In the interim between the cancellation of Star Trek in 1969 and its resurrection as a television series with Star Trek: The Next Generation, creator and idolized leader Gene Roddenberry got high on his own supply of mythmaking and adoration.

After Trek vanished from the active airwaves, becoming the fare of syndication with daily reruns of episodes on local stations, the idealized version of the series and its message took hold in the growing and devoted fan base. The idea that Trek showed a future free of the human failings that so troubled our society then and continue to today, particularly bigotry, instead accepting everyone and celebrating their differences. People had been made better over the centuries, despite Kirk having to admonish officers to leave their bigotry in their quarters because there’s no room for it on the bridge, and McCoy’s continual treatment of Spock and his unending comments about the first officer’s heritage would earn him a perpetual hall pass to H.R. in any current corporation. When Roddenberry, after being booted from the film franchise, got the chance to make a TV series again, it was one that reflected what people praised about Trek while ignoring how the original series had actually been written. Every character would love and accept every other character, making drama among the crew something very difficult to write. This newfound “we love everyone” ethos was particularly strong in the empathic half-Betazoid Deanna Troi.

Paramont/CBS Home Video

Troi (Marina Sirtis) acted as the ship’s counselor and adviser, using her racial abilities to know the hidden emotional states of her patients and the people that the ship encountered on its adventures. She was presented as a warm character, accepting and understanding of everyone with a kind heart and word for the people around her and deeply troubled by their pains.

I find the construction quite improbable.

The truth about people is that we all wear masks nearly all the time. People rarely reveal just how much their inner thoughts, emotions, and drives are not reflected in their surface expressions and actions. Now, this would make someone like Troi a very useful agent in ferreting out the truth of a matter, a useful writing and plot device, but think about it from her point of view. She knows just how often everyone around her tells their little “white” lies, just how often men fake interest in a woman’s conversation when their minds are driven by more base desires, just how often people hold each other in contempt while presenting smiles and politeness. I can think of no better recipe for creating a hardened cynic, someone who knows that people are far nastier and crueler than they reveal. How much we are all just animals restrained by social conventions.

And that is a much more interesting character than a Pollyannaish woman wailing about joy and pain.