SAY WHAT? Marina Sirtis Almost Fired!

[XCV330]

He wAs?
I missed it.
Probably for the best.

He's in the White Iris. oddly my least favorite STC episode. At least they did not have Mel on it.

on that note, Nicola Bryant is in the last two episodes, you may already know, and to keep this reply concurrent, Marina Sirtis was the ship's computer voice on all the episodes. There.

 

[jaime]

He's in the White Iris. oddly my least favorite STC episode. At least they did not have Mel on it.

on that note, Nicola Bryant is in the last two episodes, you may already know, and to keep this reply concurrent, Marina Sirtis was the ship's computer voice on all the episodes. There.

Ah. Yeah. That’s the weird trippy one? American Civil war stuff? Couldn’t get into it.
Nicola did a great job I thought.

 

[thribs]

He was in an STC episode and wasn't very likeable there, either?

So was his companion. Colin Baker is awesome at Big Finish

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

I was just thinking about how revealing it is that all the Berman-era cast issues are with female castmembers, and this anecdote is more evidence for that pile. Gates McFadden, Denise Crosby, Diana Muldaur, Terry Farrell, Jennifer Lien* -- all unceremoniously fired, or quitting because they didn't like the situation they were in. Meanwhile (except for Wheaton, who also described being treated terribly by Berman because of his youth), EVERY male series regular is on for the full run of his respective series. That's not a coincidence.

Garret Wang was on the chopping block (he's male) but People magazine saved his job oddly. And then Jeri Ryan (female) was brought on to save the show. Sure as eye candy, but she thankfuly brought great acting chops and a far more interering story than all if her male counterparts combined save Picardo.

Berman Trek absolutely had problems with the males as well. If you're not afraid to look.

And Crosby and Farrel brought their leaving on their own, that wasn't anything more than poor decisions on their part. It obviously didn’t take long for Crosby to regret that, either.

These things can't be judged equally, there's context behind all of them all, and not necessarily under the banner of mysogeny. The only one that was truly awful was how McFadden was forced to leave.

 

[Takeru]

And Crosby and Farrel brought their leaving on their own, that wasn't anything more than poor decisions on their part. It obviously didn’t take long for Crosby to regret that, either.

It was actually a good decision for Terry Farrel, four years on Becker meant more money and exposure than one additional year on DS9 would have given her.

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

Good call, longer term worked out better for her until (I think) she kind of did something similar on Becker and, well, thst ended that as well.

Also, in thinking of Yar leaving, she actually had more screen time than Dorn did (he wasn't even in every episode), good thing he held in there and didn't quit like she did! And with all that make-up, he probably had even more reason to want to walk away.

 

[Pauln6]

I can understand why Crosby was frustrated. She was security chief but was often standing around on the bridge opening hailing frequencies. Code of Honour was the closest she came to having an episode focused on her.

I think personally, her appearance in season 3 showed how the writing had improved. It was a shame that older Tasha didn't appear in Unification. I think her rescue and re-acclimatisation to the Federation could have been interesting.

I think both Troi and Yar were too squeaky clean. If Yar had possessed some of Jaylah's gumption she might have been more fun to play. Wang's problem was much the same - not enough depth to Kim. Same for Hoshi and Mayweather.

I think part of it was them not knowing how the supporting cast would contribute in TNG. Data and Worf had story hooks but Yar and La Forge depended on their job roles. For Yar in particular, it was hard for her to compete with Riker's dynamism.

 

[jaime]

I can understand why Crosby was frustrated. She was security chief but was often standing around on the bridge opening hailing frequencies. Code of Honour was the closest she came to having an episode focused on her.

I think personally, her appearance in season 3 showed how the writing had improved. It was a shame that older Tasha didn't appear in Unification. I think her rescue and re-acclimatisation to the Federation could have been interesting.

I think both Troi and Yar were too squeaky clean. If Yar had possessed some of Jaylah's gumption she might have been more fun to play. Wang's problem was much the same - not enough depth to Kim. Same for Hoshi and Mayweather.

I think part of it was them not knowing how the supporting cast would contribute in TNG. Data and Worf had story hooks but Yar and La Forge depended on their job roles. For Yar in particular, it was hard for her to compete with Riker's dynamism.

I think Yar had as much focus as anyone in the cast of a comparable rank tbh. More so because she gets Skin Of Evil writing her out ironically. She jumped too early.

 

[Qonundrum]

Good call, longer term worked out better for her until (I think) she kind of did something similar on Becker and, well, thst ended that as well.

Also, in thinking of Yar leaving, she actually had more screen time than Dorn did (he wasn't even in every episode), good thing he held in there and didn't quit like she did! And with all that make-up, he probably had even more reason to want to walk away.

I'm always glad he didn't quit. He's responsible for adding so much to the Klingons in the first place and as much as seasons 1-3 of DS9 have gotten better with age, Worf's inclusion for season 4 opened up so much more and it shows and is pretty dang awesome. (Yes, I wish they would have done a Klingon series with him as star, what they were talking about a few years back.)

At least in one case, the reason for Worf not being there was rather sound. ("Code of Honor") Had the rest of the cast balked, would the script have been replaced? (I think Dorn was right in his beliefs and if the script was so bad, why didn't everyone else walk out?) Was there a script problem or a casting problem or what, noting "Justice" had a race that were all deliberately blonde with blue eyes and lived by very cheezy stereotypes (pretty much screwing anything that moves and somehow they don't have an STD epidemic despite it all)? If anything, CoH actually makes Picard look less noble than Lutan. And what does Justice do? Makes Picard (and the entire Federation since he represented it with his legalese) look rather ignoble as well, given the rushed throwaway infodump about the prime directive and let's not mention his tantrum-induced volley of photon torpedoes to terrify the entire population with. (Both scripts are subpar that easily could have been better. At least Jessie Lawrence Ferguson and the rest of the guest cast made the episode somewhat watchable despite its many flaws. Looks spectacular on blu-ray as well. seeing the pores on the Edo's skin doesn't count for anything.)

 

[NigellaDeanna20]

"I think Ron Moore said, if TNG went on, that they wanted to make Troi a school teacher to give her more to do."
I really like that idea and I honestly think that Troi would have been great at, not just being the ship's psychologist/ therapist but also as the ship's school teacher. Very interesting idea.

 

[NigellaDeanna20]

I think Yar had as much focus as anyone in the cast of a comparable rank tbh. More so because she gets Skin Of Evil writing her out ironically. She jumped too early.[/QUO
I agree completely here. It would have been really interesting to see how she and her sister Ishara would have interacted in season 4's "Legacy".

 

[NigellaDeanna20]

Yes. They should have based the character around her own personality (and accent). Instead it wasn't until the movies that they allowed the character to drift there.

I think it probably should have been 50/50 personally.

 

[JesterFace]

Don't hate me for this, but... a part of me thinks it would have been a good idea to fire Sirtis early on.

 

[Pauln6]

I think I would have preferred her as the A&A officer tasked with assessing planetary cultures. She would have spent more time on landing parties and been a standard aide to Picard and Riker.

The real problem was her empathy. They could have established early on that it was generally only usable on humans and Beatazoids and then just introduce into the plot on a specific exceptions basis. Being able to send messages without a communicator would have been less plot-busting and more interesting.

Counsellor Troi as a recurring guest star, like Barclay or Guinan would have worked if Sirtis had been willing but if they were going to fire her, what was the alternative? A fun time watching all the boys playing together every week?

 

[jaime]

I really liked Ishara.

 

[jaime]

I think it probably should have been 50/50 personally.

She’s an actress. She can act, and did so xD

 

[Lance]

Good call, longer term worked out better for her until (I think) she kind of did something similar on Becker and, well, thst ended that as well.

Also, in thinking of Yar leaving, she actually had more screen time than Dorn did (he wasn't even in every episode), good thing he held in there and didn't quit like she did! And with all that make-up, he probably had even more reason to want to walk away.

My take when I last rewatched TNG season one -- and I stress this is simply my subjective take, I have no evidence that it was fact -- is that Dorn (who was created as a 'recurring character' rather than a regular until Roddenberry seen his performance in the pilot episode and renegotiated his contract) was kind of written into scripts as a last minute addition in many cases, but that at some point the writers decided that Worf made Yar superfluous. There are several scenes in episodes where Yar stands back while Worf proactively does some security thing, but 'Hide & Q' seems to make it explicit by leaving Worf on the planet to fight hand to hand with Q's vicious animal things while Yar is relegated to the penalty box on the bridge without being able to so much as throw a punch or indeed do anything action-packed. I don't doubt if Crosby had stayed then Yar may have ultimately been written better, but in Season One it feels like Crosby must've looked at the sixth or seventh script that gave her no substantive role, but the script directions read, 'Worf busts through the wall with his phaser drawn', before she was like, "Ok, I'm out"

 

[JesterFace]

Marina Sirtis fired early on?
A little piece of me thinks that might have been a good idea.

My problem with Deanna was that she was able to sense emotions over the viewscreen when the other person might have been lightyears away. Or was she reading facial expressions?

Sometimes when her empharic abilites were needed, for some reason she couldn't sense anything.

 

[Pauln6]

Sometimes budgets come under attack too I guess. I was very sorry to lose Kes albeit if they were not going to develop her powers, then she was basically Nurse Chapel. What I didn't get was why they wouldn't keep her around as an occasional guest star until the Year of Hell and have her departure be the thing that broke the time trap. Instead, they created a paradox.

 

[Sakonna]

Garret Wang was on the chopping block (he's male) but People magazine saved his job oddly. And then Jeri Ryan (female) was brought on to save the show. Sure as eye candy, but she thankfuly brought great acting chops and a far more interering story than all if her male counterparts combined save Picardo.

Berman Trek absolutely had problems with the males as well. If you're not afraid to look.

Well, that's condescending. Yeah, sure, there were problems with men also. But no matter how bad those problems were, none of those men ever got fired. And obviously Berman-era Trek also features many fantastic female characters/performances, it's not a simple binary where "female" is invariably a pure negative. But the accumulation of evidence makes it obvious that it was a more challenging environment to succeed as a woman than as a man.

I have a lot of real-world experience on this one. Most of my professional life has been in TV casting, and plenty of that was casting for male producers with, shall we say, problematic expectations for the female roles. I remember vividly when I was in the trenches on a particular "brilliant hot babe" search, and the lightbulb went off: "oh, THIS is what was always going on on Star Trek." I know what it looks like to the outside audience when you're making TV and some key producers are misogynists. Berman-Trek is what that looks like.

 

[Pauln6]

Well, that's condescending. Yeah, sure, there were problems with men also. But no matter how bad those problems were, none of those men ever got fired. And obviously Berman-era Trek also features many fantastic female characters/performances, it's not a simple binary where "female" is invariably a pure negative. But the accumulation of evidence makes it obvious that it was a more challenging environment to succeed as a woman than as a man.

I have a lot of real-world experience on this one. Most of my professional life has been in TV casting, and plenty of that was casting for male producers with, shall we say, problematic expectations for the female roles. I remember vividly when I was in the trenches on a particular "brilliant hot babe" search, and the lightbulb went off: "oh, THIS is what was always going on on Star Trek." I know what it looks like to the outside audience when you're making TV and some key producers are misogynists. Berman-Trek is what that looks like.

I always found it strange that so many casting directors are women and yet simple things like the number of police men extras in the background (often processing female prostitutes) as opposed to police women is so skewed. Apparently, even in generic crowd scenes, men outnumber women and that's before you get into speaking roles. It's interesting to note that the male bosses influence on the casting process is a factor.

Interestingly, the BBC has pushed the boat out in both dramas and news programmes. Watching a drama called the Bodyguard where several women are depicted in key positions of authority. It still feels a bit odd on a subconscious level. Hopefully in a few years it will be the norm. I'd rather watch a fantasy granting equality to actors than realism compounding sexism in the real world.

 

[Sakonna]

I always found it strange that so many casting directors are women and yet simple things like the number of police men extras in the background (often processing female prostitutes) as opposed to police women is so skewed. Apparently, even in generic crowd scenes, men outnumber women and that's before you get into speaking roles. It's interesting to note that the male bosses influence on the casting process is a factor.

Not to fly totally off-topic, but I worked on a show where an edict was that all BG cops must be male. Because wardrobe only thought to order male uniforms and everyone was fine going along with that for some reason. Usually for BG casting, the AD's are creating a breakdown that just lists what their needs are, so extras casting can only influence at the margins, they just get: "8 Male Cops - Caucasian, 3 Prostitutes - AfAm" or whatever the director has decided to order up.

Despite the female avatar I'm actually a man, so another fascinating/horrific aspect of my casting career was the difference between sitting in meetings that included a woman versus the meetings that were exclusively male. The meetings that INCLUDED a woman would also typically feature, say, explicit discussion and ranking of the "fuckability" of the actresses we were considering. As an assistant I worked for female bosses and I didn't think there was much room for it to get significantly worse even if the room were all-male, and was I ever wrong on that count!

It was that really long interview Rick Berman gave a few years ago (it was like 3 hours, the whole thing is on YouTube somewhere, I wish I had the link still) that really seals the deal for me that similar things were going on BTS w/ Trek then.

 

[JesterFace]

I think it might have been more interesting if they fired Sirtis and filled that spot with Denise Crosby. Not as a counselor but still a member of the crew.