Are we supposed to believe that the O'Brien we see at the beginning of the episode has accumulated 20 years of hair and beard?Maybe he shaved, but I don't really think the Agrathi would let him have a razor.

Also, when he knocks all the cargo containers down, they sound and look empty.

Looks like DS9 has the same problem that TNG had.

TNG writer: "I'm blocked... Ok, let's (symbolically/psychically/otherwise) rape/violate Troi!"

DS9 writer: "I'm blocked... Ok, let's get O'Brien in jail/on trial"

Does the Federation have the equivalent of Amnesty International? If so, they really should have called them in on this.
"We punished him because he was a spy."
"No, he wasn't, he was just interested in your technology. He's an engineer."
"Ooops! Oh, well!"

They just left it like this! Their behavior was appalling, but they were never called to account for it! (At least not where we could see.)

About Cableface's comments on the containers...I have containers like that at home. I got them on sale at Wal-Mart a year or so ago. I guess the Federation shops at Wal-Mart too, only they have really cool looking space logos to put on theirs.

When O'Brien is charging his phaser to commit suicide, the phaser doesn't make the usual 'chirping' it makes when it normally charges.

O'Brien came out screaming "there are FIVE lights!"
He should've gotten with Picard on his experiences in "The Inner Light".
Instead, O'Brien just puts out Ejar's lights (hee hee).

Regarding the "Changed Premises" from Hard Time on Pg. 364 of the DS9 guide, about Pulaski's memory crasing method. I believe that when Dr. Crusher tried that in Who Watches the Watchers, she discovered that their brains were too highly developed. It might be that O'Brien's brain was also too highly developed.

Even with all this, and the evidence of DS9 writer's block (re-cycling plot threads from at least three prior episodes in Trek), this was such a great episode. O'Brien and Bashir at the end, as well as the whole Eechar-O'Brien relationship turned fatality- ample scope for great acting. And as we've come to expect, Colm Meaney et al. delivered the goods superbly.

It's a pity the Agrathi couldn't use this technique for rehabilitative purposes instead of just punishment. If they can implant memories of punishment, why not moral lessons?

Did O'Brien go to the Agrathi homeworld alone?

Once again we see Starfleet's Isolation Therapy for Traumatic Experiences. (ITTE for short. Rhymes with Bitty.) Bashir tells O'Brien that his friends were not there to greet him, because Bashir was afraid it would 'overwhelm' him.
(Then again, maybe Bashir was covering for the fact that no one cared? ;-)

I wonder if there was another reason why O'Brien was unwilling to talk about Ee'Char. Twenty years alone together in a small cell... maybe they became intimate?

Ee'Char tells O'Brien that he looks like a Reeta-hawk. Where would someone, or some programmed character, learn an Earth word like hawk?

In some ways, O'Brien's mental prison resembles the station. In particular there is one scene where the station's lights through a grill cast a pattern down that resembles the squares of light on the prison floor.

I believe in the later episode Honor Among Thieves, it is said that the station would fall apart without O'Brien to understand the odd mix of Cardassian, Federation & Bajoran parts, but here the station seems to get along fine without him.

Why is Jake there while O'Brien is reacquainting himself with his tools? Did he ask Jake to help because he didn't want to embarrass himself in front of one of his friends or coworkers?

O'Brien is undergoing psychological stress, and was even relieved of duty, but his access codes for the weapons locker still works???

Why didn't Bashir have the computer shut off O'Brien's phaser?

In O'Brien's close-up he holds his phaser close to his chin, the tip of the phaser is about the height of the top of his shirt. In the wide shot, O'Brien holds the phaser much lower.

If O'Brien's behavior is typical of how people behave because of the Agrathi penal system, I'm surprised that there are not more repeat offenders. Actually the whole system seemed designed to create societal misfits. Maybe the Agrathi are secretly working for the Dominion?

Phil claims this episode is a cross of TNG's "Inner Light" and Voyager's "The Chute"...Problem? "The Chute" was a third season episode...and Voyager was in it's second season at this point.

"Even with all this, and the evidence of DS9 writer's block (re-cycling plot threads from at least three prior episodes in Trek), this was such a great episode"

What three prior episode?

This episode was originally supposed to feature Sito Jaxa, the bajoran presumed MIA in "Lower Decks" who would return to DS9 after escaping from a Cardy gaol, where she would find it difficult adapting to the real world after the horrors of her internment (eg. torture, discussions of lighting and fish juice for breakfast). Also on the topic of rehashing plots, im sure there was an episode of the new Outer limits which dealt with virtual incarceration.

Not to mention Ex Post Facto(VOY), another episode involving and alien world that punishes criminals with memory implants, which was inspired, I believe, by the same story concept by the same writer as this episode.

::Phil claims this episode is a cross of TNG's "Inner Light" and Voyager's "The Chute"...Problem? "The Chute" was a third season episode...and Voyager was in it's second season at this point.::

Phil never states that this episode was "inspired by" or a "rip-off of". Only that it seems like a cross of three different episodes. There's no problem there. However, if Phil had published the book before "The Chute" aired, well, then you might have a point. And it would raise A LOT of questions about Phil's psychic abilities! ;)

The statement does imply "inspired of" or a "rip-off of" to me. And I am beting anything Phil isn't aware of the point I stated.

::The statement does imply "inspired of" or a "rip-off of" to me. And I am beting anything Phil isn't aware of the point I stated.::

Oh, c'mon. Here is a direct quote from page 363 of the Nitpicker's Guide for DS9 Trekkers:

"Did this episode remind anyone else of a cross among "The Inner Light" (TNG), "Frame of Mind" (TNG), and "Ex Post Facto" (VOY)."

What the heck? It doesn't even mention "The Chute"!! "Ex Post Facto" had aired by this time, by the way.

Do you have some sort of "special time-warp" version of the guide that does mention "The Chute"?

Guys, remember the Prime Directive! Good Humor!

Isn't it ironic that Uncle Dick posted a message on the "hard time" board?

::Good Humor!::

Sorry, I’m not a very witty guy. Seriously though, you gotta talk “tough” with Rene to get your point across. He’s just that kinda guy.

::Isn't it ironic that Uncle Dick posted a message on the "hard time" board?::

Not really. I post on many different boards.

It has been said that there are only seven basic plots in all of storytelling. So EVERYTHING has been done before.
Why was the character of Sito Jaxa written out? Was Shannon Fill unavailable when it came time to shoot?

Why didn't O'Brien tell anyone he was hallucinating earlier? I mean...yeah....I know it SEEMED like 20 yrs..but once O'Brien found out it really WASN'T 20 yrs., shouldn't he be a tad more OPEN to his "long-lost" friends?

For one thing, announcing to others that you're hallucinating is not something people do willingly. Second, O'Brien was ashamed of killing Ee'Char.

Um..Ok..what about the Counselor O'Brien was supposed to see. Yeah, I know, he didn't want to go and see the Counselor, but somebody should've made seeing the Counselor a direct order to begin with....not before things got real bad. AND if O'Brien wasn't happy with DS9's Counselor, I'm SURE he could've asked for Counselor Troi (DANG! A missed opportunity!)

That doesn't mean O'Brien is going to tell the counselor that he's hallucinating, at least not initially, and not easily.

DVD question: Does Ee'Char look like the technician who treats O'Brien on the torture rack?

One thing has puzzled me about episodes like this: Couldn't the doctor just erase these unpleasant memories? Lord knows the Federation has the ability and is willing to use it under the right conditions.

Forget.

Margot Rose in this episode? Very familiar to TNG's The Inner Light in which she appeared too.

That's an interesting coincidence, considering the similarity of the two episodes, and that this one is sometimes thought of as the dark side of the coin to that prior one.

I'm surprised that O'Brien wasn't a little more resentful to his friends when he got back to DS9 - surely from his point of view it must have seemed like they'd just abandoned him. Some anger from that must have built up over those '20 years'?

KAM:
Ee'Char tells O'Brien that he looks like a Reeta-hawk. Where would someone, or some programmed character, learn an Earth word like hawk?

Maybe he didn't. Maybe the UT just translated it that way because it was the closest equivalent. That, or hawks are everywhere.

It's also important to remember that the whole prison experience was in O'Brien's head, so his head probably translated it for him.

When O'Brian takes the phaser to shoot himself he alters the setting to maximum. However, at no point does he touch anything else to, say, disengage a safety device. So the Federation designed a weapon that can vaporise matter, is fired by pressing down on a small button like a remote control and didn't think it might be a good idea to make sure you couldn't accidentally fire it?