Whispers (6 Feb. 1994)

Chief O'Brien's world is turned upside down when for no reason whatsoever he is being ignored by his family and friends and is being closed out of every essential job on the station.

Director:

Les Landau

Writers:

Gene Roddenberry, Rick Berman (creator),

Stars:

Avery Brooks, Rene Auberjonois, Alexander Siddig

Cast

Episode credited cast:
Avery Brooks	...	Commander Sisko
Rene Auberjonois	...	Odo
Alexander Siddig	...	Doctor Bashir (as Siddig El Fadil)
Terry Farrell	...	Lieutenant Jadzia Dax
Cirroc Lofton	...	Jake Sisko
Colm Meaney	...	Chief O'Brien
Armin Shimerman	...	Quark
Nana Visitor	...	Major Kira
Rosalind Chao	...	Keiko O'Brien
Todd Waring	...	DeCurtis
Susan Bay	...	Admiral
Philip LeStrange	...	Coutu
Hana Hatae	...	Molly O'Brien
Majel Barrett	...	Federation Computer (voice)
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Susan Henley	...	Bajoran Officer

Storyline

O'Brien is on his way to the planet Parada to warn them about something and is chased by the crew of Deep Space Nine through the wormhole. In his log he tells what happened. Deep Space Nine was supposed to host peace talks between the Paradans and a rebel faction and O'Brien was supposed to make sure the security to be top notch. He immediately noticed something strange when Keiko and Molly didn't seem to be themselves. In engineering, he found out another engineer was ordered by Sisko to already start work on the security measures. Sisko told him to concentrate on the repair of the upper pylons and ordered him to undergo a very extensive medical examination. O'Brien especially got suspicious after he found out he lost his level 1 security clearance after trying to review the logs of the security personnel.

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Plot Keywords:

24th century

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Drama | Sci-Fi

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

6 February 1994 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Television

Technical Specs

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Quotes

Chief O'Brien: [voiceover] All I could think of as I looked at her was that this was not my Keiko.

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Connections

References Blade Runner (1982)

User Reviews

Paranoia

This was an interesting episode told mostly in flashback; the chief is aboard a runabout and is being pursued by other officers from DS9 for reasons not immediately apparent. As he makes a log entry we see what happened before to lead up to this strange situation. When the chief gets back to the station after arranging the security details for a peace treaty between two warring factions from the Gamma quadrant he finds that nobody is behaving normally. At first it is just little things; his daughter does not want a kiss, Sisko has got another officer working on the security details for the peace conference without telling him and he can't access all the files he should be able to. As things progress he becomes convinced that someone or something is effecting the crew. Soon he realises that he must get off the station if he is to find out just what is going on. Stealing a runabout he heads back to the Gamma Quadrant and makes a shocking discovery: it wasn't the rest of the crew of DS9 that had been changed, it was him. The Chief O'Brien we'd been watching was a replica, identical in every way but programmed to carry out unspecified orders at a given time.

Colm Meaney did a great job as Chief O'Brien getting more and more paranoid as those he considers friends shut him out from doing his job and giving him manufactured tasks to keep him out of the way. It was a shame that the replacement died at the end although it did add extra poignancy to the story.