TNG - Marina Sirtis talks about the costume design

[Beastro]

I coincidentally saw this the other day too. It is a good and kind of sad insight into the production.

I feel like Troi is a real missed opportunity. Maybe she was too nice? Maybe they needed more women writers on staff? Had to be the guy who points to sexism and sighs, but when you look at the cloths and recall all of Gene's bullshit...

IMO, she was more hobbled by the psychic therapist shtick than any possible sexism, and worse, they didn't really know what the hell do with with it. She became your usual 80s/90s New Agey weirdo with odd, vague and accurate insight into something.

Making her more into someone human that one finds in the mental health field combined with a bit of her own real wry and blunt British outlook on life would have done wonders, but I think it would have made her overshadow the rest of the cast.

In the end it's a non-starter anyway since Roddenberry had regressed more into the mindset that everyone was a calm and stoic to the point of sedated without any major flash of personality that dominated the early seasons.

I coincidentally saw this the other day too. It is a good and kind of sad insight into the production.

I feel like Troi is a real missed opportunity. Maybe she was too nice? Maybe they needed more women writers on staff? Had to be the guy who points to sexism and sighs, but when you look at the cloths and recall all of Gene's bullshit...

I hate to be ''that guy'' but wasn't she hired to be the T'Pol or Seven of Nine of this series? Boobs in a catsuit with an excuse characterization for being there. And a lot of her roles before Star Trek were of the same mold. I kind of suspect she knew what she was getting into, and if she didn't, she surely soon did.

Whether or not she did I doubt she cared.

She's practically said the show saved her from a career in exploitation films, like the seedy stuff she did before she landed the role with a lot of nudity and the kinds of folks that work on films like that. She was so happy to put that behind.

With that said I never saw her character as a T'Pol or 7of9 if that is true, like I said above, the New Agey 80s/90s mystic support character.

I might be biased too, since I never found her character attractive given what she got stuck with and that I was more of a Crusher guy.

And the curly hair. I found it a big improvement when that finally ended for the later movies.

Probably should have either given the character some additional purpose or specialty or, alternatively, had used her as more of a recurring side character in the vein of someone like O'Brien.

Whatever the case she should NOT have had a chair next to Picard and Riker. Have the ships therapist on the bridge, like Bones often was despite him having his own station onboard, but don't have her sit right next to the captain as if he's Adrian fricking Monk and will need an emergency session as a moments notice because a mean alien he talked to said some bad words to him.

At least in the Titan books they changed her job to Diplomatic Officer to give her some reason to be on the bridge.

Even that is a poor compromise as such a position would make her as important as the captain with also some sense of being like a political officer ("Sorry Captain, you can't do this, it would violate the current administrations foreign policy").

The rank is also sticky if keeping with archetypal Star Trek and it's roles (Not that I disagree with you, I've often found it interesting to think of the conflict and tension such a officer onboard would cause, especially with a principled captain) given it was modeled after Age of Sail warships and how a major part of a captains role back then was acting on behalf of his country and it's interests when communications back home was weeks or months away.

It was a role many captains got shoved into and were ill equipped for. Like Nelson when his squadron was stationed helping protect the Kingdom of Sicily and the Royal Navy soon found him being manipulated by the Sicilian queen through Emma Hamilton to do things the Admiralty didn't consent to that were counter to how they wanted the war fought in the Mediterranean.

When Nelson died and was suceeded by his second in command, Collingwood, it was a heaven sent as Collingwood was as much a seaman as Nelson, but was wise and tactful enough to be able to operate diplomatically away from Admiralty oversight while staying in keeping with the spirit of policy.

One could say an major facet of the Roddenberry idealism in the show is finally having a culture good enough to imbue the right education and mindset into ship captains so that they can live like of Age of Sail captains out on the edge, but are noble and principled enough to be able to work lock step with their nations ideals enough that they don't cause problems as much as their forebears once did.

[Riedquat]

I'd forgotten about her (thanks for reminding me). If they wanted an onboard reporter it should've been Emily Wong.

That wouldn't work; Shepard keeps punching her.

That was a different reporter (Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani). Emily Wong was the one who gave Shepard a couple of sidequests in ME1.

[Riedquat]

Whatever the case she should NOT have had a chair next to Picard and Riker. Have the ships therapist on the bridge, like Bones often was despite him having his own station onboard, but don't have her sit right next to the captain as if he's Adrian fricking Monk and will need an emergency session as a moments notice because a mean alien he talked to said some bad words to him.

Someone trained in the ability to recognise body language, tone of speech and so on in multiple alien races could be useful on the bridge, although what we got was usually just an obvious "he's hiding something!" That could require a quiet word to the captain during a conversation, which would be harder if she was elsewhere. At any rate a bit of that would've made her at least look partially justified, although considering the aliens were rarely very alien it would've been hard to pull off.

[CrypticMirror]

Whatever the case she should NOT have had a chair next to Picard and Riker. Have the ships therapist on the bridge, like Bones often was despite him having his own station onboard, but don't have her sit right next to the captain as if he's Adrian fricking Monk and will need an emergency session as a moments notice because a mean alien he talked to said some bad words to him.

Someone trained in the ability to recognise body language, tone of speech and so on in multiple alien races could be useful on the bridge, although what we got was usually just an obvious "he's hiding something!" That could require a quiet word to the captain during a conversation, which would be harder if she was elsewhere. At any rate a bit of that would've made her at least look partially justified, although considering the aliens were rarely very alien it would've been hard to pull off.

Yeah, I think the problem was the conflation of two very different jobs; therapist/psychiatrist who ought to have been on Bev's staff operating out of sickbay, and -for want of a better term- the ship's diplomatic advisor who would have been on the bridge during contacts and in crisis moments. The latter would have psychological training, of course, but whose focus would be advising the captain and providing a specialist officer to handle diplomatic crisis while freeing the captain to concentrate on captaining. Ironically I could understand them conflating the two more easily in Kirk or even Archer's time than during TNG. In the former they are smaller ships with a much more limited crew complement and space for that crew, so doubling up on roles makes sense, by TNG's time they have a ship which could easily take on ten times the level of staff it has (based on the sheer internal volume) so there is no reason for anyone to have to multi-role.

Of course the real reason is the cost of hiring actors and the relative difficulty in writing for a cast herd of that size, especially when TNG started airing, but that isn't our problem to deal with as viewers now is it.

[FaxModem1]

I think a good moment was in The Drumhead, where it's pointed out that Picard essentially uses Troi as a litmus test against potential adversaries, as she can either pressure them into thinking their thoughts are being read, or can tell the captain when they're lying. It makes him reevaluate what he's doing with her, and whether it's ethical.

The main issue is that we needed more scenes like this one from The Ensigns of Command:

TROI: In our dealings with other non-humanoid races there has been some point of reference. Not so with the Sheliak.
PICARD: But we must have something in common. We communicate.
TROI: Barely. They have learned several Federation languages, but theirs continues to elude us.
PICARD: Telepaths?
TROI: Attempted and failed. Actually, the fact that any alien race communicates with another is quite remarkable. We are stranded on a planet. We have no language in common, but I want to teach you mine. (she hold up his cup of tea) S'smarith. What did I just say?
PICARD: Cup? Glass?
TROI: Are you sure? I may have meant liquid, clear, brown, hot. We conceptualise the universe in relatively the same way.
PICARD: Point taken.
TROI: In your talks, you must be extremely accurate. The treaty is five hundred thousand words. The length was to accommodate the Sheliak. They consider our language irrational, and demanded this level of complexity to avoid any future misunderstandings.
RIKER [OC]: Captain, we have the vessel carrying the Sheliak colonists on visual.
PICARD: On my way. So, it begins.

Here's Troi giving smart advice, helping ensure that Picard thinks it through, and she comes off as intelligent, with a different perspective to offer Picard.

We needed more scenes like it, but the writers didn't think to do that with her often enough.

[bluebydefault]

Costuming on these shows had always been a bit iffy. There are a lot of advanced space fairing civilizations that like bland onesies that are not comfortable looking and seem like a hassle to wear.

She looked better in uniform I remember when she put it on for that episode and she looked professional. It was something that always bugged me. At least when she has bridge duty she should have always been wearing it. I guess if she has times wear she was just seeing patients it would be fine to wear a dress.

[CaptainCalvinCat]

I don't know, you guys - I watched the show and I could take her seriously, whatever she wore. I mean, I get, what you're saying, it's just nothing I could wholeheartedly agree on. I even don't agree with Miss Sirtis on this one, because no matter how much you want to make fun of Troi, because her job is nothing more than saying "Captain, he is hiding something", what you have to understand, is that you can't use characters potential like Deannas to the fullest, because then you would have the other crowd being up in arms, yelling that she is waaaaaaaay tooooooooo powerful and that would be a bad thing.

Not for me, mind you - I would've liked to see Deanna and Data in full "let's user our potential to the fullest"-mode. I mean - take Rey from Star Wars for example. I have nothing against her, I think, her character is awesome, but I read that lot of people are yelling, that she's a Mary Sue and that all this new Star Wars is some SJW-stuff. Which - of course - is bullshit. But that would've happened, if they made Deanna and Data into characters that lived up to their potential.

[Koshundheit]

I had no idea Sirtis was so funny. This led me to background watch more Trek convention Q&As than I'd have thought I would want to. She's also got an outsized personality, even compared to the rest of panels full of actors. It's a shame that her character was so poorly used and dressed most of the time, such that she is well aware of the problem that led some fans to use to term Counselor Cleavage, even though she didn't use that term. When one of a character's few traits outside of plots is a love of chocolate, that's thinly written. She also talks in some panels about having to crash the ship when she is finally allowed to drive the damn thing. Poor Troi. Sirtis also mentions in the video the asymmetry near the cleavage of some of the costumes, and apparently it bugged her as it does Chuck and me and surely others.

Random aside: Kate Mulgrew was not at all pleased with Garrett Wang's impersonation of Janeway, and described the audience supporting that it sounded like her as "horrifying". Wonder if she has heard Chuck's version?

[CrypticMirror]

Random aside: Kate Mulgrew was not at all pleased with Garrett Wang's impersonation of Janeway, and described the audience supporting that it sounded like her as "horrifying". Wonder if she has heard Chuck's version?

At least Chuck's version is supposed to be horrifying, yet oddly fascinating. CBS should commission Chuck to write a Mirror Universe Star Trek show based on that.

[rickgriffin]

I hate to be ''that guy'' but wasn't she hired to be the T'Pol or Seven of Nine of this series? Boobs in a catsuit with an excuse characterization for being there. And a lot of her roles before Star Trek were of the same mold. I kind of suspect she knew what she was getting into, and if she didn't, she surely soon did.

Whether or not she did I doubt she cared.

She's practically said the show saved her from a career in exploitation films, like the seedy stuff she did before she landed the role with a lot of nudity and the kinds of folks that work on films like that. She was so happy to put that behind.

Yeah, from what I gather, at least once season 1 had passed, everyone on the crew REALLY enjoyed working on the show, Sirtis included; it just doesn't, y'know, mean there weren't problems or excuse the stupid things the management did. (But it was still probably a hell of a lot better than who Sirtis worked with before.)