That reminds me of one of my favorite scenes in Starship Troopers (the movie, not the book). The brain bug is tied down and surrounded by thousands of armed humans, and the telepath helpfully informs us “It’s afraid!”
Not really. No one on the ship besides Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and *occasionally * Scotty mattered at all in Star Trek. For all its ills, at least *The Next Generation * was a true ensemble effort until the movies, when it became the Picard and Data hours.
I agree with what others have said about the writers failing to use her effectively.
Sirtis was not a great actress, but I thought her accent and manner conveyed a certain exotic, alien quality. She wasn’t just a Terran by another name. But she never had anything useful to do. I grind my teeth whenever I see Guinan giving the crew sage advice – those scenes could have gone to Deanna!
I did not say “Uhura was useful”. I said “Uhura was more useful than Troi.” There is a difference.
Right. What I was trying to say is that Uhura wasn’t at all whereas Deanna was at points.
Then we’ll have to agree to disagree. You are the Trek fan, of course, so I’m sure you know better. I find even when Troi was being “useful” she was useless.
What hasn’t been mentioned yet is the lame-brained, last season romance between Troi and Worf. I mean Worf??? Counselor Cleavage, the new agey therapy guru and Worf, the angry isolated klingon? No. Wouldn’t happen. Opposites attract, but not like that.
Perhaps someone can confirm this, as I can’t verify it, but I recall reading that Troi was going to be dumped half-way through the first season. She was initially brought on as a love interest for Riker, who was supposed to be the Kirk-like main hero character. But of course, Riker proved to be a dull leading man, attention shifted over to Picard & Data, and Troi found herself with nothing much useful to do. Troi only got a reprieve because Tasha Yar got killed off, then Crusher was written out & replaced by the more matronly Dr. Pulaski, and that left a derth of sexy young women regular characters. Truly a “What If…” moment, what if the most annoying character was ditched when it became apparent she wasn’t working, instead of shoe-horning her into stories for the next six years?
She was pretty good at distracting the Mirror Sulu.
I used to be a pretty obsessive fan and I’ve never read a thing about Deanna or any of the characters ever being written off. All the absences from the show save Diana Muldaur were due to the actors themselves, not the producers.
And infesting the ship with tribbles.
It seemed odd and made worse when the old Riker/Troi thing was rekindled for movie audience unfamiliar with the last season TNG.
“Captain, I am sensing … hostility …”
<Gowron shoves a bat’leth through her face>
“… Great … urg … hostility …”
Seek out the 1983 version of the movie The Wicked Lady.
Also see her rape scene in “Death Wish 3”.
Only if you want to feel totally disillusioned. She looks a lot better in uniform than out of it.
When I first heard of the character, I thought she was going to be the ship’s lawyer. Someone with a great knowlege of Federation Law and would be steering the ship and crew through any potential legal disputes.
Which would have been better.
I have meet her and she is a really nice person, and very naturally funny.
That’s always bothered me. Shouldn’t a ship’s counselor be in the sick bay or have offices nearby? Beverly and Polaski didn’t hang out on the bridge, why did Deanna?
Bah, Guinan should have been the ship’s counselor. She helped more people than Deanna ever did and without the psychobabble.
According to the commentary on the first-season DVDs, Sirtis was supposed to be Tasha Yar but she and Denise Crosby switched roles. Yar was supposed to have Eastern European ancestry so that’s where the accent came from. Sirtis kept the accent for Troi to emphasize her half-not-human-ness.
Not quite. From her Star Trek bio:
Star Trek: The Next Generation’s viewers do not hear Marina’s English accent, but rather a combination of several different accents that she has devised. “In the 24th century, geographical or nationalistic barriers are not so evident. The Earth as a planet is your country, your nationality. I didn’t want anyone to be able to pin down my accent to any particular country, and being good at accents, the producers trusted me to come up with something appropriate,” she explains.
Also, for what it’s worth, Tasha’s name when Troi was still going to play her was Macha Hernandez, which is hispanic.
Well, I couldn’t stand her. Like others in this thread, I noted that her “powers” were completely useless when they were most necessary.
My wife liked her. Go figure.
That helps to explain why (borrowing from a description of Buddy Hackett) she sounds like she has marbles in her mouth.
For the same reason that Starfleet defines “Senior Staff” arbitrarily as “series regulars”.
Or ‘bridge crew’ =series regulars. Was there no second or third shifts manning the bridge? Riker should have to be paged out of bed whenever Picard wanted him up top for the threat of the week. (Yes, unproud owner of The Nitpickers Guide to NG)