What if Marina and Jonathan had each other's roles?

[The Borg Queen]

How you think The Next Generation would have been if Marina Sirtis had played a human "Number One" and Jonathan Frakes played the Betazoid counsellor?

If I recall correctly, the Original Series was supposed to have a female Number One, but the TV making people had hissy fit and denied Gene to make a statement about gender equality in leadership roles.

The Next Generation, especially being produced in the 1980's, would have been a great opportunity to make that statement once more. Having a strong female character, second in command of a starship, and the notion of an empathic male character, sensitive to the feelings of others and who indeed had made his career out of it.

It probably would have encouraged the writers to even respect BOTH of the characters and write decent storylines for them, instead of being "I sense... great pain!" person all the time.

 

[Good Will Riker]

Gender role reversals -- which you may be implying with your post -- do not work well on TNG, because it turns into a statement that is "trying to prove a point" in the case of episodes like "Angel One."

I have an even better idea. How about this:

Wesley Crusher - captain
Beverly Crusher - first officer
Deanna Troi - operations manager/second officer
Jean-Luc Picard - flight control officer
Worf - chief medical officer
Geordi La Forge - chief of security
William T. Riker - chief engineer
Data - ship's counselor

 

[Morpheus 02]

i personally think it would have been interesting...it would have been nice for Ms. Sirits for some real acting opportunities, and would have made for some interesting writing, and how Frakes would be able to show it.

i'd love to see such a "parallel" universe!

 

[The Borg Queen]

Good Will Riker said:
Gender role reversals -- which you may be implying with your post -- do not work well on TNG, because it turns into a statement that is "trying to prove a point" in the case of episodes like "Angel One."

I have an even better idea. How about this:

Wesley Crusher - captain
Beverly Crusher - first officer
Deanna Troi - operations manager/second officer
Jean-Luc Picard - flight control officer
Worf - chief medical officer
Geordi La Forge - chief of security
William T. Riker - chief engineer
Data - ship's counselor

I'm not talking about the characters of Deanna Troi and Will Riker, I'm talking about the actors, Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes.

 

[WillsBabe]

I think this is a great idea! We saw little hints of what Marina might have been able to bring to the role with her stint as Major Rakal, the way that she took charge in Timescape, and I felt she was great with the stuff Powerplay gave her to do. Jonathan could have his sensitive moments, too, particularly when he was with Marina, so I could see that might work, too. I'd really like to see how this worked out in another timeline, and I know there is quite an extensive set of fanfiction out there where Deanna is Picard's first officer, which doesn't really work for me, but I can see Marina doing a decent job as Number One.