Is there some kind of inside joke among the writers that makes them always screw O'Brien over? -He gets wrongly tried by the Cardassians, gets stripped, gets a tooth ripped out, and almost gets executed. -As a clone, everyone treats him like crap, his daughter hates him, and he gets killed. -He gets put in a "mind prison" for 20 years, kills someone in cold blood while there, and has to live with the PTSD afterwards. I'm sure I'm missing some others as well. I just feel so bad for the guy...
aaaand in the episode where he keeps flashing into the near future, he gets radiation poisoning and dies.
"They killed O'Brien! ...You bastards!" O'Brien is the improved 'Red Shirt' that takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'! "Vell, O'Brien's just zis guy, you know?"
I too was thinking this while watching "Honor Among Thieves" last night. The mind prison had to be the worst though.
It's a Trek Tradition for there to be one character who always gets abused more than anyone else. In TOS, it was usually Chekov. TNG was Geordi. DS9 was O'Brien. VOY had Kim, one of the dying-est Ensigns ever. ENT, I'm pretty sure "Designated Abuse Guy" was Archer.
Maybe this was one of the problems with ENT - Archer already had plenty to do, so they should have given this "honor" to Mayweather.
Yup, they are even selling a shirt on Star Trek's web-site that says, "O'Brien must suffer at least once per season."
As Tosk quoted, these were the O'Brien must suffer episodes. And of course they had a decent actor with Colm Meany in which to do them.
I don't know whether Colm Meaney enjoyed playing it, when Miles O'Brien got shit on ... but he always delivered. I don't think O'Brien ever gave a dishonest performance, in his entire history with STAR TREK. I was always impressed with how solid his performances were. I wondered what kind of actor he was, I thought he was like one of the "method" actors, he had to be - surely. But no, he said his acting was much more "superficial" than that. Amazing.
And just remember O'Brien was there from the start of TNG, not to bad character development from what was basically an extra with a few lines.
What makes it even worse for O'Brien is the fact his love ones where often involved. Geordi suffered sure, but it was just him. Keiko and his daughter made it that much more painful. I presume most of you have seen Colm's response to his suffering character. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxoJk57jI1g Maybe he didn't watch the show, so he thought everyone was getting the same treatment.