I definitely realize how tough a job it can be to serve as ship ' s counselor for a crew of over a thousand souls , but I question whether Troi is even that great at her job . A lot of the time , she was relegated to spouting completely obvious observations example I ' m sensing hostility while Picard ' s been arguing with a pissy alien captain . Then , when her empathic abilities could have helped her prevent a crisis example spoiler in The Vengeance Factor , she suddenly doesn ' t sense anything until it ' s too late . I don ' t blame this on Marina Sirtis . Though it may be debatable whether her early season one acting was on par with a lot of the rest of the cast , I think she improved and overall did a fine job as Troi . The problem iswas more that a Troi ' s empathic abilities were a magic macguffin , and b the writers didn ' t know how to write well for the Troi character .