Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Paramount almost got rid of Dr. Julian Bashir

Dr. Julian Bashir wasn’t as popular as Paramount had hoped in the first season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

When Paramount hired Alexander Siddig (then known as Siddig El Fadil) for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine., it hoped the fans would immediately fall in love with the handsome doctor who was supposed to be charming and magnetic. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, and Siddig faced termination at the end of the first season.

Fans found Siddig’s character to be irritating (though this fan didn’t) and a romance intended between him and Terry Farrell (Jadzia) didn’t work. Siddig admits that his character wasn’t very popular, and Rick Berman kept him from getting jettisoned from the show.

"Rick Berman actually had to protect me because [Paramount] wanted to fire me after the first season. I just wasn’t as popular as they wanted."

Siddig credits Ira Steven Behr, who took over as showrunner in season four,  with turning his situation around with one episode: Our Man Bashir, the James Bond parody that was released only a couple of weeks after the James Bond movie, Goldeneye.

"They turned a lot of America’s opinion of me on a dime just by delivering that show… And from that moment on, I was altogether more serious, more complex, and more attractive in an archetypical sense."

Losing Dr. Bashir would have been a true loss to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. His friendship with Chief O’Brien added a lightheartedness to the show even in the darkest of episodes. In fact, some of his best interactions were with O’Brien, especially in the Season Four episode, Hard Time, where Bashir saves O’Brien from making a tragic mistake. And even before Our Man Bashir, the doctor played an instrumental role aboard the Space Station. Though Paramount might have been considering replacing Siddig with a different doctor, I can’t imagine anyone could have taken Dr. Bashir’s place.