Why do we need Troi and Guinan?


Don't they serve pretty much the same purpose?

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Agreed. And between the two I would keep Guinan and lose Troi. At least with Guinan she had an interesting backstory with her lifespan and history with the borg. And she is used sparingly.

Troi on the other hand is terrible in every conceivable way. Marina Sirtis is not only a bad actress (and smug if you have seen her in interviews), her character is obnoxious. She spends most of her time psychoanalyzing other characters, but when she has an emotional crisis she always throws the biggest hissy fits. I remember especially the episode where she loses her empathic abilities. So much cringe I just wanted her to be killed off.

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I never warmed to Whoopi Goldberg on "The View" but I always liked her as an actress. I would have happily preferred Marina Sertis, not Gates McFadden (who, at least, unlike Sertis, showed improvement in later seasons), exiting the show after the first season, leaving Goldberg as both bartender and empath.

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I can't stand The View.

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That's kind of true to life though. Many (most?) modern psychologists also regularly see another psychologist.

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I have lived with a psycho therapist (male) and a psychiatrist (female). I can tell you from the terrible experiences, they're crazy and they need to be the ones wearing the strait jackets.

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It's logical for a ship the size of the flagship to have a psychologist on board, I can see why they wanted a designated romantic couple in the cast, and if course every TV show needs to fit a hot babe into the ensemble.

Where I think they went wrong is that they had Picard rely on her far too much. His relationship with Guinan was more interesting, and was never unprofessional.

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Not sure what you mean. They hardly used her abilities at all. In the first season she wasn't even in most of the episodes because of that.

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If by "her" you mean Troi, Picard always had her sitting next to him on the bridge, he always had Riker on one side and her on the other. She never contributed much but "I'm sensing deception/anger/indecision/whatever", but Picard always had her there to say it.


I always thought they should have made a bit more of her work as a psychologist, that contributed more to the running of the ship overall, but their priority was to get her on the bridge where the camera was.

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So did he rely on her or didn't he? You can't have it both ways.

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And here's Marina Sirtis herself saying she wasn't in the episodes and was actually going to be let go:

https://youtu.be/ce9J7U1cycs?t=1310

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Not only that but Guinan was also more approachable, more Intuitive of people, and seemed more successful in helping the crew. I don't get why Troi needs to be on the bridge and state the obvious.

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We still needed a token black woman though.

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Why do we need Troi and Guinan?


I've been watching several episodes of the series over the course of the last dozen days and that exact thought struck me. They're both empathic/insightful and counsel people.

That said, Guinan would've never cut it as Durango in "A Fistful of Datas."

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The show needed a black female as LeVar Burton couldn't hold the minority wagon all on his own. Besides we needed more empaths to give the impression there are a lot of them in the galaxy to show that trois empathic abilities arn't just an ass pull and singular to her alone,

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I never cared much for either of them. Troi with her silly unitards. Why the hell doesn't she have to wear the same uniform as everyone else? And Guinan with those ridiculous hats. Both of them so presumptuous and self-important. Troi, in particular, is so intrusive and irritating that I'm surprised Picard didn't drop her off with all her luggage at the first starbase they came to. Not only that, but her even more annoying mother dropping in and driving everyone nuts.

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To push the limits of touchy feely in the 24th century and fulfill Gene Roddenberry's dream of kinder gentler military.

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Troi served as the official on the job functionary. Guinan was created to show the characters at ease and in an informal setting. More "what are they thinking now" type situations.

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Hated both characters.
Troi sounded like she had a speech impediment and I never warmed to the character nor actress.
Guinan was one of the worst characters in a show ever. Woopie Goldberg as a mysterious, powerful entity bartender? Hard to think of any other role that brings as much cringe. Almost as hard to make up a worse character/actor combo. Hmmm ... Jim Carrey in Game of Thrones as an interpretive dancer who always knows what is going to happen next.

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