By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Star Trek: The Next Generation had one of the best ensemble casts in television history, but some of their characters were used better than others. For example, Counselor Troi has an exotic background and powerful empathic abilities, but she exists in most episodes to simply look pretty and state the obvious (“I sense danger, Captain!”). And Troi actor Marina Sirtis once called the Star Trek producers out for this character treatment when discussing how her beefy role in the original script for “The Enemy” was whittled down to almost nothing.
Marina Sirtis And Her Star Trek Problems
In “The Enemy,” Geordi La Forge was stranded on a planet where his VISOR didn’t work and had to team up with a Romulan. Marina Sirtis didn’t have much to do in this Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, but she says that the original script had both Troi and Geordi on the planet and that Troi got to do cool things like incapacitate a Romulan. “I finally got to do something interesting and different,” she said, but “when the final script came not only was I not on the planet, but I had one line at the end of the show–and that was actually cut.”
Regarding this episode, Marina Sirtis was vocalizing something that many Star Trek fans have noticed over the years: namely, that her character is consistently given very little to do. On the popular Trek podcast The Greatest Generation, hosts Adam Pranica and Benjamin Harrison nicknamed both Counselor Troi and Dr. Crusher “potted plants,” the joke being that the show typically used these characters as nothing more than decorations. It’s a fair criticism, and based on her comments, one that Sirtis herself shares.
The actor’s comments were published in Captain’s Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, and they showcase just how cynical she had become about the production of TNG episodes. For example, she noted that she wasn’t supposed to read the original draft of “The Enemy” because “we’re not allowed to see” early scripts to avoid “conversations like this.” This rule wasn’t limited to Marina Sirtis, as other Star Trek actors would be equally disappointed to know that they were supposed to have a major role in an episode in which they barely appear.
However, this stung the Troi actor that much more because she was traditionally given so little to do. Therefore, when she read about Troi taking out a Romulan, Marina Sirtis said she was “very excited about” this Star Trek episode. Then her role was diminished so much that she barely spoke (contrary to the actor’s words, she did speak in the episode, but it was only two lines). According to her, “That’s the kind of thing that happens” on the show “and I wish it didn’t.”
Arguably, Counselor Troi had some of the most interesting storytelling potential on The Next Generation: she’s an alien with special abilities who once had a passionate romance with Commander Riker, second in command of the USS Enterprise. Sadly, though, the show’s writers never really knew what to do with Marina Sirtis’ character, which is why she ended up with the most misused character in this popular Star Trek spinoff. Frankly, we’d love to borrow her character’s Betazed abilities because that might be the only way to learn what the writers and producers were thinking while wasting her character so thoroughly.
