Marina Sirtis hasn’t had a lot of screen time in this season of Star Trek: Picard, but that’s about to change.
This season of Star Trek: Picard has been a wonderful homage to Star Trek: The Next Generation, managing to give every actor we love from that serious a wonderful comeback except for Marina Sirtis. Although she has appeared briefly in three episodes, she hasn’t had a lot to do this season. And one fan on Twitter pointed out to showrunner Terry Matalas that she was trying to keep the faith that he would do right by Deanna Troi, but he wasn’t making it easy.
Matalas’ response should reassure every fan that Deanna Troi will be seen in the next three episodes, saying, in fact that she “plays big in the final 3.” He added that he was sure it wouldn’t be enough for some, but he were very excited for the Troi moments to come.
Trek Twitter, you sure do make it difficult some days. We did not forget about Marina. She lives in London & schedules are difficult. She plays big in the final 3. I’m sure this won’t be enough for some but we are very excited for the Troi moments to come. https://t.co/5zY67J0YAi
— Terry Matalas (@TerryMatalas) March 31, 2023
Marina Sirtis lives in London, making filming in California difficult.
Star Trek: Picard filmed in Santa Clarita, CA, and with Sirtis having returned home to London, balancing schedules had to have been a nightmare. While some actors do move to a particular city/state while filming a series, it wouldn’t have been practical for Sirtis to do that with the way the story was written. And the story wasn’t written to be about one character anyway.
One fan’s response sums up the scheduling conflicts nicely.
"It recently literally took me a week of back and forth with a friend to coordinate and schedule “hey, you wanna come hang out and have a beer?” I’m pretty sure I’d just give up on the idea of ever seeing anybody if international work permits were involved."
Bringing all of these actors together and telling a complete story had to have been a massive undertaking. Not every character could be in every episode. Compromises had to be made to give fans the wonder of this season. Now, Troi fans can rest assured that she’ll be around for the next three episodes and to wrap up the series.