I CAN'T STAND HER!

[Warped9]

Periodically I catch a NextGen rerun on Space or Spike particularly if it's from seasons 1-3. But I gotta say that something that I never took to from the beginning in 1987 has gotten even worse: I simply cannot stand the character of Deanna Troi. Whenever she comes onscreen and particularly whenever she speaks I just mentally scream, "SHUT UP! Just shut up you so politically correct, touchy-feeling bitch!"

A poorly cast and poorly written character that annoys me no end. Wesley Crusher is just a mild irritant compared to the plaque that is Deanna Troi (and by extent all Betazeds).

NextGen would instantly be signficantly better if this character could somehow be erased from reruns. The only contribution she brought was to familiarize us with the sensation of having a burr caught between our butt cheeks.

Okay, thats my rant for the day.

 

[number6]

No surprise there. Great rant.

 

[scottydog]

Luwaxana Troi is far more difficult to tolerate than Deanna. At least Sirtis is eye candy!

 

[kitsune]

Captain, I think I'm sensing something from him...a deep hatred...

I agree that Troi was the least likable of the TNG cast. I prefer the episodes in which she isn't seen or heard much.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

Warped9 said:
A poorly cast and poorly written character that annoys me no end. Wesley Crusher is just a mild irritant compared to the plaque that is Deanna Troi (and by extent all Betazeds).

I agree for the most part about Betazeds, but you can't lump Lon Suder into that category. He pretty much kicks ass.

 

[Red Ranger]

Warped9,

To quote Livia and Tony Soprano, "Oh, poor you!"

In my opinion, of all the TNG cast, most annoying are Wesley Crusher, Dr. Crusher, then Deanna. But seeing as Deanna's the original catsuit babe of modern ST, I love her to pieces! When she was written well, she was a good character. Problem is, the creators and writers never knew exactly how to write her.

I liked her in later seasons when she had more to do and occasionally gave Riker some digs. My favorite is when she's saying she'd like to try out for first officer rather than captain, and says something like, "I understand there aren't many qualifications" for the first officer position.

Not all Betazoids are bad or boring. (BTW, "Betazed" is the planet, "Betazoid" the species name.) Lon Suder is one. One of my other favorite Betazoids was Tam Elbrun from "Tin Man." I liked how his telepathic abiliities were so strong that they made him anti-social. My favorite part is when he "argues" with Riker based on his thoughts over what Riker thought was Tam's complicity in the disaster with Captain Darson and the Adelphi.

Red Ranger

 

[Good Will Riker]

Warped9,


Can you tell us why you prefer Seasons 1,2,3 of TNG over that of Seasons 4,5,6,7 + TNG films + DS9 + VOY + ENT again?

I just love hearing it.

 

[data68]

*Romulan ship decloaks*

Troi: "Captain, I'm sensing great hostility."

Picard: "Hmm, ya think?"

 

[137th Gebirg]

I suspect it was just a sign of the times. The late 80's and especially 90's were exceptionally "touchy-feely" as a whole, with the trendiness of the feminization of the male half of the species. It still goes on today but not as mainstream as it used to be - thank God.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Well, Troi was a character that was undercut by the fact that she was a counselor on a ship with a crew that didn't have much in the way of hang-ups.

In early press, Marina Sirtis said that Troi was supposed to have a high IQ and be sort of the Spock of the group. (This was in an early press VTR kit sent out to news stations before the show aired. I own a copy.)

Obviously, that went no where fast as the writers' didn't know how to approach her character. It didn't help that many of them went in and out the revolving production door of the first year.

Marina is a very attractive actress, who isn't quite an exceptional actor but is good enough. I wished that they had made her more ambiguous and sexy ala Inara in Firefly. Also, I felt that she should've been the liaison between Picard and the civilian population of the ship.

 

[Spider]

Troi was sometimes a pain to watch in the early years of TNG, but was much better written and acted in the later years. However, there will be no redemption from me for that horrible, badly written character of her mother.

 

[Tomalak]

middyseafort said:
In early press, Marina Sirtis said that Troi was supposed to have a high IQ and be sort of the Spock of the group. (This was in an early press VTR kit sent out to news stations before the show aired. I own a copy.)

That's probably exactly what Roddenberry intended, and told her. The problem was the writers couldn't get a handle on the character, and it's not as if Gene was making things clear for them. With eight other cast members, she's the toughest one to write for.

Personally, the character never annoyed me that much. She rarely did anything anyway, and when she did it was inoffensive. I watched Who Watches the Watchers (!) today, and she was excellent in that.

 

[Spider]

Who Watches the Watchers is a great episode. Very typically Star Trek and bears up to repeated watching.

 

[Spookshow]

The most annoying was the doctor in season 2. Couldn't stand her.

Troi never bothered me.

 

[Praetorian]

I can't stand her either...for the most part. With the uniform she became much more acceptable..don't really know why.

 

[WillCAD]

I never disliked the character. I hated the fact that the writers didn't know what to do with her or how to effectively portray her as a person, as oppoesed to the "emotional barrometer" that's attached to the Captain's chair. And I always hated the awful costumes and hairstyles of seasons 1-2.

In Season 3 Deana, like the rest of the cast, came into her own as a real character, with the writers finally getting a handle on them all and writing scripts that effectively portrayed the characters' reactions to each situation.

Of course, like all of the characters, Deana became somewhat disused in the last 2 seasons as the actors and writers became bored and tried to explore metaphysical stories instead of sci-fi stories, and came up with lame excuses to do "This week _____ goes crazy" episodes.

Deanna's finest hour, of course, is Disaster, when she finds herself forced to make decisions based less on feelings and more on logic. Even the one big decision she made that WAS based on feelings - the decision not to separate the saucer until the last possible second in order to give those in the secondary hull the maximum chance for survival - was based not on her own mushy, gushy, touchy-feely emotions, but on a more basic, powerful emotion: loyalty.

It's what Picard or Kirk would have done.

 

[Warped9]

Good Will Riker said:
Warped9,


Can you tell us why you prefer Seasons 1,2,3 of TNG over that of Seasons 4,5,6,7 + TNG films + DS9 + VOY + ENT again?

I just love hearing it.

The early seasons strike me as being something with real potential on the cusp of evolving into a show that could really be interesting (for my tastes). But sadly even as the show got more polished in execution I think it also got dumber, more routine and generally less interesting. It just never became the show I'd hoped it would be. For all the clumsily there is still a raw potential to some of the early seasons' work that I kinda like. For me Season 4 was the beginning of decline.

 

[Good Will Riker]

Warped9 said:

Good Will Riker said:
Warped9,


Can you tell us why you prefer Seasons 1,2,3 of TNG over that of Seasons 4,5,6,7 + TNG films + DS9 + VOY + ENT again?

I just love hearing it.

The early seasons strike me as being something with real potential on the cusp of evolving into a show that could really be interesting (for my tastes). But sadly even as the show got more polished in execution I think it also got dumber, more routine and generally less interesting. It just never became the show I'd hoped it would be. For all the clumsily there is still a raw potential to some of the early seasons' work that I kinda like. For me Season 4 was the beginning of decline.

I agree with you, except I prefer Seasons 1-2 over that of Seasons 3-7. Seasons 3-7 is when TNG lost that "explore strange new worlds" aspect to Trek which I grew up with TOS reruns back in the 80's. Sure, I am a big fan of "Yesterday's Enterprise" and "The Best of Both Worlds, Parts I & II," but from Season 3 onwards, none of the episodes knocked my socks off like the earlier season episodes did, except for "The First Duty," "Chain of Command, Parts I & II," "Tapestry," "Parallels," "Preemptive Strike," and "All Good Things..." But that is very few and far between for me.

That is why I only own TNG Season 1 on DVD, as well as the Borg and the Q Fan Collectives. I also own the 10 Star Trek feature films on DVD, but I consider 5 of those films to be crap (1 TOS + 4 TNG films). I am going to continue collecting Star Trek on DVD, but I plan to complete this collection with TOS Season 1,2,3 + TAS. DS9 I am already done watching. VOY is not even a consideration. ENT is not even 1/10 of what TOS was back in its day, and I am being very generous when I say that.

 

[Red Ranger]

Good Will Riker, Warped 9,

Wow, you guys really feel that way? The earlier seasons were better than the later ones? You should post that in the Star Trek Shames thread!

There are just so many bad eps in Season 1, like "The Naked Now," a cheesy retread of "The Naked Time"; "Home Soil," a horrendous version of "Devil in the Dark"; and so many others, like "Angel One," "Skin of Evil," and "Justice."

The only real good S1 eps are the premiere, "Lonely Among Us," "The Last Outpost," "The Battle," "The Big Goodbye," "11001001," "The Arsenal of Freedom," and "Heart of Glory."

Season 2 was definitely better and has some real gems, like "Q Who," "Where Silence Has Lease," but also some real stinkers like "Shades of Grey," and "The Royale". I think Seasons 3-5 have the best TNG eps. Seasons 6 and 7 definitely show series fatigue, an opinion generally agreed on by a lot of TNG fans.

You guys are certainly original, I'll give you that!

Red Ranger

 

[The Borg Queen]

Good Will Riker said:
I agree with you, except I prefer Seasons 1-2 over that of Seasons 3-7. Seasons 3-7 is when TNG lost that "explore strange new worlds" aspect to Trek which I grew up with TOS reruns back in the 80's. Sure, I am a big fan of "Yesterday's Enterprise" and "The Best of Both Worlds, Parts I & II," but from Season 3 onwards, none of the episodes knocked my socks off like the earlier season episodes did, except for "The First Duty," "Chain of Command, Parts I & II," "Tapestry," "Parallels," "Preemptive Strike," and "All Good Things..." But that is very few and far between for me.

That is why I only own TNG Season 1 on DVD, as well as the Borg and the Q Fan Collectives. I also own the 10 Star Trek feature films on DVD, but I consider 5 of those films to be crap (1 TOS + 4 TNG films). I am going to continue collecting Star Trek on DVD, but I plan to complete this collection with TOS Season 1,2,3 + TAS. DS9 I am already done watching. VOY is not even a consideration. ENT is not even 1/10 of what TOS was back in its day, and I am being very generous when I say that.

Does that mean you also think First Contact is crap too?