Hard Time

[scottydog]

Just finished re-watching one of DS9's best episodes, Hard Time. Very powerful and an incredible performance by Colm Meaney.

One thing that occurred to me was that the alien race that imprisoned O'Brien (I forget their name) could have led him to think he had murdered Ee'Char when in fact he (O'Brien) may not have applied enough force to kill him. There would be no reason for O'Brien to feel guilty if he knows the memory-program was designed specifically to torture him, and that program would have arranged for O'Brien to believe he had killed Ee-Char no matter what O'Brien actually did or didn't do to him.

I'm surprised Bashir didn't present this possibility to O'Brien.

Anyway, great episode. I almost cried watching it.

 

[The Great Meech]

Er, yes, but O'Brien knew it wasn't real but still felt guilty. Not everyone responds to rationality on an emotional level.

 

[Ezri]

It this a joke

 

[Kegek]

The program was not designed specifically to torture him in that sense. He was left with free will. All that was constant is that he would mentally endure twenty years of simulated prison; but the decision to kill Ee'Char was genuinely his.

 

[scottydog]

^True. But after rewatching the episode today, it looks like O'Brien was genuinely surprised that Ee'Char was dead. His captors may have wanted to torture O'Brien further by making it appear that he had killed his friend.

 

[Kegek]

I doubt that. I think it was stressed in the episode that the actions taken in O'Brien's mind were his responses to the stimuli. The drama really doesn't make any other sense otherwise, and frankly, it's a more compelling torture.

O'Brien didn't get a memory encoded of him killing a friend... he lived a memory that stripped away all his civility and made him kill him.

 

[misskim86]

This is one of my least liked episodes, while it is a very good stand alone episode, it is too much "Voyager" since there's a big reset button and in the next episode everything is just peachy.

Don't get me wrong though, it is an EXCELLENT episode, I just don't think it fit in with DS9, Voyager should have done it instead.

 

[Anwar]

If there was a character reset at the end, it was because of the writing staff. Honestly, they're just as capable of messing something up as anyone else. Quit making VOY out to be the only one that did it.

Didn't Outer Limits do this same type episode with David Hyde Pierce?

 

[Kegek]

I didn't think there was a reset at all. The catharsis of the episode was at the end, after that point nothing more need be said about O'Brien's pain. Repeating it would be beating a dead horse.

 

[Sakrysta]

I have wondered why the prison programmers bothered to give O'Brien a friend - or even a cellmate at all. Ee'char was Miles' one comfort in that cell. Why give that to someone you intend to punish?

Maybe it's a standard to the program, to keep convicts from insanity. Not every prisoner was innocent, or had loving family waiting for them. Without some measure of hope, even if it's just a comrade in chains, maybe prisoners die or go mad.

At least, that's the only justification I can come up with for Ee'char's existence in the first place, other than the previously mentioned method of torture. And even if prisoners need company to stay alive/sane, why not rotate those with whom Miles shared a cell, to prevent him from developing any relationships?

 

[Starbreaker]

One of my favorite episodes. Definitely disturbing.