Honor Among Thieves

Bilby is well portrayed by Nick Tate. Another review here notes that it is an odd choice for a Federation engineer to go undercover to infiltrate a mob. I agree although it is a nice change of venue from the station.

"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.

This episode is a Horrible stereotypical portrayal of Italians. Skip it. Writers need to do better. But at least Sisco isn't in it too much. Overacting much?

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 noticed that another reviewer felt that this was THE worst episode of "Star Trek: Deep Space 9". Well, this series had quite a few terrible shows (though on balance, most were quite good) and I would venture to say that there are several much more terrible episodes I can think of right off the bat! However, I agree that "Honor Among Thieves" is not a particularly good show.

When the show begins, O'Brien is in some other part of the galaxy because he's on an undercover mission. It seems that the dreaded Orion Syndicate has infiltrated Starfleet and because of that they need some outsider. What follows is much like a mobster film, with O'Brien becoming a made man and learning to over-identify too much with his new 'friends'.

Why wasn't this a very good episode? Well, while O'Brien is only on this mission a short time, he way over-identifies with his new friends and his reaction to their being arrested or killed (due to their own evil) is ridiculous and makes no sense. Up until then, I hadn't minded the show--but towards the end it just looked like it needed a re-write...badly.