Hard Time
Production Number: 491
Original air week: 4/16/96
Originally titled: "Injustice"
Written by: Robert Hewitt Wolfe (Teleplay);
Daniel Keys Moran & Lynn Barker (Story)
Directed by: Alexander Singer
Guest Stars:
Spellings: "Argrathi"
Notes:
- O'Brien commits a crime in another species' space and is found
guilty, but the punishment doesn't quite fit the crime.
- This is very reminiscent of the Voyager episode "Ex Post Facto". In fact, that episode
may be based on this one: read a message
from the author.
- Muniz (F.J. Rio) was previously in "Starship
Down" working on the Defiant.
- O'Brien has been through extrenuating circumstances before--fighting
the war on Cetlik III (TNG's "The Wounded"), being imprisoned by the
Paradans ("Whispers"), and being put in trial
on Cardassia ("Tribunal")--but he's made it
through all of them.
Asikas
is an Argrathan term which is used
to describe geometric patterns on the ground. One starts drawing an
Asika by drawing a circle in the dust with your finger, then making
lines without really thinking about them. This technique is used as
a relaxant and something to keep one from losing one's sanity.
- Chief O'Brien successfully recognized an interphasic coil spanner, an
ODN recoupler, and a Quantum Regulator, Mark III.
- Ee'char doesn't have a wife.
- Counselor Telnori lives on the station.
The Author's Keyboard:
- Robert Hewitt Wolfe:
We talked about the Sito story, but with Worf coming on, we decided
we really didn't need any other TNG cameos. Some elements of the
Sito story we had in development were rolled into HARD TIME.
(Post-traumatic stress disorder, bacially).
- Program Highlights
- STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE: "Hard Time" -- After an alien race
implants false memories of a twenty-year prison sentence into
O'Brien's brain, he has trouble readjusting to station life.
- TV Guide Ad
- HARD TIME
The punishment was only hours--but will O'Brien's recovery take a lifetime?
- TV Log Listing
- O'Brien prisoner inside his own mind/STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE.
