred). O'Brien was convinced at first that Maxwell "must have his reasons", so it isn't a far stretch to assume that he has convinced his crew too. Also, not all Captains behave like moral teachers like Picard. Remember, he is essentially an intellectual person and while he isn't afraid to fulfill his role as Captain, he clearly doesn't like it to take advantage of his powers of command unless he absolutely needs to (he almost always tries to convince someone first). Other Captains might have a very different opinion about their position (like Jellicoe for example) and may surround themselves with people who don't object to their orders easily.
I always found it odd how the Enterprize deals with the Romulans and then a week later they zip across the entire federation and have to deal with the Cardassians.
O’Brien is externalising his inner emotional state to make it easier for him to acknowledge and talk about. “Well, some people think ...” There’s no contradiction just character complexity.
Poorly written character complexity, at least in terms of the dialog, but otherwise this is an excellent episode.
I agree. They were showing hypocrisy at its finest. Literally within a few minutes of each scene, the audience sees the two faces of O' Brien. Is this not the every-man? This was not an accident. Not only does he realize it, he then goes in order to apologize to one of the Cardassians, and then later is sent on board the other ship of his former captain. I think it was a pretty enjoyable episode and natural character development.
Its amazing how many Trekkies lack a basic understanding of the human emotional state, but I guess thats the whole reason Troi exists, to explain feelings to emotionally stunted man-children.
True. It is also worth comparing Obrien and Maxwell's hatred of Cardassians to Worf's hatred of Romulans. On the surface, yes, they are letting emotions cloud their judgment and choosing to pre-judge the other group as villains, but they do have understandable reasons to be so bitter. Worf's parents were killed in a ruthless raid by the Romulans and both Maxwell and Obrien personally witnessed senseless bloodshed and cruelty by the Cardassians, saw innocent civilians and their fellow Federation officers slaughtered by them, not to mention Maxwell's wife was killed by them as well. Of course they're going to be traumatized by that stuff. The difference is that Obrien eventually started to move beyond his hatred and see the "humanity" in them. They're not 2D bad guys or pure evil. They're just people who happen to be related to the ones he fought. He was able to recognize his own shortcomings and attempted to be the bigger man. Maxwell couldn't. Also, both of these groups (the Cardassians and the Romulans) are major threats to the Federation, as Picard himself realized by the end. Maxwell was right, they were arming in preparation for a possible war with the Federation, and their were weapons on that ship, in violation of the treaty. Yet, Maxwell wasn't appointed to decide on behalf of the Federation that it was time to end the treaty and start a war. Instead of reporting his findings, he decided to take matters into his own hands.
They might have already been thinking about DS9 at this point, which would explain why the Cardassians were introduced, and would explain O'Brien's development. It's also possible that they simply needed an alternative threat, given where their Romulan and Klingon storylines were going to go. One of my all time favourite episodes.
It's not that O'Brien didn't remember how he'd acted in the turbolift, it's just that he didn't understand why he felt the way he did. I don't think it's particularly uncommon for people to have feelings about something despite knowing, intellectually, that there's no logical reason to feel that way. When he was referring to "some people" he was actually talking about himself. It wasn't "why do _some people_ still feel this way even though the war is over" it was "why do _I_ still feel this way". I think this episode is a strong contender for a Top 10 TNG Episodes list. It deals with real issues that people have.
I don't understand why they didn't get that. It's quite obvious that he was talking about his own negative feelings, he just didn't want to expose them to Keiko.
Any obrien episode is great, he always seems to act like a real person,
the only extra who got upgraded to a main character because he was so good
The writers kept him so we could see O'Brien suffer again and again ;)
😂 the dice sounds!
Hah those dice rolls were hilarious, I'm afraid I'll always think of that every time I'm rewatching this episode, thanks guys...:) But a great episode nonetheless, probably in my TNG top 10 (it would be really cool to hear your top 10s after you finished all the reviews!).
Definitely a good idea.
5:05 Fun but useless fact: This Cardassian was was played by Marco Rodriguez, who also played Captain Paul Rice in "The Arsenal of Freedom".
How did O'Brien go from "the best tactical officer" to being one of 20 transporter chiefs on the Enterprise?
you can't procrastinate that well on the bridge...;)
O'brien's rank is treated very inconsistently throughout (both) the series. Sometimes he's in charge of stuff and sometimes not. I don't think the writers knew what a petty officer is, or about enlisted vs. commisioned ranks in general. So his position is often whatever the plot needs him to be.
In deep space 9 the station apparently always falls apart everytime he is away for more then a few days.
he suffered PTSD from the Cardassian war and requested to be downgraded to a non commissioned petty officer
@@NitpickingNerd That isn't how the military really works.
The dice rolls were excellent! D&D Star Trek would be baller.
There are pen & paper Trek games
"Counselor Troi fails her intuition check."
"Dr. Crusher fails her healing spell."
Sorry, I'm not really an expert in the exact parlance.
rolling dice for the starship battle is probably, still, my favorite gag you've done for this entire series.
That cardasian is the same guy that met Riker on a planet, and pretend to be a long lost friend in starfleet but he was fake.
Riker tested his knowledge of their time together but he couldn't recall anything.
He also played Gul Dukat, one of the best antagonists in all of Trek.
It was a good episode, O’Brian episodes are great and Bob Gunton is a great actor.
Another example where Worf is proved in the long run to be right, the Gul is obviously trying to probe the Enterprise’s internal security with his one operative, yet the Federation’s default “we signed a treaty, we have to trust them!” is eventually proved wrong in DS9.
I just noticed, the actor who plays one of the cardassians, the one caught looking at the console- is the same guy that played the hologram of Riker's friend in like, season one, on that episode with the weapon probes on that dead planet "what is the compliment of the Lollipop? What are it's weapons?"
pretty sure, anyway. Mouth structure and eyes seem like it
Yeah, it was the same guy.
Picard specifically tasks Troi with making sure none of the Enterprise crew freak out about having Cardassians on board. The moment they beam over, she notices O'Brien is freaking out and does NOTHING! For the rest of the episode O'Brien is a ticking time-bomb whenever the Cardassians are around and Troi never councils him or tells Picard about it. The woman is utterly useless! 🤣
Some of the best episodes of Star Trek are “O’Brien Must Suffer” episodes. They do like 3 a season on DS9
What if Section 31 was giving Maxwell proof of Cardassian duplicity and that's why he said information comes his way but couldn't site official sources
The universal translator can probably translate mosquito into something similar on Cardasia Prime close enough that he understood what O'Brien was talking about.
I was thinking that but I am not sure it would work, say for example what if the person is pointing to a litural mosquito, would that translator automaticly change? Also we hear other alien animals.
@@LiamHaHaX the UT might say something like, “small earth insect” and just translate the Cardasian word for insect instead. If someone points to something, then the Cardasian would just have to use context clues to try and figure it out, I guess.
The DND skit got me good.
Apprently both the actor who played obrien and the actress who played kayko did not get along very well on set.
Even in character Keiko seems mean all the time and the awful fake smile she does, ugh.
But as people say and as always: "O'Brien must suffer" ....
She attended his wedding so it probably wasn't that bad.
Keiko seems like a real bitch
Oh Bob also played one of the presidents chief of staff in the show 24
Is that right? I thought he looked damned familiar from something else I'd seen. Thanks!
Omg... The dice roll was AMAZING.
I like your comments about "a major threat out of nowhere". The plot feels like it was supposed to be for the Romulans but they couldn't make the timeline work with the emotional intensity they wanted.
One of my favorite episodes of the series.
Maxwell's whole conversation with Picard about stopping or possibly delaying war was all true, either Maxwell had great hindsight about what was going on or the writer ran out of good ideas and go back to somebody over
Hahaha the DND with data scene is pure gold. We need just a clip of that that I can send to my friends lol
Creating the caradasins out of the blue may have been weird but man did it up paying off in deep space 9 but then somehow they made creating the fergini worth it too. In fact slightly ironcly the thing that they never could make worth it in the end was the maquis.
the Eddington/Maquis story was great too. DS9 was the best Trek show in terms of villains and adversaries
@@NitpickingNerd That arc was okay, only sad they never revisited Tom Rikers Maquis story ever again.
DS9 even made the shuttlecraft work by upgrading them into the much more credible runabouts.
The D&D bit made me literally LOL. Sounds great to have an actual laugh out loud moment. Except I was eating a candy chew made of spicy ginger. It went down my throat while I'm in a fit of laughter. I get that wrong pipe cough and spicy ginger burn with it. A little bonus...I was driving. I had to pull over to finish coughing and laughing. Thank you for this hilarious review.
Data's Critical Role moment was pretty funny! 🤣
Seems like The Phenix was 🔥ON FIRE🔥 with those nat 20s one after another!
This was the episode where TNG really jumped the shark. So they have Picard, who KNOWS there are weapons on the transport, but just lets it slide, and then trashes a colleague's career to cover it up. Oh, and in a few years the Cardassians do start a war anyway. First, that's not realistic. Imagine a Captain of a US Navy destroyer gets confirmed intelligence that there's radiological material on an Iranian fishing vessel from a P-8 orion. Does he stop and detain and search the vessel? Nah, he's got a hunch that higher ups wouldn't like that. NOT REALISTIC. Second, it's out of character for Picard both morally and shows complete lack of strategic understanding.
I don't give this episode an "A". Perhaps a "B", because Picard didn't seek out the truth. I expected Picard to both send O'Brian to the Phoenix, and later send an officer to the transport to seek the truth about Captain Ben's theories.
I don't know why, but "I stalk them literally everyday on Facebook, so yes!" was funny enough that you gave the video a thumbs up.
We don't call them mosquitoes in the UK, we call em Knats!
Nobody can inject scorn into the phrase, "What an idiot." Like Rob
Haha, that was Nick again.
There is a scene at the beginning of the episode where Troy looks back at O'Brien. I cant figure out if she is thinking what's his problem? Or if she is wondering just how bad of a councilor she is for not pointing out that having the dude with PTSD be the primary point of contact was a dumb idea.
O'Brien is great. And very broken as far as writing. Him and Keiko are like strangers. Troi almost shat her jumpsuit, that's how much hate he's got. He's also genuinely amazed that 'some people' still don't like Cardassians.
He's also sincere about turning into something else. In Power Play he romantically proclaims to his Wife and BABY that he would have totally murdered that disembodied spirit inside him, if at all possible. Good thing they approved, you don't want to anger whatever O'Brien has turned into. He's no mosquito conservator. He's the best tactical officer there is, and a madman.
Oh my God those fucking dice rolls killed me.
What are you guys planning to do when you've finished TNG?
Probably take a nap.
@@reverseangle Good answer!
Colm Meaney is the unsung hero of the franchise.
01:08
close caption said
KARDASHIAN
Oh, they needed the cardassians for DS9
and there was nothing stupid beverly could do to somehow misdiagnose somebody…
Even if Maxwell went off the deep end it seems very unlikely to me that the rest of the crew would have just blindly gone along with him. Especially not given the excruciating moralizing we constantly see from Starfleet personnel.
We see in this episode that Maxwell must have been a very charasmatic man in the past (now, it has just become a mask to hide his hatred). O'Brien was convinced at first that Maxwell "must have his reasons", so it isn't a far stretch to assume that he has convinced his crew too. Also, not all Captains behave like moral teachers like Picard. Remember, he is essentially an intellectual person and while he isn't afraid to fulfill his role as Captain, he clearly doesn't like it to take advantage of his powers of command unless he absolutely needs to (he almost always tries to convince someone first). Other Captains might have a very different opinion about their position (like Jellicoe for example) and may surround themselves with people who don't object to their orders easily.
EVIL KARDASHIAN EMPIRE
I know what I typed
When *O'Brian* decides to make a representative dish of food for his new wife, it ends up being *potatoes* ?!
Star Trek is clearly racist.
I always found it odd how the Enterprize deals with the Romulans and then a week later they zip across the entire federation and have to deal with the Cardassians.
Space Facebook!
Mr O'Brian is such a good character. We needed more of him in TNG
He's a main character on DS9
@@parrot998 I know, but It'd be cool if he was more regularly seen on The Enterprise
More cardassians in ds9
So fun
Spot on A-.
Duca t aha
Wtf you skipped so much about maxwell