According to the Hollywood Reporter article, “Our Man Bashir” was pitched by a freelance author named Robert Gillan (given a “story by” credit on the episode), but it was shot down as there had already been several episodes of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” about characters who are stuck in the fantasy world of a holodeck. Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) was once trapped in a noir detective story (in “The Big Goodbye”) and Data (Brent Spiner), while dressed as Sherlock Holmes, was pitted against an intelligent Moriarty (Daniel Davis) in “Elementary, My Dear Data.” Trapping “Star Trek” characters in a James Bond story was initially dismissed as old hat. It was Gillan’s idea to trap transporter patterns in a holosuite that won over producers.
Moore recalls loving the production, even if it took a while to film. His teleplay, he noted, went well out of its way to avoid explicit 007 references, relying instead on cliches of the genre. Moore wanted to pay homage to the James Bond movies he loved growing up but certainly wanted to stay away from anything that might be considered actionable. Despite his best efforts, MGM wrote an angry letter, noting that they weren’t impressed. Moore said:
“MGM sent us a letter. […] I don’t recall the Broccolis being on it or having signed it, but I remember after the episode aired, the studio sent us a very stern letter. And it even got back to some of the higher-ups at Paramount. It seems [the 007 people were] not very flattered by our ‘homage,’ but it wasn’t like we got in any serious trouble or anything.”
The Broccolis are Albert Broccoli and his family, who oversaw the James Bond film franchise.