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I’m sensing you want to know more about Deanna Troi. Grab a chocolate sundae and let's get going!
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00:00Hey folks, before we start, just want to say a really quick thank you to Squarespace who
00:03are sponsoring this video.
00:05She's everyone's favourite Betazoid and she's actually just a little bit deadly.
00:10She's Deanna Troi and today we're going to go through all these cool little tidbits about
00:13her.
00:14But, before we watch this video make sure that you check out the original article by
00:18the wonderful Jack Kiley.
00:20Yous are stunning, yous are wonderful.
00:22I'm Sean Ferrick for Trek Culture and here are 10 things you didn't know about Deanna
00:27Troi.
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01:57Number 10.
01:58The role first went to Denise Crosby.
02:01Before filming began on Star Trek The Next Generation, the producers were set on casting
02:04Denise Crosby in the role of Deanna Troi and at the same time Marina Sirtis was reading
02:09for the part of Masha Hernandez, who later became Natasha Yar.
02:12Crosby admitted that she had difficulties with her fit for the role, not quite grasping,
02:16as she once stated, the gobbledygook and weird concept of a Betazoid.
02:20It was Gene Roddenberry who eventually swapped the roles.
02:22It was decided that Cirtis was a better fit for the part of the empathic Troi.
02:25In Crosby's words, citing Roddenberry however, she, the actress, was just this kind of American
02:31golden girl compared to the more exotic otherworldly element that was wanted for Troi.
02:35In any case, the switch happened not a moment too soon.
02:37When Cirtis got the call confirming she'd got the part, her US visa was due to expire
02:41that very day.
02:43The actress was packing her bags, a little dejected, for a return to her hometown of London.
02:47Thankfully, the rest is history.
02:48Had Roddenberry not changed things, perhaps Troi, and not Yar, would have met her end at
02:53the hands of the grumpy old prank mate Armas.
02:58Number 9.
02:58Character Constructs Not a Total Recall
03:01What you may not know is that the character Troi first took reference from prior Trek, and
03:05Ilea in particular from the motion picture.
03:07Think Deltans and Beta Zoids and their mental capabilities.
03:12The latter was already a carryover from the abandoned project Star Trek Phase 2.
03:16Ilea's relationship with Will Decker was then the model to build that between Troi
03:20and Riker.
03:21Both Marina Cirtis and Denise Crosby also originally considered Troi to be Spock-like.
03:25The character description for Troi in the TNGC's Bible does make passing reference to
03:30Spock, but this is merely to flesh out the counsellor's telepathic abilities.
03:33Troi was ultimately meant to be her own person, her role nonetheless second in importance only
03:38to the captain and first officer, according to the series bible once more.
03:42There seems to be some confusion surrounding the original intent for the character, however.
03:46Between conflicting descriptions of Roddenberry calling Troi both the brain on the show and
03:50sexy and not very bright, it is difficult to know what to think.
03:53Apparently Roddenberry initially wanted Troi to have three, or even four depending on the
03:57source, breasts, before DC Fontana thankfully convinced him otherwise.
04:02Cirtis would later note that with the costume changes of season 1, when Troi got cleavage
04:07she lost her brain matter, then only really gained some back when she regained the uniform.
04:12Number 8. She nearly didn't make it past season 1 of TNG.
04:16Given the pandemonium behind the scenes, it is a wonder anyone made it past the first season of TNG.
04:21We all know what happened to Natasha Yard, Denise Crosby and Dr Crusher Gates McFadden.
04:25What you probably didn't know, however, is that it was Troi who was originally on the chopping block.
04:29Several fairly significant changes had already been made to the character between the pilot
04:33and the rest of the season. The extent of Troi's powers was reduced with regards to her telepathic
04:37capabilities, as she also changed outfit and hairstyle. No longer was she dressed in that god-awful
04:42cosmic cheerleader uniform, with the ugliest go-go boots ever designed, as Marina Cirtis herself
04:48famously described it. The writers struggled with the character and empathic abilities. According
04:52to Cirtis, she was often simply written out of scenes where Troi's presence could have been
04:55problematic for the plot, as Captain Gemma once said, what I wouldn't give for a Betazoid right now.
05:00This led the writers to consider nixing the character before the end of the first season.
05:04It was only with the departure of Crosby and McFadden from the show that Troi was given leave to remain.
05:09Cirtis found this out straight from the horse's mouth at Jonathan Frakes' wedding during the break
05:14between seasons, when Gene Roddenberry approached her to announce that the first episode of season 2
05:18would focus on Troi. 7. Marina Cirtis hated all that chocolate
05:23In TNG at least, Troi seemed to accumulate a lot of serious and dark scenes, some of which we've
05:28already discussed. She loses her empathic powers, is rapidly aged by a malicious alien ambassador,
05:33has her body taken over by a criminal imposter, is transformed into an amphibian, must do the acting
05:38job of her life aboard a Romulan starship, and that's not to mention having to negotiate the difficult
05:42relationship she has with her mother. Of course, her role as counsellor requires her to be more earnest than
05:46most, but there are lighter moments for Troi. One now famous example is her adoration and
05:51borderline addiction to chocolate. Well, it is a galaxy-class starship. Sorry.
05:56In the episode The Game, Riker finds Troi tucking into a bowl of chocolate upon chocolate upon
06:01chocolate. She proceeds to explain to him, in the minutest of detail, the fine art of the
06:06confectionary's consumption. Remember, it's the whole experience. What you may not know, however,
06:11is far from never having met a chocolate she didn't like, was that Marina Sirtis hated having
06:16to eat it. Contrary to the popular belief, the actress does like chocolate, but eating that much
06:20take after take would be too much for anybody. Apparently, she would ask the crew to use a type
06:24of chocolate she didn't like, and then she would spit out what she ate into a bucket.
06:286. Her changing accent has an origin story
06:31The original casting call for Troi, not without a few uncomfortable of-the-time aftertastes and clichés,
06:36in all its pan-European vagueness, states that Diana is probably foreign, anywhere from Italian,
06:42Greek, Hungarian, Russian, Icelandic, etc. with looks and accent to match. Marina Sirtis,
06:47who was born in London east and then moved north to Greek parents, is fluent in Greek,
06:51is skilled at accents, and was tasked at creating a Betazoid one for Troi. She opted for a mixture
06:56of Eastern European and what she drew from the accent of an Israeli friend. The problem with this
07:01is that when we met Troi's Betazoid mother, Lwaxana, she sounded, for want of a more
07:06precise description, American. Sirtis was then told that Diana got her accent from her father,
07:11but when we meet him, he also sounds generic American, the actor hails from Texas, so that
07:16didn't fit either. Understandably a bit frustrated, Sirtis eventually just switched to something more
07:20mid-Atlantic as the series and films progressed, at times closer to her native north London,
07:26and at other times more American. The actress stated that if she could change one thing about her time
07:30on TNG, I wouldn't give Diana a foreign accent, even though her mother is a Betazoid.
07:34Number 5. She might have married Riker in Season 7 of TNG.
07:39All good things must come to an end, naked on Betazet, or it could very well have turned out
07:44this way before the series finale. In the actual Season 7, we got to see a relationship between
07:48Troi and Worf, but it was all a bit weird and never really went anywhere as Worf was transferred to
07:52Deep Space Nine. The two were married with kids in a parallel universe that Prime Worf stumbles into,
07:57and Troi even killed Worf in an empathic hallucination that mirrored events which took place when
08:01Enterprise D was under construction. In an interview Marina Sirtis shared her views on the relationship.
08:06I didn't like the fact that he totally became un-Klingon like when he was with Troi. I liked
08:10better the relationship he had with Dax over on Deep Space Nine. Furthermore, she felt that Troi
08:14Riker made a much better couple, and I think we can all agree with that. In fact, the idea of
08:19the pair
08:20tying the knot in TNG's final season was popular among the writers until producers Rick Berman and Michael
08:24Piller phased with the suggestion down in flames. Perhaps Riker wasn't emotionally ready enough to be
08:29parted with his beard at that stage. To paraphrase the Beatles, all you need is metaphasic radiation.
08:35Number four, Marina Sirtis was directed by Jonathan Frakes in an episode of The Orville.
08:39Seth MacFarlane's The Orville is a great piece of science fiction in its own right.
08:43Season four, anyone please? MacFarlane makes no secret of his love for Star Trek as a source of
08:47inspiration. He even appeared in Enterprise and there was that hilarious episode of Family Guy when the
08:51Next Generation cast. These aren't Star Trek questions, what the hell? Many veteran Star Trek writers and
08:56producers such as Bran and Braga, Joe Minoski and David A. Goodman have worked on The Orville,
09:00and Jonathan Frakes has called his show Star Trek with Comedy. Marina Sirtis appeared in the Orville's
09:05second season episode Sanctuary in the role of a shipboard school teacher directed by Jonathan Frakes.
09:10It was hard not to see a bit of TNG reunion for the pair, or even for the quasi-return
09:15of Troy in a
09:15different guise. Sirtis said in the experience, just being on The Orville, everything looks like the
09:20Next Generation. It was almost like stepping back in time with Jonathan directing. Frakes has also likened the
09:25directing style of the Orville to that of the TNG. In this standout episode of the program, the parallels
09:29are evident and Sirtis, as schoolteacher, plays a counselling role to the young Machlan Topa and parents
09:35Bortus and Clyden. Number three, we don't know much about Picard season three, but Troy will be in it a
09:41lot.
09:42Now, warning, these are very possible spoilers ahead. Troy was often sidelined in The Next Generation as the
09:47Captain There Hiding Something character. Worse, in the films, Sirtis was relegated to an almost bit part role. The actress
09:53has
09:53admitted that she was often decorative and was ultimately fine with that, wishing nonetheless
09:57that she had suggested more storylines, particularly between other women, for Troy to the writers. In an
10:03interview for the Blu-ray release of the films, Sirtis also laments that she tried and failed to make
10:07Troy funny during TNG's run to the point where she even asked her agent only to find her dramatic roles
10:13after the series end. Fortunately, she was delighted with the now legendary drunk scene in First Contact
10:19and changed her mind about doing comedy. What can we say? With the limited amount of information that we
10:22have is that Troy will be a big part to play in the third and final season of Star Trek
10:27Picard. In the
10:27words of Sirtis herself during a red carpet news interview, we are in it, we are in it, a lot.
10:32The actress has also stated that, having felt discarded by Nemesis, the cast was cherished on
10:36Picard. And whilst executive producer Terry Metallus has ominously warned us that the safety of the
10:41characters is not guaranteed in season three, Sirtis said she would gladly return to the role in another
10:46spin-off. Death of a character is certainly no hindrance in any case, especially with the multiple time
10:50periods of the shows. And Temporal Investigations has just arrived.
10:552. Marina Sirtis had a few mishaps on set
10:58The character of Deanna Troy was accustomed to witnessing disaster, destruction and injury.
11:02After all, she did, under orders, fly the Enterprise E at full impulse into the Scimitar.
11:06She also unexpectedly found herself in command in an episode quite literally called Disaster.
11:11The woman behind the role, Marina Sirtis, equally had a couple of noteworthy accidents on set which you
11:20did. During the battle scene with the Klingons, consoles were blowing up left and right. When
11:23Troy goes to replace an injured officer at the con, Sirtis actually sat on a piece of degree from the
11:28explosions and burnt her bottom. Thankfully she wasn't badly hurt. Another such incident
11:32occurred during the filming of the Next Generation episode Power Play. In a scene on the surface of
11:36the planet, O'Brien, Riker, Data and Troy are thrown violently backwards by an EM discharge just
11:41before they can be beamed back onto the ship. Whilst the other three actors had stunt doubles
11:45performed this for them, Sirtis wanted to do the stunt herself, with the encouragement of the
11:48director. She committed to it so much that, when she landed on her back, she damaged her coccyx and
11:52was in pain for months. Fair play to her. Couple of rounds of Frere Jacques won't make you forget that.
11:57Number 1. She has appeared in 5 series, 4 films and on a stamp. One of the most prolific characters
12:03of the franchise, Marina Sirtis starred as Troy in the Next Generation and has appeared in Voyager,
12:08Lower Decks, Picard and Enterprise. Whatever your thoughts on that last one, it still counts.
12:12She is beaten only by Jonathan Frakes as Riker in that regard, who also appeared in the episode
12:17Defiant of DS9. Sirtis is the only woman to appear as the same character in as many series. However,
12:23she is among great company as one of only six actors to appear in two series finales. Troy was,
12:31of course, in each of the TNG movies. A recent highlight, aside from Picard, are her appearances
12:37in Lower Decks, where she is often the foil for the bombastic Riker. What you may also not know,
12:42unless you are already a fabulously Fidelius fellatist, is that Deanna Troi is one of the 18
12:48characters, including the likes of Janeway, Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Archer, Spock, Reed, Burnham,
12:54to have been commemorated on a set of UK first-class postage stamps in November 2020 as a celebration of
13:01Star Trek. You'd be mad to post them, of course, but it would make for some epic snail mail.
13:05That's everything for our list today, folks. If there's anything else that we missed,
13:08let us know in the comments below. And again, thanks so much to Squarespace for sponsoring this
13:11video. Don't forget to head to www.squarespace.com forward slash trekkulture for a free trial and 10%
13:18off your first purchase. Thank you so much for watching. And of course, don't forget to check
13:24out Jack's original article over on whatculture.com. You can catch us on Twitter at trekkulture. You can
13:29catch us on Instagram at trekkultureyt. You can catch myself at Sean Ferrick on Twitter,
13:33at Sean.Ferrick88 on Instagram, and at Sean Ferrick on Hive. Look after yourself. Don't
13:39talk to you again. Make sure that you live long and prosper. Have a wonderful big few days. Make it
13:44so.
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