Honor Among Thieves

Let's start with the good: Nick Tate does some excellent acting in his final scene, and there's a fantastically fluffy cat. Now for the bad:

Very little of the plotting here stands up to any critical thought. Intelligence work is *all* about confidence, so they wouldn't be using the Chief as an agent in the first place -- for all the reasons that tickle us for suspense here: he has to lie about almost everything about himself, and he has a family to consider. Does anyone really imagine Keiko allowing him to take such a mission?

Not surprisingly, the secret element of plot-holium comes to his rescue, over and over. The script has Bilby seeming to be shrewd or not, as the plot requires; he's confident and commanding one moment, then quivering and obsequious when the boss shows, then totally trusting of his brand-new sidekick. But if Bilby's character has no consistency, neither does the agent who has given O'Brien this mission in the first place. The only trustable character in this mission is O'Brien, and most of what he says we know to be lies.

It's not impossible to successfully port in a script written outside the Star Trek universe, which seems to be the case here. But this doesn't even feel like Star Trek. So we have:

• an insufficiently-developed script that
• violates the continuity and character of a main role and
• doesn't feel like Star Trek.

That being said, it's a largely functional gangster story with some awkward character continuity and nice photography. 10/10 it could never be, but IMO it can't even really be Star Trek; there just aren't any DS9 characters who could have been given this role (with the possible exception of Odo).

5/10 for good sets, lighting, decent acting within scenes

I always liked this episode very much. Kind of like the episode Tin man. In my view Honor amongst thieves is a story about loneliness and about friendship and making hard choices. I love that Chester the cat is this man's best friend. I don't see a problem with that. Someone said this is not Star Trek. I beg to differ. This is science fiction and the story is fundamentally about the human condition. That is for me the very definition of Star Trek. I have watched this episode many times and I'm always moved by it. O'Brian is a good man and he is perfect for this role. The Orion syndicate man he befriends plays his part very well and it's believable. I also love cats, so there you have it.

Chief O'Brien goes undercover to infiltrate the Orion Syndicate.

This is a decent "O'Brien must suffer" episode thanks to a strong performance from Meaney that carries the story. It is a bit too random and implausible to fit within the serialised narrative of DS9, but the writer creates good material for the lead actors to bounce of each other. Nick Tate is also pretty good as the character Bilby.

Any fans of movies and shows about undercover operatives like 'Donnie Brasco' or 'Reservoir Dogs' should appreciate the themes covered, but at times they feel slightly clichéd. Personally I think if they really wanted to do an undercover story it should have been done in two parts and set over a longer period to make the relationship between the two leads more believable. Either that or at least have O'Brien absent for a few episodes in the build up to it so the audience can assume he spent the time developing the relationship.

O'Brien, for whatever reason, has been given the task of getting the goods on a sort of mafia syndicate. His engineering expertise is an asset to his role, but why he, of all people, would be given so much responsibility is beyond me. This job would require a skilled secret agent who could play the part of a trusted mobster. O'Brien is a shoot from the hip kind of guy and would probably be caught in a lie or slip up in the first five minutes. It's about a friendship that develops with a boss and the consequences of lying to him. Not a bad episode. Just not on a par with some others.

"DS9" never really got much worse than this. "Honor Among Thieves" is a dull, overdone episode in which O'Brien goes undercover in a crime syndicate and finds himself developing a friendship with the man who would be his enemy. Oh, whatever! This episode has horribly cliché lines, an uninteresting plot line, and a plethora of WTF, random moments (Bilby's cat? The Dominion?). Nick Tate seems to be interested only in getting paid, and even Colm Meaney's performance wasn't what it should have been. I think the only other DS9 episode that reached that low level of quality was "Hard Time." Which is a shame, because O'Brien is an excellent character. That makes this episode all the more heinous for not showcasing him properly. A badly framed waste of time.