Of the ’90s Trek series to get their proverbial flowers in the franchise’s streaming renaissance, Deep Space Nine has arguably been the show that, much as it was in the ’90s, has been treated as a bit of an underdog. With a few nods here and there, and a few voice-over returns in Lower Decks, it’s not been entirely brushed aside, but it’s not exactly on the same level of things like Star Trek: Picard becoming a big Next Generation follow-up, or Prodigy being a loving tribute to Voyager and Captain Janeway’s legacy in particular. But if Paramount’s Star Trek future were to include some kind of Deep Space Nine love letter, maybe don’t include a Miles O’Brien appearance among the plans.
“I think seven years in a space suit was enough, you know?” Colm Meaney, who played Chief O’Brien on TNG and then in all seven seasons of DS9, recently reflected in an interview with the Sci-Fi & Fantasy Gazette. “I’m often asked that question, and you never say never, of course, but first of all, I wouldn’t fit in it anymore… I remember people saying at the time when Voyager got going, ‘How many times can you go to the well? How many times can you revamp this?’”
The answer in Trek‘s case has been “a lot” in the past few decades, with plenty more to come, as Meaney went on to acknowledge. “They successfully did it with Star Trek and they’re still doing it. Good luck to them,” the actor continued, before non-committally ruling out a potential for his own return to the franchise. “Do you want to see an elderly Miles O’Brien? I don’t know. It’s certainly not at the top of my agenda of things I’d like to do at the moment.”
Meaney might be underestimating the desires of Star Trek fandom there—especially DS9‘s fanbase, who, as we said, have largely not had the same kind of referential revival in Trek‘s modern era compared to TNG and Voyager. There’s certainly potential to be had in revisiting the world of DS9 and seeing the lingering impact the Dominion War had on its characters in the years since the show. Something in the vein of what Picard‘s first season wanted to try and do (before it took a hard swerve into hero deification by the end) with those left behind at DS9‘s end would honestly be kind of fascinating, especially as, for all its revisits to that late 24th-century time period of ’90s Trek, modern Star Trek material has largely eschewed doing much in the “contemporary” setting of the franchise in the early 25th century.
But alas, if we were to go there with the DS9 cast, maybe we won’t get to do so with one of Trek‘s most beloved (and put-upon) chief engineers. Maybe he just retired with Keiko and spent his days becoming even more of a holodeck-tabletop wargames enthusiast and decided to keep out of all that synth revolution/Borg resurgence/living construct fiasco business.
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