Where did Troi get her accent?
- Thread starter t_smitts
- Start date
The same place where they hand out British accents for French captains. 
Deanna spend a lot of time with relatives from the more rural parts of Betazed and picked up their accent, Lwaxana was not amused and ordered Mr.Homn to teach Deanna to speak properly, it didn't work.
Then one day a young and attractive Starfleet officer showed up and thought Deanna's accent was really cute, Lwaxana was relieved because she realized Deanna's speech problem would not hinder her in her man hunting future. It was her who told Deanna to join starfleet to get her off Betazed and into the arms of more men who seemed to think talking like a betazoid hick is cute.
Then one day a young and attractive Starfleet officer showed up and thought Deanna's accent was really cute, Lwaxana was relieved because she realized Deanna's speech problem would not hinder her in her man hunting future. It was her who told Deanna to join starfleet to get her off Betazed and into the arms of more men who seemed to think talking like a betazoid hick is cute.
I like to think of it as being an affection she adopted during her studies in counselling, as she might have found that patients reacted better to it. A bit like her non-standard uniforms, really.
Quite why Lwaxana would claim in "Haven" that the accent reminds her of Troi's father, when Ian Andrew clearly doesn't have it when we see him later in "Dark Page", is a more pressing question.
Quite why Lwaxana would claim in "Haven" that the accent reminds her of Troi's father, when Ian Andrew clearly doesn't have it when we see him later in "Dark Page", is a more pressing question.
Telepaths don't use their ears. They listen with their minds. In all likelihood she should be so lazy about using her ears that she should have an accent similar to a deaf person.
It was the producers ideas to make Troi have that stupid accent since Picard already had his awesome English accent. Obviously the two of them couldn't have the same accent!
Thankfully, Marina Sirtis pretty much stopped doing it later on.
yeah isn't it weird how differently Troi sounds at different points of the show? It's like she's experimenting with how she sounds or something.
That's a good way to put it. Did it start in Insurrection? I think she kept the Troi accent in Generations and First Contact.
Can you blame her? Not much effort went into those last two movies across the board.
That's a good point. One could argue that it wouldn't apply to Troi not being a full telepath, but I could see it with other Betezoids. Wasn't there an episode with some non-verbal telepaths that sounded like that?
Perhaps Lwaxana was trying to tell us all something.Quite why Lwaxana would claim in "Haven" that the accent reminds her of Troi's father, when Ian Andrew clearly doesn't have it when we see him later in "Dark Page", is a more pressing question.
I think this was an improvement. Her original greek-inspired accent sounded like a speech-impediment. It was the biggest problem I had with the character. She's much more charming with her regular UK accent.
Yeah, I greatly prefer Marina Sirtis' regular accent.
It sucks that the producers thought it would be too confusing for two of actors on TNG to have British accents, forcing her to change her it.
I thought the original idea was that it was supposed to 'accentuate' her being non-human, more than anything else. The real problem isn't with Deanna's dodgy accent, it's with the fact that Mrs Roddenberry made a mockery of those original intentions by playing Lwaxana with her regular voice, which is what forced the aforementioned line about Deanna's father into the episode to cover Majel's apparent unwillingness to play along and do the strange accent. And then, of course, every Betazoid that followed Lwaxana just used the actor's normal voices, too.
I agree with the general consensus that Marina using her 'real' voice in the movies was much better. In fact, one of the weirdest things for me about the finale of Enterprise was hearing her using her TV series voice again (she kinda sounds like she's forgotten how to do it, but at least she does try).
I agree with the general consensus that Marina using her 'real' voice in the movies was much better. In fact, one of the weirdest things for me about the finale of Enterprise was hearing her using her TV series voice again (she kinda sounds like she's forgotten how to do it, but at least she does try).
Maybe it is not so obvious to over-seas English speakers but that isn't her regular accent, it seems to be a weird mix of RP and.. something...
When she does her appearances on voyager she is getting a lot closer to her normal accent* but not still not quite.
* which seems to have shifted over time because of living in the US.
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