Virtually every O'Brien-centric episode was a great one. And I don't mean the ones where he's just there, part of a group or a duo. I mean the 6 or 8 episodes over the course of the series where he's the MAIN main protagonist of the story. Whether he's randomly traveling 5 hours into the future or stuck in a mind-prison for decades or finding out that he's actually a secret assassin clone of the real O'Brien, they were almost always thought-provoking episodes that delivered the goods. I don't think any other character had that good of a ratio when it was their turn to play MAIN main protagonist.

Great actor, Colm earns respect.

The script writers made O'Brien an regular man placed in soldiers situations. Meaney pulled the character off brilliantly!

Colm Meaney has one of the most distinct voices I've ever heard. I could instantly recognize him.

Colm Meaney was one of the best actors on any of the series.....I've heard a lot of the actors talk about being able to "act big" on the show...theatrical...larger than life (which I enjoyed)....But Meaney just seemed so natural in everything he did and said, it just seemed to flow from a sense of being O'brien, rather than playing O'Brien....

O'Brien got tortured sooooo many times, it actually became a joke even in the writers' rooms. I believe it got dubbed "O'Brien suffers". I think it's because he was the family man, the every man, the one we can most identify and relate to as a character, so we're more inclined to feel it more when he gets hurt. I like the TNG episode Chain of Command fine, where Picard is tortured, but something about O'Brien makes it all feel more personal.

Damn straight. He and Garak are my favorite characters.

I love that Colm thought the writers like putting O'Brien into those situations. I'm guessing no one ever told him "O'Brien Must Suffer" was a "Once a Season Requirement" in the Writers' Room.

i saw him driving down sepulveda blvd during production of DS9 he had the trek sideburns he looked over i gave him a big thumbs up

For such successful actor he seems very down to earth

Man, O'Brien kicked ass. His character was one of the most human in the show. He's also my favorite engineer in Star Trek.

ha. Im going through DS9 again and I just noticed he gets tortured a lot.

Chief deserves a promotion.

O'Brien never had it as bad as Harry Kim did on Voyager. I swear that guy died like 5 times.....lol.

O'Brien was awesome, and usually saved the day.

. . . which is why when he said he was going back to Earth to teach at the Academy at the end of DS9, I bet most of us felt a sense of relief as opposed to most of the other characters where we would have screamed "don't do it!"

0:44 ''..i love being treated like shit..''!!!!!

Thanks for uploading this. There's so very little of him on the DVD sets.

After O'brien went back to Earth he became the leader of the Geni.

Over the course of the series O'Brien: Served in the Federation/Cardassian border wars (before the shows) and the dominion war, saw a lot of crewmates die in both. Had the memories of spending 25 years in near solitary confinement implanted into him, in which he was driven to eventually kill his cellmate/best friend. This drove him to attempt suicide Was trapped on a run down space station with a homicidal Garek Was almost sentanced to death on Cardassia for a crime he didn't commit. Caused the death of a man he grew to know and who trusted him while undercover in New Sydney, and later not being able to save that man's wife from a similar fate. Started lurching forward through time and eventually die of radiation poisoning, being replaced by himself from the immediate future. Was kidnapped and replaced by a clone with his memories who didn't know he was a clone. Had to help an evil alien spirit thing that had possessed his wife kill the prophets that some of his friends worship. Had his unborn child almost die and be transplanted from his wife to his coworker Had his kid fall through a time portal and accidentally pull her out 10 years too late, resulting in her growing up alone in the wild. That's a very long list and I probably missed some.

His real voice is the same as it is on show? That's surprising.

I thought the episode where Chief O'Brian was falsely arrested for espionage and had 20 years of memories put in his mind about being incarcerated was a brilliant episode. Cole's acting in that one was great.

"You know, again, I hadn't thought of that..." I think every trek actor utters these words when being asked questions at a convention.

The writers used to have a 'Make Miles Suffer' episode every year as a bit of fun.

Because Keiko is such a loving, supportive wife . . .

Everytime Kieko was with him could be considered torture imo.

If I had a dollar for every pixel in this video, I'd have 75 cents.

I think the fact that O'Brien was also an NCO and a combat veteran also contributed to the fact that he got the rougher jobs. He's a man who's worked the ranks in starfleet from the very bottom up, so he'd be used to those sorts of things.

I liked the O'Brian episodes and I liked him. Great character.

2:12 He has a good point, the only ones with family on show were the Siskos, Quark;s family, and the O'Briens. And it's hard for anyone to get pathos out of torturing Quark since it's usually seen as Cosmic Justice. The Siskos naturally see a lot of peril, but Ben Sisko IS the guy in charge so he's not as front line as Miles ones.

"Coffins for Cardies" O'Brien

damn i absolutely loved O'Brien in DS9 and I was also pretty hype about his character in TNG. I actually got bummed out when I noticed he disappeared from TNG in the last seasons lol

2021👍💪🏻🇨🇦 love this guy

Great actor!!

Haha "yes I love being treated like shit"

Wow, in 2007, he still looked like the chief.

I think there are two reasons that O'Brien got the short end of the stick so often: 1. He was the most down-to-earth, most "regular guy" character on the show. The audience could relate to him, so they would respond more if you put him in danger than some other characters. 2. Colm Meaney is such as awesome actor that they knew he could pull it off. But almost every show had a character that took all the punches: LaForge, O'Brien, Kim, and Mayweather. Can't think of one for TOS though.

Off top of my head I can think of O'brien's ordeals, and I don't remember much about TNG. First is Cardassia/Fed War at Setlick 3, alien invader in his body on Enterprise, trial on Cardassia, infected by the Harvesters, his decades-long mental prison sentence, kidnapped and duplicate made of him, being shot by the Trill Verad, beaten up several times by Jem Hadar, shifting through time, his wife taken over by a Pah Wraith, his daughter aging 10+ years in mere seconds. Whew, probably more too

How about that one episode, where they were playing through that holographic novel in the casino? That one guy tells his lackeys (who has O'Brien in custody): "Strip-search." And then, at the end of the episode, Bashir asks him what happened, and O'Brien's all like, "I don't want to talk about it!"

I believe that the official DS9 guide/companion book even highlighted certain episodes as 'O'Brien Must Suffer' episodes because of how often he was mistreated

Colm was greatly under used in StarGate Atlantis...

I remember one of the executives saying it in a book noting how much crap they put O'Brien through. The basic reasoning for it was that 'eh, if it ain't broke' However, some of the plots took the suspension of disbelief a bit too far. Prophet? Ex resistance fighter of an interplanetary war? Lost shapeshifter far from home amongst wary strangers, seperated from his xenophobic race? Pales in comparison to O'Brien serving 'life' mentally in a fake prison and his wife being possesed by a bad alien

They called them "Make Obrien Suffer Episodes". Was a running joke during the entire production. Lol, wtf

One thing that really confused me with Colm's character was that in the first seasons of Star Trek TNG, he wore the rank of Lieutenant, and was even addressed as such, but later on, he was always referred to as "Chief," and eventually wore the rank insignia of Senior Chief Petty Officer... so... suddenly... demotion? What?

You know. I know Hard time is considered great. But since were on a video discussing O’Briens suffering... that episode just came out of ducking no where! Like I get that it probably shouldn’t have been a 4 episode thing and DS9 often had plots come out of no where (problem with literally every ST show except TOS) but I mean... 20 years? Espionage? Where the hell did that come from? Don’t get me wrong I LOVE the episode (besides him getting a free pass on kill Ee’Cha. He suffered a lot from it yeah but still, it was murder) but it just... just wow

@Dilandau3000 Probably Chekov for the original crew. Definitely in the movies (burned hand, mind controlling parasite in the ear, big fall, getting lost in a national park, etc).

2 people are victims of torture!!!

@Dilandau3000, there wasn't just one for TOS, there was anyone wearing the dreaded red shirt of doom :D

Colm rules!

@StephenColbertRulz I love that scene in the series family guy when krik is picking his away team and the last guy (in a red shirt ofcourse) says "oh crap" LOL

@mbenzsl2000 They were never clear on his rank, actually, and even in Star Trek TNG in early episodes, he was referred to as Lieutenant. I think it was a mistake.

True, that's why I said there was not one specific character. :)

Two of my top three moments in DS9: I tore my pants! So you wish Kako was a man? ------------- The other one is nog finally leaving vic's holo world talking about being scared to go back to society post leg removal.

Chekov did get a fair bit of bad stuff happen to him, especially in Wrath of Khan. Would not want one of *those* things in me thank you very much!

@Mrblancnoir Yep. You always knew it was serious when Chekov screamed.

"I survived it all" Except he didn't, O'brien died in 1 episode and all subsequent O'briens are from a different time line.

@Dilandau3000 Pavel Chekov my good sir. He was the original beat up guy.

Oh, no. I didn't mean that O'Brien was a bad character; he's fantastic. I meant that Harry Kim was a bad character.

His birth name is Colm Ó Maonaigh

"I'm getting in a shuttle. Welp, better get ready to be raped."--TNG

during enterprise i would count each time archer would get punched in the face

The one who disliked this is OBVS Cardassian

I guess some people are just made to suffer. But it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

@Dilandau3000 Red shirts collectively for TOS

Remember that episode of TNG called "Up the Long Ladder". Man, I'm pretty politically incorrect, but looking back that episode was really awful towards the Irish. I imagine it'd be like an American actor on an Irish sci-fi television show dressed up like a cowboy and talking with a super thick Texan accent who frequently made "Yee haw" exclamations.

Rodney Dangerfield, huh?

They just like making O'Brien say "MOIDER".

@Dilandau3000 Kirk? :-p

Colm was supposed to be a regular on the new series "Life on Mars", but after the pilot, they replaced him with Harvey Keitel. Too bad.

For some reason they were often a meany to Meany

Red Shirts. The Red shirts took all the punches for TOS.

Ah, indeed, I shall use this rejoinder when caught in a similar situation. "nonetheless"...

He hadn't THOUGHT about that?! He got tortured/beaten/shot/mind-wiped every fifth episode or something!

IMO they went way too far with this, especially the episode where he spends many virtual years in prison to the point where he was a virtual old man whose spitit was crushed. That wasn't just PTSD. That was dead man walking. Then he manages to snap out of it in the course of one episode? Very unrealistic.

@Dilandau3000 red shirts

he's irish! of course the empire- uh, I mean federation- treated him like shit.

O’Brien is like the red shirt that continues to live. I guess he should be thankful Starfleet decided to switch operations and command colors in his era lol

Well, Scotty's been killed a couple of times. Sure he gets revived, but he has to be dead before he can be revived.

He should've become as great as Scotty, sadly, the writers didn't have respect.

Must. Suffer.

Harry Kim had it a lot worse. Killed or wounded in every episode, I think.

Anyone wearing a red shirt maybe?

@TheSonicGod its just a show, maybe you should just relax!

Poor e char didn't deserve it obrien

The girl who asked that question definately sounded like she'd be of a mind to "love you long time". Irishmen and asian girls...weird

@Dilandau3000 What about spock he had to be stoic all the time to all of McCoys xenophobic slurs.

Best character actor in Star Trek ... any iteration. He really got to shine on DS9, with episodes like "Hard Time". Besides that, he's a great guy, and not a pompous ass like most of the rest of the cast of TNG/DS9, who actually think that we CARE about their political points of view.

ObMS

first Irish man wearing hair extensions. f

That girl sounds hot

O’Brien must suffer

It's because he's the only enlisted man on Star Trek - he's not an officer. He's Working Class - he even has to call Reg Barclay "Sir"... Wesley Crusher outranks him - *Nog* outranks him..!! Although Kassidy Yates slips up at one point in Season 7 and lets the cat out of the bag when she mentions "One of us must have missed our injections last month" - being an officer in Starfleet apparently precludes you from having both a wife AND a family, since they apparently all receive compulsory fertility suppressant Eugenics jabs once a month to prevent the Officer Class from conceiving children during any tour of duty - and when Picard discovers that Data has procreated, he is *really* angry!

questioner was the female comic book store guy

Yeah, but he deserved it. Awful awful character.

That girl sounds hot...