20 Star Trek Women You Should Know

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LOS ANGELES – APRIL 28: Marina Sirtis as Counselor Deanna Troi in the STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION episode, ‘Hollow Pursuits.’ Original air date, April 28, 1990. Season 3, episode 21. Image is a screen grab. (CBS via Getty Images)

10. Deanna Troi (The Next Generation)

I’ll admit that I wasted a fair amount of my early Star Trek fan time disliking Deanna Troi. It wasn’t entirely unjustified. As a character, Troi often got little attention from the writers. They sometimes appeared to be more concerned about fitting her into a skintight catsuit than giving her a good storyline. But, given the benefit of time and a little personal maturation, I’ve learned to love Deanna Troi.

Troi serves as counselor aboard the Enterprise. Because she is half-Betazoid, she has empathic abilities – she is able to sense intent and emotion in most other individuals. Incredibly convenient for a psychologist, for sure, but also advantageous for a crewmember on a far-ranging starship which encounters a wide array of people.

Initially, Troi was going to be the “eye candy” of the show. It was the late 1980s, and so television executives and creatives were rarely politically correct, to put it kindly. Marina Sirtis, who played Troi, was often pressured to lose weight. Because Troi was crammed into form-fitting outfits, it was difficult for her to maintain a “perfect” physique. Also, thanks to these outfits, viewers often assumed that she was a civilian. In fact, Deanna Troi was a highly trained Starfleet officer who had earned both an advanced degree in psychology and the rank of lieutenant commander (later, commander).

Six years into the show, producers finally decided to give the character her due. She got better story lines and even wore proper Starfleet uniforms. Said Sirtis: “I was thrilled when I got my regulation Starfleet uniform… it covered up my cleavage and I got all my brains back, because when you have cleavage you can’t have brains in Hollywood… I was absolutely thrilled.”