Deep Space Nine script coordinator Robert Gillan came up with the original story premise for [“Our Man Bashir”]. Naturally there were some significant differences in his version, most notably the fact that Bashir was originally sharing his holosuite adventure with Kira.
in Captains’ Logs: Supplemental by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman, 1996.
“He wanted her to experience it wish him,” Gillan explains, “so she was with him, not Garak. I had her playing one of the Bond-type girls, and Kira, being kind of a head-strong person, was kind of put off at the sexist role she was supposed to play, so she kind of modified her character…But to keep up with the Bond thing, Bashir couldn’t really have a woman partner, because women were always treated differently.”
I was really interested to read that this had been the plan for “Our Man Bashir”. It’s an episode I just can’t love, because the James Bond stories it pays homage are so sexist.
While maybe it would’ve been hard to make Kira work with the plot, it would’ve been great to at least have a character reflect about how regressive the women’s roles were in Bashir’s holoprogram – similar to how Sisko is concerned about whitewashing history at Vic’s in “Badda Bing, Badda Bang”.
