I remember reading an article in the early 90s where they opined that ‘the thing that would really date TNG was the presence of a therapist on the ship’.
Mental health - a total 80s fad, right?
This is Dr. Gabers Migleemo erasure and I won’t stand for it!
I always respected that they brought in Troi so often. We all need therapy, and it was a strange comfort to see that counselors were still needed in a utopian future.
They really should have made Troi a diplomat like her mother. While it makes sense to have a counselor on the ship, the counselor doesn’t need bridge duty. In contrast, an empath who is a diplomat would have been really valuable on the Enterprise bridge.
I love the fact Troi was sat directly on Picard’s left. I felt like it recognized the importance of emotion in being a human and how greatly that affects everything we do. She was like an emotional navigator and as important as the First Officer.
But then it felt like the writers had no idea what to do with her, so she just ate chocolate & crashed the ship. What a colossal waste lol.
I definitely dig the idea of the Enterprise carrying a therapist, as a recurring character, possibly a civilian contractor so they can wear something other than a standard uniform so we can have some visual variety, and occasionally show up at planning meetings or whatever when psychology is at play.
But Gene Roddenberry wanted a pair of legs in the center of the frame so she wore a minidress and sat next to the Captain with nothing to do. She wasn’t occasionally called up to the bridge the way Dr. Crusher or Geordi were, she was just always sitting there.
Meanwhile Guinan the bartender was hell and gone a better counselor than Troi ever was.
And a diplomat with legs would be a valuable person to have on the bridge. There are a ton of episodes where they had to do an exposition dump regarding treaties and diplomatic relations. Having Troi do that would have been a lot more valuable.
A lot of the time Troi did do that. I seem to remember it being her and Data that got the task of reading through the treaty with the Sheliak to find a loophole, for example.
No now I want to see Deanna Troi, ship’s diplomatic officer as portrayed by Marina Sirtis deliver the “Furthermore, pursuant to statute 135(a)(2)” diatribe.
My only question is why Picard is the only captain to apparently have done it before or afterward (aside from Janeway in Prodigy, and keeping the kids under control during the secret mission would require special circumstances).
Aren’t you forgetting someone?
You are correct. I did forget him.
That crew is as stuffed with mental issues as a Thanksgiving turkey is stuffed with stuffing.
Because the time frame that TNG takes place in. It was a peaceful era and the Galaxy Class ship was designed for prolonged exploration and ambassador missions. Due to the long periods in space the Federation designed the ship to accommodate families of the Starfleet officers. That’s also why the ship could separate, the battle bridge could go into combat while the civilians stayed behind in the saucer section. With these long voyages and family aboard they thought it was important to include mental health being an importance, so important that Troi was a bridge officer.
Voyager was a smaller ship made purely for scientific research and wasn’t supposed to be gone for so long. Also, after the discovery of the Borg, the Federation changed their ship designs to have more combat in mind.
discovery of the Borg, the Federation changed their ship designs
They hired a Klingon consultancy firm which suggested ‘Shoot first, and then have diplomatic conversations with their corpses.’ as the improved Federation policy.
So really, don’t need an empathic counselor.
I always find it amusing how supposedly pacifist Starfleet ships could take on their counterparts two to four on one and still come out winning on a routine basis, despite Klingons being both an older race and vastly more violent.
Them and Romulans. And borg. And the species that were kicking the borg’s ass.
Oooh, ooh, I get to use my favorite theory on the internet!
So I don’t think it’s a violence vs pacifism fight, but rather the VERY clear fact that the Federation is technologically superior to all the antagonists they’ve had to deal with.
So much so that they willingly disregarded research into certain military technologies via treaties simply because they didn’t need them, and were very certain they’d be on the top of the heap even without them.
And it’d be why, when the Romulans returned, there was an implied ‘Well fuck!’ when they saw what a warbird looked like now, and that it was on par with the best the Federation was fielding.
So back to the technological superiority bit: Q actually says this before tossing the Enterprise to the Borg. Everyone was smug, because they knew they were superior to the Cardassians and Klingons and to some extent, even the Romulans still.
The Borg was a nasty wakeup call that, no, they’re not some pinnacle of engineering might but still on the bottom of the barrel and just deluded because everyone who happened to be neighbors were worse but that was only a fluke of uh, geography.
And for that theory: Q tossed the Enterprise at the Borg because he’s a fan of humans for some reason, and that was an easy way to force a massive military buildup and thus the only way the Federation had even the slightest chance against the Dominion.
The primary strength of the federation wasn’t that it’s technologically advanced- rather that it was relatively technologically adaptable.
It was that adaptable nature that allowed Janeway et all to defeat the borg (and everybody else.)
I subscribe to the theory that the reason Q screwed around with humanity as much as he did was to push them towards being able to defeat the borg- throwing them at the cube let them see what they were up against and begin preparing before the borg were on the federation’s doorstep.
As for humanity in particular, I suspect it’s because the federation is unique in that, as seven of nine said, a collective of many voices in harmony. (More or less.)
It’s a lot of diverse worlds working together, without there being some controlling force (like the borg’s hive mind, or the Dominion’s founders,) keeping everything from flying apart.
This diversity of thought was its real strength, and it was humanity that laid the foundation for it. (Because off course we did.)
Well, impaths were rare in the federation, and this one could sense things over extreme distances. Why any creature would need to evolve the ability to sense feelings from orbit, I have no idea.
If I’m remembering correctly, Troi’s seat was reserved for subject specialists, so the captain could immediately consult with an expert on whatever it was they were dealing with at that time. An empath and counselor makes sense for Picard as one of Starfleet’s best diplomats, I think. I suspect other Starfleet captains we meet have other priorities (ahem, Janeway on VOY)!
Before she became First Officer and switched seats, Commander Shelby sat in that seat.
That does make sense.
TNG tried a lot of things. remember the outright hostility towards wesley crusher? not doing that again lol
also they brought up the question “what if your lover was trill and got a new host body of a different gender,” which DS9 answered beautifully
If you want to know the actual reason is that Roddenberry planned for his wife (Marjel Barrett) to be Number 1 in TOS and basically have the ship deeply dependent on her. The Studio canned the idea, and she was relegated to playing nurse Chapel.
So TNG was a chance to revive the idea with Counsellor Troi looking after the whole ship via her job, but this too was downgraded so she was just another character on the show rather than the center of the crew’s lives.
That doesn’t surprise me, but it does surprise me that all future Star Trek people (outside of Prodigy) treated it like it wasn’t standard, and yet no one ever really said anything about it beyond Jellico making her put on a real uniform.
i thought it was because she is an empath and could sense the feelings of the shitbags on the big screen. also boobs
i thought it was because she is an empath and could sense the feelings of the shitbags on the big screen.
Alien on the screen: If you don’t do as we demand we will destroy your ship!
Troi: I sense hostility
Just once, I’d like to have seen: “I sense total bullshit, Captain.”
She kinda did that in Samaritan Snare when they meet the Pakleds.
Can you make it go?
Troi: I sense deception from our guest, Captain.
Picard: He’s a goddamn Ferengi Troi!
Good lord. So that’s why got me into trek as a teen
I mever understood people complaining about her not being in uniform. She was in uniform as early as Season 6, Episode 10!
She was in uniform as early as the pilot episode. The cheerleader minidress thing that I guess was supposed to be the 80’s version of the TOS gogo dress was apparently Starfleet issue, and crewmembers of both sexes can be seen in the background wearing it.
True, but that was immediately scrapped.
LOL they put her in that seat because cleavage
made a lifetime viewer out of me at least
“You’re serious? He needs a councilor with him to keep his anger under control?”
“That’s what our intelligence suggests, captain. And there’s more… he was once involved in a bar fight with multiple Nausicans. He was stabbed through the heart, then laughed at them. Should I answer his hail?”
“Oh fuck.”
He also killed 11,000 of his own people at Wolf 359 and kept his title as captain
He was once captured by the worst threat to sentient life everywhere, then escaped, and used his knowledge from his imprisonment to destroy them.
He once held an opponent’s wife’s hand in a jar of acid. At a party
Ok i can’t remember this one
Thank you my fears of not having perfect recall of all TNG plot points havu been assuaged.
Now imagine Picard encountering a Cardassian captain with a counselor next to him… oh fuck…
That’s just Garak and his friend Garak
Facts
