DS9 · SEASON 44×03

Hippocratic Oath

NOMADIC PICK · GREAT DISCUSSION EPISODEBashir and O'Brien at odds.
FIRST SHOWN (US)
16 October 1995
ON
First-run syndication
STARDATE
49066.5
DIRECTED BY
René Auberjonois
PRODUCTION NO.
475

WRITTEN BYTeleplay by Lisa Klink; story by Nicholas Corea and Lisa Klink

IN BRIEF

SPOILER-FREE

Stranded on a planet with a band of renegade Jem'Hadar, Bashir and O'Brien are pressed into a medical mission that divides them, while Worf struggles to settle into station life.

SYNOPSIS

SPOILERS
Red alert: the full plot, ending included. Haven't watched yet?REVEAL SYNOPSISHIDE SYNOPSIS

Returning from a survey mission in the Gamma Quadrant, Bashir and O'Brien crash on a planet and are captured by renegade Jem'Hadar. Their leader, Goran'Agar, has lived there for years without ketracel-white, the drug that keeps his kind loyal to the Dominion, and he believes the planet cured him. He orders Bashir to free his men from their addiction before their supply runs out. Bashir sees a chance to do real good, but O'Brien regards the Jem'Hadar as killers and wants only to escape. Bashir discovers that Goran'Agar was never truly addicted because of a quirk in his biology, and then O'Brien sabotages the research. With his men turning against him, Goran'Agar lets the two officers go and turns back to face his own soldiers. On the station, Worf clashes with Odo over a smuggling case and learns that security on DS9 works very differently from a starship.

DID YOU KNOW?

  1. 01The story merged two pitches, one about the Jem'Hadar escaping their drug dependency and one putting Bashir and O'Brien on opposite sides of an alien conflict. René Echevarria suggested combining them.
  2. 02Lisa Klink wrote the script after a staff internship, with an uncredited polish by Ronald D. Moore. She went on to write regularly for Voyager.
  3. 03The first episode to name the Jem'Hadar's drug as ketracel-white, and the first to call the runabouts Danube-class.
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