Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Deanna Troi
4. Marina Sirtis Was Directed By Jonathan Frakes In An Episode Of The Orville
This one is a bit of a deep meta-dive but stick around. Seth MacFarlane’s The Orville is a great piece of science-fiction in its own right. (Season four, anyone, please?) MacFarlane makes no secret of his love of Star Trek as a source of inspiration.
He even appeared in Enterprise, and then there was that hilarious episode of Family Guy with the Next Generation cast: "These aren’t Staaar Trek questions! What the hell?!" Many veteran Star Trek writers and producers such as Brannan Braga, Joe Menosky, and David A. Goodman have worked on The Orville, and Jonathan Frakes has called the show "Star Trek with comedy". Adding to the Star Trek 'feel' of The Orville, Penny Johnson Jerald is part of the main cast, and actors Robert Picardo, John Billingsley, and Tim Russ have made guest appearances.
In April 2019, about a year before her return in Picard (and longer for Lower Decks), Marina Sirtis appeared in The Orville’s second season episode Sanctuary in the role of a shipboard schoolteacher, directed by Jonathan Frakes. It was hard not to see a bit of a TNG reunion for the pair, and even the quasi-return of Troi in a different guise. Sirtis said of the experience, "Just being on the Orville, everything looks like [The Next Generation]. […] It was almost like stepping back in time with Jonathan directing".
Frakes has also likened the directing style on The Orville to that of TNG. In this standout episode of the programme, the parallels are evident, and Sirtis, as schoolteacher, plays a counselling role to the young Moclan Topa and parents Bortus and Klyden.