What is it with sci-fi and multi-breasted women?
It's common knowledge that Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had some... interesting ideas for certain characters in The Next Generation in the build-up to the show's pilot episode airing back in 1987, and the "Deanna Troi four boob" story has become the stuff of internet legend over the years.
Apparently, Roddenberry initially wanted Marina Sirtis' character, Deanna Troi, to be an "oversexed hermaphrodite" with four breasts, before being talked around by Sirtis and writer/producer Dorothea Fontana.
There are a couple of different versions of the story out there, but the multiple mammary concept has now been confirmed.
In his new book, Making It So: A Memoir (via Screen Rant), Sir Patrick Stewart reveals that the early days of filming Star Trek: The Next Generation season 1 were "full of anxiety," and he worried that the show might struggle to find its feet. Stewart was particularly resistant to the content of the third episode, "The Naked Now."
"A lot of people enjoy “The Naked Now,” but to me, it smacked of desperation, as if we had been on the air for years and the writers had already emptied the cupboard of good ideas. But Gene, as it is well known, was a fan of cheesecake - he had Marina wear a minidress and go-go boots in the pilot, as if the 1960s had never ended, and he contemplated giving Deanna Troi three or even four breasts."
We've seen a few three-breasted characters in sci-fi before (perhaps most memorably in Total Recall), but yeah, four might be overkill!
Sirtis has previously spoken about her role in TNG, and how Deanna was initially conceived as little more than eye candy before coming into her own as the series progressed.
“There are certain rules in Hollywood. One of the rules is not written anywhere, but you just know: if you’re doing an action-adventure show, you gotta have chicks on the show for the boys to look at when they’re not blowing up other spaceships. Second rule: if the chick has a cleavage, she cannot have a brain."
“So, [after wearing a uniform in the first episode] I got a cleavage," she continued," and all my gray matter departed. Which was sad, because originally (I know this is gonna shock you), Troi was supposed to be the brains of the Enterprise. So when the cleavage came, all that left, and I became decorative, like a potted palm on the bridge.”
Even when Troi was given more agency in later seasons, many fans feel that the character was never utilized to her full potential, and was even more noticeably sidelined when the show made the jump to the big screen.
Sirtis recently reprised the role in Star Trek: Picard.