“Listen to me! You are not alone! We are all in this together… now.”
I can’t think of Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes other than “The Bonding” and “Loud as a Whisper” to perfectly illustrate and encapsulate Deanna Troi’s (Marina Sirtis) purpose on the ship. As part of the crew, her title is Ship’s Counselor, which is the fancy-pants definition of a shrink, an analyst, a psychotherapist. Sometimes we see her at the beginning of her job; helping the crew work through their pain, but we never see the resolution. Dr. Pulaski (Diana Muldaur) once described Troi’s job as “to keep us [the crew] from deluding ourselves.”
The Enterprise picks up famed negotiator, Riva (Howie Seago) to mediate a dispute between two rival (and nearly identical-looking) factions on Solais V. Riva was instrumental in the early peace accords between the Klingons and the Federation. Riva is deaf and uses a “chorus” to communicate his thoughts; two men and a woman who embody the psychological aspects of his personality: the pragmatic, the passionate, and the balance which holds them together.
It’s interesting to note that while Riva is obviously a gifted litigator, he is also arrogant and entirely too dependent on his interpreters. The show manages to create a character seemingly defined by his handicap, but also vulnerable and imperfect, rather than a symbolic identity to be venerated. When Riva’s chorus is slaughtered by an angry member of one of the factions, Riva is left defenseless and frightened aboard the ship.
Picard (Patrick Stewart) orders Data (Brent Spiner) to learn sign language to communicate with him, and Troi attempts to appeal to him because of his obvious attraction to her. In an unusual scene not related to the episode’s main story, Pulaski informs Geordi she might be able to give him normal vision, but they never follow up or give this subplot any closure for the remainder of the series. In the movies, starting with First Contact, Geordi would have those creepy “Terminator” eyes. Earlier, Riva had been intrigued by Geordi’s visor and asked him if he felt isolated because of his blindness.
If, in the future, humanity breaks and re-sets our disabilities as with Geordi’s visor providing a solution for his blindness, Riva (and his people) stand alone as creatures who use their inability to speak as a point of pride and as a source of personal power. Troi gently manipulates him into accepting that his disadvantage (that of losing his “chorus”) can be turned into an advantage by teaching sign language to the rival factions so that they can, somewhat poetically, learn to communicate with each other and end the conflict.
So Troi gets to do her job for a change. She’s not window dressing, and she isn’t stating the obvious. She isn’t shoe-horned into the tragedy as a result of impossible circumstances and must improvise a solution that placates all concerned parties. Here, she even volunteers to take up Riva’s dangerous assignment when Riva folds. Troi was as courageous as she was hot.
Star Trek Rewind explores the Star Trek universe. From Archer to Janeway, Kirk to Picard, and Georgiou to Sisko — boldly read what no one has read before!
