Oh Deanna, you were written as useless before you lost your powers….

And that’s so unfair. She should be written as an astute psychologist who simply has a little advantage in knowing how her patients feel instead of having to work it out from what they say and do - and a little talent on the side as a lie detector. Remember in ‘The Neutral Zone’ when she’s not there and the defrosted businessman barges onto the bridge and, uninvited, does her job, recognising that the Romulans (including a wonderfully supercilious Marc Alaimo Romulan) are bluffing? He doesn’t need psychic empathy to do that; he’s learned through years of negotiations how to read people and detect changes in the mood of a room. That should be what Deanna mainly does - she should have her knowledge of behavioural clues to fall back on if empathy fails.

After all, if being unable to feel someone’s emotions makes her useless, she shouldn’t have a clue what to say to Data when he comes to her for help, and she always seems confident with him. I am, of course, in the ‘Data has nascent emotions he doesn’t recognise’ camp, but that’s not inconsistent here because Data’s belief that he doesn’t have emotions is reinforced by the fact that the people around him believe he doesn’t. If Deanna can’t perceive his form of emotion, naturally she would assume it’s not there.

So the main thing I like about this page is the fact that Deanna is apparently sleeping in a grey raglan-sleeve sweatshirt. That looks far more comfy than the choker-collar nightie someone posted the other day. I’d say ‘It’s Riker’s’ but it actually doesn’t look big enough. She’s just a little slip of a thing and he’s a giant manbear.

I am generally pretty strongly against a TNG reboot, because there are so many aspects of the original that I regard as pretty much perfect (and I have a much stronger emotional attachment to TNG than any of the other Treks because it was My First) that I would just cringe watching them replaced. Seriously, someone else trying to play Data? Someone else trying to play Picard or Riker? (Especially when, as is frequently observed, Patrick Stewart’s diet of newborn babies means that he doesn’t look much older than when he played Picard in the first place.)

But, even though I don’t like the idea of other actresses usurping the roles, the one aspect of a TNG reboot that I could get behind is a reworking of the women’s roles to empower them more and present them as more equal to the men (and the android).

a) Tasha stays, actually wins some fights, LOOKS like she could win some fights - why did they stray so far from the Vasquez-from-Aliens model for her physique? I want a burly Tasha damn it. She can still wear lipstick if she wants. And I want lots of development of her friendships with Worf and Riker. SPACE BROS FOR LIFE.

b) Deanna’s job description needs to be reworked. If she’s going to be present on the bridge as much as she is, I actually don’t want her primary role to be a counsellor/therapist - I want her to be a diplomatic officer. She does a lot of diplomat stuff in the series as it is, briefing Picard on different groups they’re going to meet, which just seems odd given that her stated role is ‘ship’s shrink.’ Also, she never has any rape or rape-analogy (ball of light up her vagina turns into a miracle pregnancy wtf) storylines, ever.

c) Beverly can mostly stay as she is, except, of course, SHE GETS SOME PICARD ACTION IF SHE WANTS IT. Also, one reason why Gates McFadden took off for the second season was that she was frustrated by how little fun Beverly seemed to have. Her audition scene was the drunk ‘extremely… extremely’ one from ‘The Naked Now,’ from which she’d formed the impression that she would get a fair bit of comedy to do, and then Bev was just serious all the time and often seemed kind of cowed and unhappy. So let’s bear in mind that Beverly’s seriousness as an excellent doctor needs to be balanced out by some lighter-hearted scenes. The later addition of Beverly’s performing arts interest was a good one and I’d like it to be present throughout.

ALL OF THIS.