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sshbpodcast · 1 year ago

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Character Spotlight: Deanna Troi

By Ames

I’m sensing excitement for our new character spotlight blogpost. That can only mean one thing: the Enterprise’s resident Betazoid is here to do her empath thing, and frequently not much else. We’re big defenders of Marina Sirtis here on A Star to Steer Her By, though we don’t always feel the same way about how the writers developed her character – or more frequently, how they failed to do so at any given opportunity.

When you give Deanna Troi something to do, she super nails it, and we’ve got the examples to prove it! On the flip side, we’ve also got plenty of times she missed the mark by a few lightyears. It’s like people in the 90s had no idea how to write about mental health. Or write for women in something other than some kind of sexual peril. Or sometimes just write for women at all. So plop down on the counselor’s couch as you read our best and worst Troi moments below and sense our emotions about them over on this week’s podcast episode (discussion starts at 1:09:34). Tell us how that makes you feel…

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

You can’t hide the emptiness from me Let’s start things off with Troi actually doing her job as a counselor as she occasionally does throughout the series, and she even uses some of her Betazoid empathy when she psychoanalyzes Armus in “Skin of Evil.” It’s compelling to watch her deduce his whole deal, and use her skills to find a way to distract him with his own rage and allow for her escape.

What’s under the words is what’s important We also remember shipping her and Riva from “Loud as a Whisper” like whoa. The two had natural chemistry and he kicked off a whole string of random mediators whom Troi got down with. But Riva definitely proved to be the best as he and Troi showed us that finding ways to communicate form the basis of any kind of relationship – personal, cultural, or otherwise.

Can I borrow a feeling? Here’s one more great example of Troi actually using her empathy to some purpose. Now don’t get me wrong, “Shades of Grey” is a pretty pointless and boring episode for the most part, but even I have to admit that watching Troi sensing Riker’s emotions was a good touch for her character, and her connection with her imzadi was pretty palpable in this sloggy clipshow.

Eyes in the dark Oh boy, another pretty terrible episode that actually has some quality Troi moments. It’s no wonder her character doesn’t usually get the credit she deserves: whenever she’s actually doing something noteworthy it’s in the lousy episodes that people just want to forget. But in “Night Terrors” she saves the day by figuring out the nightmare puzzle and getting a much deserved nap.

Why do you have to be so nice? Upsettingly, in the same style as the sexy characters like Seven of Nine and T’Pol, Deanna seems to mostly get used on the show to get mindraped a lot or otherwise treated as a plaything for men (and that includes men in the audience for whom her terrible jumpsuit was definitely crafted). So it makes me shout for joy when she beats the hell out of Jev in “Violations” because both he and the writers deserved that.

You will take orders from me and no one else The tippy top of anyone’s Troi list should be her amazing performance in “Face of the Enemy.” This was one of our highlights of all of TNG since everyone and their second foremother has been underestimating Troi this whole dang time. So to watch her infiltrate a Romulan ship, pass herself off as a Tal Shiar operative, and save the defectors without blowing her cover was as surprising as it was engrossing. It makes you wish they had written her like this all along.

Bad thoughts, they hurt her We’ll talk more fully about Lwaxana another day (definitely make sure you’re following this page for that!), but Deanna’s relationship with her mother is still one of love and admiration despite how much their personalities clash. Which is why it’s so lovely in “Dark Page” for us to see Deanna go into her mother’s mind to help her through reliving the trauma of losing her first child, Kestra Troi.

I’d read two chapters Another good gal relationship we don’t see nearly enough of in the show is the Troi-Crusher friendship. It’s always nice to see the two lady characters of the show interacting and [sometimes] passing the Bechdel test, but specifically we actually have to shout out to the progressive moments of “Sub Rosa” that actually discuss female pleasure in a positive way. Get it, girls!

Everyone orders Geordi to his death eventually A couple more from season seven, when Troi finally seems to have hit some kind of stride and developed as a character, even going so far as to take the command test! It’s in “Thine Own Self” that she proves she has what it takes to officially be put into the command rotation when she orders a simulation of Geordi to his death. After our La Forge spotlight, we all kinda wanted it.

I’m sensing horniness Caitlin also wanted to make sure to appease the Troi-Worf shippers out there. There may not be many of you, but you’ve got some solid foundation after we saw this unusual couple give it the old college try starting in “Eye of the Beholder.” We’ve got to admit: it was an interesting pairing of the Klingon who had a lot of emotions and the Betazoid who could sense them.

I’m a leaf on the wind Many people would put crashing the Enterprise in Generations on their Worst Moments list, but not us! Frankly, that thing was going down no matter who was in charge, and we’ve got to give Troi a lot of credit that she landed that saucer as safely as anyone could. Normally, splatting into a planet surface would yield no survivors, but pretty much everyone walked away thanks to her!

Have you tried plexing? We see Troi do the impossible and actually help Barclay through therapy in episodes like “Hollow Pursuits” and “Realm of Fear” even though she has every right to not work with someone who was diddling her likeness in the holodeck. But she stuck with it, even into Voyager episodes like “Pathfinder” and “Inside Man.” Give it up for the Goddess of Empathy.

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Worst moments

Wouldn’t you rather be alone with me? With me in your mind? Another week, another “The Naked Now” reference. We’ve said it before: it’s so disgusting for all the female characters to just get horny while they’re spacedrunk, while all the male characters have a variety of drunken behaviors. Sadly, Troi is relegated to swooning all over Riker while she’s infected with the polywater virus, and we’re pretty done with it.

When I snap my fingers, you will bark like an Antican So frequently I can’t tell if Troi is practicing legitimate psychiatry, some made-up future psychiatry, or just what writers from the 90s thought psychiatry entailed. But episodes like “Lonely Among Us” give me the impression it’s the latter when suddenly Troi is doing some kind of hypnosis thing on Worf and Crusher after they’d been possessed by some random entity. Cluck cluck cluck.

Turn off your beam into my soul A small factor that I have to give Troi a little bit of guff about is when she tries to force counseling onto Stubbs in “Evolution.” An allegedly trained counselor should know that it can be harmful and even dangerous to therapize someone who does not consent to it, and it actually made me a little uncomfortable to watch. Leave this man to his mental baseball games, lady.

You’re unusually limber this morning In a reminder that the writers of this show have no idea how to write for women, we get this utterly embarrassing aerobics scene from “The Price.” Sure, the ladies can talk about boys if they want to if that’s what they’re into, but it’s so obvious that they’re in these skimpy leotards just to appeal to the adolescent boys in the audience and for absolutely no other reason. Gross.

It’s more than just letting them cry on your shoulder Troi spends most of “The Loss” literally going through the stages of grief over her empath powers, and I guess her favorite stage was pissiness since she just camped out there and bitched at everyone she interacted with. And then Guinan so smoothly schools her on counseling that Troi hits rock bottom hard enough to come around the other side again somehow.

The chain of command is the chain I go get and beat you with... “Disaster” could have gone on both lists because Troi does end up being right in the end, but it’s going here partly to make room for other examples above and partly because Troi was so out of her depth trying to lead during a crisis. In reality, her move was the wrong move, as she learns later in the afore-mentioned “Thine Own Self” which teaches her the correct move was to kill Geordi!

I never met a chocolate I didn’t like For some strange reason, the writers decided that one of very few character traits that define Deanna Troi other than being an empath (in case you forgot) is that she’s obsessed with chocolate. And in “The Game” we practically get to watch her orgasm over a chocolate sundae in a fully out-of-place scene that just reminds us that the writers rarely knew what to do with her.

If it looks like an android and quacks like an android… The writers also frequently had no idea how to write for Troi when she was supposed to be doing her counselor job too! In fact, in “Hero Worship” she pawns off a kid clearly suffering from post-traumatic stress on an entirely unqualified and ill-suited Data, whose ability to relate to people is questionable at best. There’s a reason we never hear from Timothy again…

Sign here, here, and here More terrible counseling comes in “Cost of Living.” I have to give Worf credit for going to Troi for help with his brat son, but the advice Troi gives them to write up a parent-child contract is perplexing! Alexander is a child, somewhere between two and twelve years old (who can tell with Klingons?). Treating him like a contractor is so impersonal that it surprised me coming out of her.

But forward we look and forward we go The will-they-won’t-they thing between Troi and Riker was always frustrating, since they need to both remain single so they can woohoo random aliens. So it actually seems like the perfect answer to Troiker shippers (is that the right portmanteau?) when Tom Riker shows up in “Second Chances” and Troi blows it. How she said no to that man I’ll never understand.

And have you noticed how your boobs have started to firm up As we’ve said a bunch of times now in these character spotlight posts, the attempts at comedy in Insurrection very rarely land. And one of the most groan-inducing moments is when Troi remarks on her newly perky tits because of the effects of the Ba’ku planet, which just goes to remind us that she was first and foremost meant to be a sexual object for the fans to ogle.

I never kissed you with a beard before On the subject of dumb jokes from Insurrection, we have to complain again, even though we already covered it in the Riker spotlight, about Troi shaving off his beard because they were suddenly acting like horny teenagers again. And shame on her for acting like kissing a man with a beard is yucky! I can tell you from experience it’s the way to go.

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Our therapy session is now over, so make sure you’re keeping up with our weekly appointments as we have more TNG crewmembers to analyze next time! We hope you’re also slogging through Enterprise with us over on SoundCloud or wherever you podcast, telling us how you feel over on Facebook and Twitter, and doing your plexing exercises whenever you’re stressed out.

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