Star Trek: The Next Generation's arranged marriage mirrored Marina Sirtis’ real life

Counselor Deanna Troi's arranged marriage during the first season of Star Trek; The Next Generation almost happened in Marina Sirtis' real life.

Remember that first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation "Haven," which brought Majel Roddenberry on board the Enterprise as Counselor Deanna Troil's mother? She came bearing the news that Troi was to be married, and though clearly Troi (Marina Sirtis) didn't want to go through with it, she started to comply, mostly because her mother was such a force of nature.

As it turns out, this scenario was very familiar to Sirtis as the same thing almost happened to her. In the Star Trekoral history,The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Yearsby Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross, Sirtis talked about Haven's similarities to her own life. [via Screenrant]

Marina Sirtis even asked Gene Roddenberry how he knew so much about her life.

Sirtis told Roddenberry that all of this had happened to her in real life. Her Greek parents tried to arrange a marriage for her just like Troi. And Sirtis had similar feelings toward her real-life mother that she had toward her onscreen mother. Still, Sirtis thought it was a wonderful episode to do.

Arranged marriages still happen around the world, but fortunately, that wasn't Sirtis' fate. She married Michael Lamper in 1992, and the marriage lasted until Lamper's untimely death in December 2019. And it was this loss that partially prompted her to leave America and return to the UK as the actress told Daily Star Trek News that the loss of her husband was too much. The couple were together for thirty-one years and married for twenty-seven. Sirtis said it was too painful to stay in Los Angeles as there was were just many memories.