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Star Trek DS9 - Season 6 - Episode 15

Star Trek DS9 - 6x15 - Honor Among Thieves

Originally Aired: 1998-2-25

Synopsis:
Starfleet Intelligence recruits Chief O'Brien to infiltrate the Orion Syndicate, the Alpha Quadrant's leading organized crime ring, to find a Starfleet informant. [DVD]

My Rating - 7

Fan Rating Average - 5.42

Rate episode?

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# Votes: 23 3 16 2 4 7 11 22 22 16 11

Filler Quotient: 1, partial filler, but has important continuity. I recommend against skipping this one.
- You'll need to watch this episode to understand the context of how and why O'Brien acquired a cat, which becomes somewhat relevant later. Understanding that context later on is useful for understanding a few scenes in later episodes, but not essential, strictly speaking.

Problems
None

Factoids
None

Remarkable Scenes
- O'Brien spiking one of Bilby's people.
- Quark and Odo speaking at the same time.
- The numerous system glitches.
- Bilby to his cat: "Well, what do you make of that, Chester? I've found me an honest man."
- O'Brien: "There's a Klingon ambassador here? Gowron must not like him much."
- The Orion Syndicate conspiring with a Vorta...
- O'Brien and Bilby robbing the bank of Bolias digitally.
- Bilby to O'Brien: "I'm going to take care of you. I don't forget my friends. 'Cause friends; they're like family. Nothing's more important. Nothing."
- O'Brien revealing himself to Bilby.
- The final scene with O'Brien feeling bad about what he had to do.

My Review
An Orion Syndicate episode in the tradition of DS9: A Simple Investigation. Though this version of the plot is far more successful. O'Brien begins working for Starfleet Intelligence, attempting to infiltrate the syndicate to try and find out who the traitor to Starfleet is. In this process, he discovers the Dominion is working with the syndicate, and so his mission is extended to discover the full extent of the Dominion's plans. But by the time he finds out, he realizes that he'd have to betray Bilby, the man he worked so hard to earn the trust of all this time. Feeling that it would be dishonorable to let Bilby die like this, O'Brien warns him. But Bilby knew his fate was already sealed. O'Brien let him go reluctantly, but as a final honorable gesture, when O'Brien left he honored Bilby's request to look after hist cat, Chester. I love the final scene, showing a distraught O'Brien petting Chester. A moving episode.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From packman_jon on 2012-05-14 at 9:57pm:
    Watching this episode made me think about how lucky Miles is having him live in the 24th Century versus late 19th or early 20th century. Having him go undercover in a gang/mob/crime syndicate indirectly lets him experience what life might have been like for someone of his heritage - mostly if he would have grown up poor as an Irish-American - would have had to do to make ends meet. Another good DS9 episode!
  • From hugo on 2012-12-31 at 6:39pm:
    So is this classified as an "O'Brien must suffer" episode? I liked the setup and the setting, but I felt the ending was a bit dull. And everything was a bit cliche too. I don't think the emotional trust/connection between Bilby and O'Brien came out really in the buildup to the end.

    @packmanjohn - don't exaggerate, you make it sound like most poor irish-americans (one of the biggest immigrant groups!) were mobsters...

  • From L on 2013-08-07 at 3:55am:
    A genre episode that didn't quiet work.
    They laid on the male-bonding/betrayal of trust dilemma so thick that it was hard to tell if it was a spoof or a homage to the trope. It was just a bit much.
    The Vorta being so 'evil mobster'-like seemed really out of character for what they were supposedly cloned to be.

    The most interesting thing was the remote hacking via implant.
    Still, I like O'Brian episodes.

  • From Dave on 2016-04-17 at 10:28pm:
    This episode is basically Donnie Brasco in space. Very strange.

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