Series: Star Trek: Voyager
Season 4, Episode 1
Original Air Date: September 3, 1997
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| via Memory Alpha |
Voyager's fourth season opens with our gang putting Janeway's Borg alliance plan (see here) in motion. Among the challenges in such a collaboration is differing communication styles. Janeway requests a single drone to speak on behalf of the collective. A drone, clearly formerly human, is chosen. She identifies herself as Seven of Nine.
The operation is further complicated when Janeway is incapacitated, leaving Chakotay in charge. Before relinquishing she gives clear orders to maintain the new alliance. But we know from the previous episode that the First Officer does not entirely agree with her plan.
Fortunately, in the end, everything comes out right. The Doctor's nanoprobe weapon works splendidly in scaring Species 8472 back to their own dimension (fluidic space: cool idea). Once the shared objective is achieved, Seven of Nine reneges on the agreement (shocker) and tries to assimilate Voyager after all. Thank goodness, our friends have a plan. They manage to disconnect Seven from the collective. Now they own a new problem: how to help a former drone assimilate back into "normal" society.
A moment for the geopolitics before I go into full on gush mode over Seven of Nine...
The two-part "Scorpion" story is an interesting reflection of the world of the mid-to-late '90s. In the immediate post-Cold War period, with American anxiety over Communism (represented in Star Trek by the Borg), a new crisis was emerging: the rise of Nationalism. Turns out, the Communist regimes that had held sway in places like Yugoslavia had managed to tamp down the historically hostile tensions between different ethnic groups within their borders for several decades. With the suddenly weakened centralized power, factional conflict was on the rise. On a good day, Nationalism is problematic. On the worst days, it's genocidal. Species 8472 sees our galaxy as impure and wishes to clean it up, not so different from the ethnic cleansing too prevalent in the real world of the 1990s.
I'm struggling not to overstate what a big deal Seven of Nine's introduction is. In one episode, she establishes herself as Star Trek's strongest and most fascinating female character to this point in the franchise's history. Dax, Kes, Kira and Torres are all great - certainly huge improvements over NextGen's female principals. Captain Janeway is coming into her own. But Seven owns the screen. All credit to Jeri Ryan, too, who was given little to go on in creating the character. The voice booms without shouting and my god, she moves beautifully. And all this without even seeing how stunningly gorgeous she is without the Borg crap all over her.
It's a whole new ballgame, folks. Game on!
A new principal character needs a chair (see here). We still get one more episode with Kes so, at least for the moment, all of the original series chairs are occupied. Fortunately, Seven's narrative progenitor is obvious.
Hugh = Seven of Nine
Through the character Hugh (see here), Star Trek first started exploring the question of what could happen if a Borg drone is separated from the collective. With Seven, we're going to get answers to a lot of questions - and, of course, a bunch of new questions, too.
Best Voyager episode so far. Many prefer the first part of the two-parter. For reasons I expect are obvious, I prefer the second.
Acting Notes
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| via Leverage Wiki |
Jeri Ryan was born Jeri Lynn Zimmerman in Munich, West Germany, February 22, 1968. Her father was in the US Army so the family moved a lot during her childhood. She graduated from Northwestern as a theatre major. She was Miss Illinois in 1989, ultimately placing third in the Miss America pageant.
Seven of Nine was Ryan's big break and she made the most of it. She's won two Saturns for the role, 23 years apart: one for Voyager in 2001 and one for Picard in 2024. She has had other principal television gigs, including Boston Public, Shark and Body of Proof. She's had recurring roles in The O.C., Two and a Half Men and Leverage (a family favorite of ours). Guest appearances include Who's the Boss, Murder, She Wrote and Psych. Big screen credits are surprisingly modest. I guess television has kept her busy. Among others, Ryan appeared in Disney's The Kid, Dracula 2000 and Down with Love.
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