This might be my biggest TNG complaint. The character and the actor are good (or at least decent if we’re being picky), but almost every time the focus is on her, the writing is absolutely awful.
Even the episode where she is forced to take command when the Enterprise was disabled managed to be more about how showing Laren is a callous asshole than that Deanna was capable of command decisions.
I feel like she would have been better if she was a diplomat instead of a councilor. There are tons of episodes where having a diplomat on the bridge would have been very useful, even if she was just an attaché advising Picard.
It would also give the show an excuse to keep her out of a uniform since she would likely be a civilian.
Which is primarily what the third seat is for. Often enough, Starfleet is entangled in a situation which calls for a foreign dignitary, mediator, or third party of some sort. The Enterprise simply “lucked out” on an empathic half-Betazoid. They really should be more thankful.
When she actually uses her powers beyond the trivial, it’s usually an episode where she gets mind raped. The writers are to blame here.
This might be my biggest TNG complaint. The character and the actor are good (or at least decent if we’re being picky), but almost every time the focus is on her, the writing is absolutely awful.
Even the episode where she is forced to take command when the Enterprise was disabled managed to be more about how showing Laren is a callous asshole than that Deanna was capable of command decisions.
You needed Miles and Laren to play off each other and give Deanna options to consider.
The episode also led to an interesting B plot in a future episode about Deanna becoming a commander.
I feel like she would have been better if she was a diplomat instead of a councilor. There are tons of episodes where having a diplomat on the bridge would have been very useful, even if she was just an attaché advising Picard.
It would also give the show an excuse to keep her out of a uniform since she would likely be a civilian.
Which is primarily what the third seat is for. Often enough, Starfleet is entangled in a situation which calls for a foreign dignitary, mediator, or third party of some sort. The Enterprise simply “lucked out” on an empathic half-Betazoid. They really should be more thankful.
who is also the daughter of a fairly high ranking ambassador.