Series: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Season 4, Episode 4
Original Air Date: October 16, 1995
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| via Headhunter's Holosuite Wiki |
During an away mission on the Rubicon, Bashir and O'Brien crash land on an unknown planet - unknown but not uninhabited. A group of runaway Jem'Hadar have taken refuge there and they take our heroes prisoner. Once they find out Bashir is a doctor, their leader, Goran'Agar, enlists (forces) Julian to find a way to break his soldiers' addiction to ketracel-white. The Jem'Hadar are genetically engineered to have this addiction as a means of controlling them.
In the B plot, Worf struggles to find an appropriate role for himself on the space station.
"Hippocratic Oath" is one of several DS9 episodes that sits with the realities of war in a way that other Star Trek series have mostly avoided. While there is plenty of solid character building among the principals, the more interesting story is the drama playing out among the Jem'Hadar soldiers themselves. Goran'Agar has already beaten his own addiction and he's walking a very thin line with his underlings, lying to them about how much ketracel-white is left. He knows they'll kill him when they find out.
In the climactic scene, Goran'Agar helps Bashir and O'Brien escape and as the three part, he knows he must go kill his remaining companions. Bashir, the doctor, doesn't understand.
Goran'Agar, turning to O'Brien: "You are a soldier?"
O'Brien: "I have been"
Goran'Agar: "Then you explain."
O'Brien does. In "Hippocratic Oath," we see a lot of the differences between Bashir and O'Brien. We also see how much they care for one another.
Acting Notes
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| via Memory Alpha |
Stephen Davies played the role of Arak'Taral, Goran'Agar's second-in-command. This is his second of three Star Trek appearances. Films include Inserts, The Long Good Friday and Dillinger and Capone. His television guest credits include Starsky & Hutch, Dallas and CHiPs.
This is by far one of the more unbalanced Bashir/O'Brien episodes, with O'Brien having a minor role to Bashir's moral dilemma, with Goran'Agar playing a much larger one. It's a testament to how much the series had matured at this point. Previously it would've very much have been a two-hand, O'Brien and Bashir surviving the experience kind of episode. But we've already seen that. Instead it's a spotlight for Bashir's new mature outlook, arguably the experience that most pushed him in that direction, and probably what freed the writers to pursue even more challenging material for him (but more on that later).
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