The Star Trek Icon Who Singlehandedly Ruined An Episode

At this point, you’re probably asking how the heck Alexander Siddig could singlehandedly ruin “The Passenger.” Initially, it seemed like this was going to be a showcase episode for the young actor.

The plot involved a villain who could hop bodies, and the major reveal of the episode is that the alien is now cruising around in Bashir’s body and putting the entire station in danger.

This was going to be a big deal for Alexander Siddig because he got to play both a main character as well as a mustache-twirling villain. He was also under immense pressure because his character had been written to be deliberately unlikeable at first, giving him a proper arc where he could grow into someone lovable.

Audiences just hated Bashir, though, and when Paramount wanted to fire Siddig due to audience reaction, producer Rick Berman had to personally step in and protect him.

Unfortunately, the actor took some big chances in “The Passenger,” all of which seemed to blow up in his face. For example, he tried to do a different voice for when his character was possessed, and producer Rick Berman later revealed that the possessed Bashir sounded too much like Bela Lugosi.

This resulted in them having Alexander Siddig re-dub his own lines, and while Berman insists that the final result “was fine,” he acknowledged that the producers worried whether the re-edit would look good or not.

Additionally, then-showrunner Michael Piller also thought a particular Siddig moment completely ruined “The Passenger.” He later said, “If you look carefully, there’s a frame of Bashir, just after you’ve heard the voice of the dead guy, and Bashir’s reaction basically blows the whole show out of the water.”

However, Piller didn’t really blame the actor, noting that the scene simply “wasn’t shot properly” but that “it ruins the whole episode when you see it.”

Interestingly, even Alexander Siddig has admitted that his work on “The Passenger” was subpar. 

He once claimed that this episode was his “biggest failure,” though he believes part of the problem was that he was only given the script for the episode the day before shooting began.

That gave him very little preparation time, and he was nervous because this early into the show, he didn’t really know the cast and crew that well.

Looking back at the first season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, we’re a tad surprised that Alexander is so hard on “The Passenger” and his own contributions. Sure, it’s rough in the same way that most first-season episodes are, but nobody would call this the worst stinker of the season (that’s an honor reserved for “Move Along Home”), and its weaknesses aren’t really the fault of the actors.

Siddig might have gone a little arch for his turn as a villain, but as Sisko might remind him, it’s important to take big swings even when you don’t always hit the ball.