Did the accent Marina Sirtis used as Troi...

... give rise to the impression she was a poor actor? Sirtis had dropped the accent by the time of the movies, where I actually liked her performances for the first time. Was it her odd accent that made it seem she couldn't act?

 

They told Marina she had to fake a new accent (when TNG started) because she is British IRL and they didn't want two Brit accents on the bridge. So they told her to make one up. Apparently it took her awhile to get the right fake accent....

As for her acting ability? Even the best fake accent can't mask bad acting, and the worst fake one wouldn't hurt good acting. So I guess it's either way with her.

 

Her accent also didn't have anything to do with her being a poorly written character.

 

^ That too. As with most purely scientific Trek characters, Troi got better when they gave her non-science stuff to do.

And of course the reason why there was such a thing as a "ship's counselor" to begin with was because Gene Roddenberry was all four wheels off the road (with the mealymouthed psychobabble) by the time TNG started.

That being said: One thing Marina did absolutely HILARIOUSLY with fake accents was in "Timescape" when she was imitating Dr. Mizan hitting on her.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD3J7PelvKQ[/yt]

 

I always figured Deanna Troi had a Betazoid accent.

Marina used to speak naturally with a London East End accent. . .

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iuw_AgMSlUk[/yt]

. . . but she’s sounding a lot more mid-Atlantic these days. Probably from hanging around with Yanks for so long.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkEKjhtgBTg[/yt]

 

What I can't understand is just where Deanna Troi got her accent in the first place. Her mother has an American English accent. So did her father. So did pretty much every Betazoid we ever saw. It's one thing if the writers went out of their way to point out that she grew up or spent the majority of her life in an area of Betazed where the locals had that kind of accent, but they never did.

 

I remember either "thinking" or "hearing" when the show first started that it was supposed to be the betazoid accent. Thats how they all were supposed to talk. And then once they started introducing Betazoid characters and NONE of them had that accent, I just never noticed...
Thinking back on it. I'm pretty sure the character has a speach impediment.

 

Or maybe when Deanna was first posted to the ship, she was so overwhelmed by the thoughts of the crew that she started imitating their various accents and couldn't decide how she wanted to sound.

 

I think this is the real issue. When they put some clothes on her and gave her interesting things to do she wasn't bad.

 

Her accent in the first season sounded at times like a slight speech impediment.

 

Accent??? I didn't hear a word she said in that second interview Scotpens posted.

 

At first,I believed that Troi's accent was meant to be Betazoid accent. Then we met her mother and she did not have that style of accent. Then when Troi'smother mentioned that she had obviously taken her father's accent I thought that that was the reason for her accent. Then her voice became less like that particular accent. Well, I wonder why they did not have a special Betazoid accent. There was a distinct emphasis put upon Betazoid customs. Oh well.

 

I can think of two reasons for that.

 

Troi's real voice was never heard. She doesn't speak English. Her accent suddenly changed because Picard got sick of the old one and tweaked the settings on the universal translator.

 

There was an interview?

 

Marina Sirtis is pretty good with accents. She guest starred on a Stargate: SG-1 episode (Watergate) as a Russian scientist and her Russian accent was pretty good.

 

Wonder who got to hook up the microphone.

 

The luckiest sound guy ever.