This Deep Space Nine Episode Was Crafted To 'Manipulate' Star Trek Fans Into Liking A Character

There were a number of challenges when it came to creating "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," including creating characters that weren't just retreads of those on "Star Trek: The Original Series" and "Star Trek: The Next Generation." Some of the show's alien cast were easier to make stand apart, like the Cardassian tailor/spy Garak (Andrew Robinson) or Ferengi bartender Quark (Armin Shimerman), because they were the kinds of characters who simply couldn't exist on other "Star Trek" shows, but the humans were a bit more difficult. Despite some initial hesitations about Commander Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks), the human characters were most well-received despite being so unique from the Starfleet officers we had known and loved before. All except for one, really: Dr. Julian Bashir, played by Alexander Siddig.

In an oral history for SyFy, Siddig revealed that the show's writers and producers came up with a plan to "manipulate" the show's fans into liking Bashir by writing a whole episode around him in season 4 called "Our Man Bashir." Bashir, who had started the series rather boyish, was now a little more mature, and his James Bond-esque fantasies in the episode made him a little more relatable. "Our Man Bashir" played to both Siddig and the main co-star Robinson's strengths, and featured some fun performances by the rest of the cast as holosuite characters who happen to look like members of the crew due to a transporter mix-up, making for a great episode that helped fans fall in love with the handsome doctor at long last.

Throughout the early seasons of "Deep Space Nine," we mostly see Bashir pining after science officer Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) or just being kind of excitable and naive, but as he begins to grow closer to his frequent lunch date, Garak, he starts to grow up a bit. In "Our Man Bashir," he gets to not only be a hero, but be a hero with a much darker edge than one might expect, even surprising Garak in the end when he shoots him to save the lives of the officers trapped in the program. It's smart writing that lets Bashir be more complex and evolves him beyond the fumbling young physician he was at the beginning of "Deep Space Nine." Siddig explained: 

"There was a conversation between [writer and co-executive producer] Ira Behr, who became promoted, and myself and we said we can do something about this. We know this is a choice we've made to make the character as real as possible as a young graduate doctor. Let's play with the audience and see whether we can change their opinion. We did a show called 'Our Man Bashir' which was a spoof on James Bond and overnight because of that heroism, the audience started to like him."

While Siddig was a little shocked at how quickly fans began to like Bashir, he was glad that it allowed the character to grow further. "We kept trying to make him real," the actor said. "He just grew up on the show." Over the course of seven seasons, he would grow tremendously from an eager young doctor to a war veteran who had seen it all, but they always kept it real.