Just because telepathy is such a fucking trump card in the way it's depicted in Star Trek. Instant total access to a person's entire psyche without them knowing you're doing it? Super OP. I've seen the concept thrown out there of reading minds being like reading books: doesn't mean you'll be able to understand it. Or if you want to make it lame, at least liken it to hacking, in that people would have natural in-born defenses against it and trained telepaths can create much more elaborate ones. As a matter of fact, DS9 had something like this, using an illegal mind-reader device to get information out of a dying man's brain. Much cooler.

But Troi just straight-up sucks at being a counselor and reading emotions. She seemed perplexed by Barclay's actions in therapy, even though she should be able to read him like a book. She also didn't seem to take seriously enough the fact that Barclay was creating copies of his co-workers and superiors to take part in elaborate fantasies that re-contextualizes them as objects of ridicule or submissive enemies who will instantly admit defeat when he tells them off, not until her fantasy version showed up. The writers really did her character dirty. They just used her as a damsel in distress. They also took way too long to get her into a uniform like everyone else. And we have Captain Jellico (the greatest and noblest captain Starfleet has ever known) to thank for that. Marina Sirtis describes in interviews just how happy she was that Troi finally got to wear a uniform, just like all the important characters.

Also still mad that they didn't try harder to convince Denise Crosby to stay for season 2. Tasha Yar had so much room for growth, like all the other characters. Instead she boned the robot and got killed by a puddle. I really wish we could have seen her friendship with Data evolve, and take some of the brunt of the Worf Effect off Worf. Yar's Sister episodes, like Data's Brother episodes. Such a waste. :picard-annoyed: