Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis reveal how they kept Will Riker and Deanna Troi’s romance alive

Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis talk about Star Trek: Picard’s romance between their characters.

Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis returned to Star Trek as actors after a long hiatus with Star Trek: Picard. Appearing in the first season, we find out that the characters they play, Will Riker and Deanna Troi, got married and had two kids. One of whom had passed away by the time the series started.

The couple seemed happy, however, and it set up their eventual return in Star Trek: Picard‘s final season. It was a relationship, however, that had the writers and executives had their way, would never have happened.

Speaking in an interview on Paramount+’s YouTube page, Frakes and Sirtis revealed how they kept the romance going through The Next Generation and into Picard.

How Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis kept their romance going in Star Trek

Frakes and Sirtis debuted as Riker and Troi in the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation ad it was revealed that the two had a long-standing, off-again-on-again relationship. It was one that was instantly hated by the writers and executives with Frakes explaining that it came down to laziness;

"The writers conveniently decided it’s easier if Riker and Troi are single and can have, as Riker did, flings like Kirk…Not…never to the level Kirk got to."

Sirtis would then explain that it was mostly her and Frakes who found ways to keep the romance alive through the series, even when the producers and editors did everything they could to cut it from the show;

"The fans loved the Troi-Riker thing. The producers a lot of the time and the writers a lot of time, in the beginning, ignored it. …Jonathan and I refused to let it die. …We would play stuff between us that would normally end up on the cutting room floor, but now and again, they couldn’t cut it out because there were other people in the shot or whatever. …We kept it going, much to the consternation of the suits. But the fans loved it and I’m glad that we did it."

It’s pretty wild to think where things would’ve gone had the two actors not willed the relationship into existence.