I was just watching “Lessons,” and Deanna was in her blue uniform, looking very Commander Troi. I’m not one who had a problem with her other outfits for the most part, but it would have been nice to see her in her duty uniform at least occasionally too throughout the series. It’s been a bit since I watched an episode of the series, and it was so great to see the crew again. There’s something magic about this show, and their very faces light up my mood. Deanna’s make-up and coloring alone made me smile. I wish we had another seven years of missions to revisit. I wonder what the series would have been like if they all wore other outfits on duty. TOS crew had a plethora of uniform selections to choose from in TMP. In Katee Sackhoff’s new sci-fi series Another Life, crews don’t wear uniforms at all, saying they went out of fashion decades earlier. I rather like our crew in-uniform, but it might have been interesting to see more of them in “office casual” wear too? Maybe in one of those parallel universes from “Parallels” that Worf was jumping to.
I liked Troi best in the blue dress with the flowing skirt. Not wearing the uniform made her unique and distinctive, and let her possess a nice measure of fashion. All that disappeared when she wore a uniform.
I pretty much enjoyed every outfit that they introduced at the time. I didn’t like the EaF outfit that only she wore, though kudos for putting men in skants, S1. When the black one was introduced, I thought she looked mysteriously alien. (Actually, when I was a kid, I thought that tall bun was part of her alien makeup, like she was a parasaur or something.) Then I liked her friendly gray one, then the more Starfleet red one, the flowing green one, and the formal blue one. She even looked cute in her Klingon tai chi robe and devastating in her white nighty thingy.
I actually thought she looked better in the skant in Farpoint than she did in the outfit from the rest of season 1. But yeah, the regular uniform she wore in the later seasons looked a lot better on her than any of the catsuits did. But then, that's the sad irony of the catsuits in Star Trek. Marina Sirtis, Jeri Ryan and Jolene Blalock all looked better when they wore Starfleet uniforms than they ever did in their catsuits.
^ I’d throw Nana Visitor onto that list. I took her more seriously in her earlier season Bajoran uniform(s) than the skin-tight one later.
I don't mind that so much, since it still very visibly distinctive of the Bajoran uniform design. But yes, it is rather silly that Kira is the only one who has a skin-tight one-piece uniform in the entire Bajoran Militia. Curiously enough, though, Nana Visitor actually thought that one was more comfortable to wear than the earlier outfit.
Deanna should have always been in uniform when on bridge duty. The dresses would've been fine for off-duty and counseling sessions.
I didn't care for the catsuits on any of them, it felt out of place. I don't think the uniform was particularly flattering on any of the female cast in any of the shows; but a uniform isn't really supposed to look "flattering". Oddly enough, the male cast looked better in the uniforms (except Odo in S1)
It made sense that Troi wore civvies some of the time since she counciled to the civilian crew as well as the Starfleet personnel. I hear ya about the catsuits. Jeri Ryan never looked better than in her Workforce outfit and that was a far cry from a catsuit.
From what Marina Sirtis has said in the interview with Mission Log Podcast, she didn't initially wear a uniform, other than in "Encounter at Farpoint" because she was overweight.
The irony is that the women's Starfleet uniforms in TNG are simply catsuits with a high collar. Take away the Starfleet motif, and you still have a very snug catsuit.
The jumpsuits would have made sense, if she were like, a civilian counsellor aboard the ship or something. But they needed an excuse to put her there in the command circle with Picard and Riker, so in the pilot they gave her rank and a uniform. (Barely ) I think it's mainly this that came back to bite later, when somebody in the writer's room remembered she's supposed to be a Lieutenant Commander...
Bite them how? Beverly’s a commander. Scotty’s a captain. They’re all manning their stations. What came back to bite them is that they didn’t know a lick about psychology and didn’t have much for her to do. And the less said about “Disaster” the better...
She definitely looked better in a proper Starfleet uniform. I commend Jellico for making her wear it.
Why wasn't she wearing a uniform as standard practice in the first place? In-universe I mean, has there ever been any explanation given for why she was at liberty to not wear it when in function on the bridge?