Colm Meaney Isn’t Sure Star Trek Needs an Old Man Miles O’Brien

Of the ’90s Trek series to get their proverbial flowers successful the franchise’s streaming renaissance, Deep Space Nine has arguably been the amusement that, overmuch arsenic it was successful the ’90s, has been treated arsenic a spot of an underdog. With a fewer nods present and there, and a fewer voice-over returns successful Lower Decks, it’s not been wholly brushed aside, but it’s not precisely connected the aforesaid level of things similar Star Trek: Picard becoming a big Next Generation follow-up, oregon Prodigy being a loving tribute to Voyager and Captain Janeway’s legacy successful particular. But if Paramount’s Star Trek aboriginal were to see immoderate benignant of Deep Space Nine emotion letter, possibly don’t see a Miles O’Brien quality among the plans.

“I deliberation 7 years successful a abstraction suit was enough, you know?” Colm Meaney, who played Chief O’Brien on TNG and past successful each 7 seasons of DS9, precocious reflected successful an interrogation with the Sci-Fi & Fantasy Gazette. “I’m often asked that question, and you ne'er accidental never, of course, but archetypal of all, I wouldn’t acceptable successful it anymore… I retrieve radical saying astatine the clip erstwhile Voyager got going, ‘How galore times tin you spell to the well? How galore times tin you revamp this?'”

The reply in Trek‘s lawsuit has been “a lot” successful the past fewer decades, with plentifulness much to come, arsenic Meaney went connected to acknowledge. “They successfully did it with Star Trek and they’re inactive doing it. Good luck to them,” the histrion continued, earlier non-committally ruling retired a imaginable for his ain instrumentality to the franchise. “Do you privation to spot an aged Miles O’Brien? I don’t know. It’s surely not astatine the apical of my docket of things I’d similar to bash astatine the moment.”

Meaney mightiness beryllium underestimating the desires of Star Trek fandom there—especially DS9‘s fanbase, who, arsenic we said, person mostly not had the aforesaid benignant of referential revival in Trek‘s modern epoch compared to TNG and Voyager. There’s surely imaginable to beryllium had successful revisiting the satellite of DS9 and seeing the lingering interaction the Dominion War had connected its characters successful the years since the show. Something successful the vein of what Picard‘s archetypal season wanted to effort and bash (before it took a hard swerve into leader deification by the end) with those near down at DS9‘s extremity would honestly beryllium benignant of fascinating, particularly as, for each its revisits to that precocious 24th-century clip play of ’90s Trek, modern Star Trek worldly has mostly eschewed doing overmuch successful the “contemporary” mounting of the franchise successful the aboriginal 25th century.

But alas, if we were to spell determination with the DS9 cast, possibly we won’t get to bash truthful with 1 of Trek‘s astir beloved (and put-upon) main engineers. Maybe helium conscionable retired with Keiko and spent his days becoming adjacent much of a holodeck-tabletop wargames enthusiast and decided to support retired of each that synth revolution/Borg resurgence/living conception fiasco business.

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