Well to be honest Trek was in a steady decline over the years due to Trek getting away from being Trek IMO. I always thought DS9 suffered from being set on a space station. You stop trekking and you stop Trekking in a very real sense for many fans. The introduction of the Defiant speaks to this absence. The one thing DS9 did right they did right in spades! It was set firmly in the Trekverse and advanced the overall universe storyline. Voyager, at least getting back in space, actually moved even farther from being Trek. The fundamental premise removes the protagonists from the midst of the rich tapestry of the Trekverse. You could change the name of the ship, different uniforms, and you have the same show. Enterprise just didn't LOOK like Trek. I dunno how you both show it's earlier than TOS and still look like Trek but for me they missed the mark. Of course all that being said I love each and every one of those series because ....well, it's TREK!!
Sort of in the same manner as when most people's parents, especially those that are particularly dyed-in-the-wool, attempt to step out from their normal routines and predilections?
But it didn't start at the beginning of ENT. It started during the middle of VOY, when they created the Seven of Nine character. Imagine how much better it would have been had 7of9 stayed looking like a Borg drone throughout the series. How much more seriously the character would have been taken, instead of the catsuit-wearing big boobed bimbo we got. T'Pol was nothing more than a 7of9 clone, and the decon gel scenes were just par for the course.
There was nothing about 7's personality that was a bimbo and thanks to a great actor and good writing she became a compelling and pretty much sexless character. They advertised her one way, what they ended up with was something else entirely. T'Pol was an interesting fail Vulcan, as her mother said she never did well at controlling her emotions. Vulcan likes to present itself as everyone on board, monoculture. But ENT showed us Vulcans who don't fit in and who made different choices, something you would get in any race. T'Pol is her BEST as a Vulcan surrounded by humans because they don't see how emotionally fail she is, they see her as LOGIC ftw! She gets to play a successfully logical Vulcan in control of her emotions and everyone believes her, whereas among her own kind her flaws are glaring. This is why she chooses to serve aboard a human vessel. Neither character is simple. Calling either a bimbo misses the mark completely.
Teacake you know it's the publicity shots that circulated before the characters showed up that created this false perception. The assholes marketing the show sat in a different building than the assholes writing the show. I doubt they had mixers.
I wasn't talking about their personalities. I was talking about how they were physically presented to appear in the show. Please give me one good in-universe reason why 7of9 needed to wear that outfit. But I suppose I could have been clearer. I meant to say "How much more seriously the character would have been taken (if she looked like the drone), instead of (looking like) a catsuit-wearing big boobed bimbo."
1. The Doctor designed it for her, and the rest of her entire wardrobe too. 2. The Doctor's interpersonal subroutines were designed by Reg Barclay. 3. This is how Reg thinks a baller (the Doctor) would act in his idealized cartoony perception of reality, and how he thinks a "hot girl" should dress, because he's a virgin that's seen way too much holoporn.
I have posted my in universe explanation for 7's outfit many times. Borg "clothes" are tight fitting, hold all that tech and body bits together deals. Nothing extraneous, nothing flapping around, Borg clothing is just an extension of the skin, everything has a purpose. 7 gets disconnected from the collective and she is FREAKING OUT for like several seasons. She is deeply uncomfortable with just about everything, she should at least not feel like she is playing dress ups in human clothes. She wants to feel secure and a tight suit has the effect of swaddling her, she does not have to think, adjust (we will ignore the toilet issue, obviously there was hidden panels), coordinate.. it's just like wallking around as Borg. This is her comfort zone. When she does dress up for the EMH's social suggestions she is visibly uncomfortable even as those around her respond positively to her in normal attire. Eventually she will adapt, but at this point she has to adapt to so much let the poor woman be at least comfortable in her own clothes. Out of universe I will point out that many characters wore cat suits. Kes was in one but no one complains. Just because a woman is stunning with huge boobs doesn't mean she should dress differently than a mousey vaguely adolescent thing. I think if 7 looked dorky NO ONE would be complaining.
The Borg do not wear clothes. So many layers of implants that it looks like clothing to the uneducated. They were nude. There was always a few Borg with exposed breasts and genitals just off camera. Always.
So you're saying that if only the Captain had been sympathetic enough to 7's cultural needs we could have had her topless?
Well in the beginning the Doctor did says that her "costume" served a medical purpose, but yes. Although her human personality existed/thrived as an electronic conciousness in the hivemind as a valuable member of the collective and played Hookey in Unimatrix Zero, and either has jack shit to do what the husk she left behind that the collective repurposed into a drone. This is what happened to Kes too. She blossomed into a giant glowing space fart. Then due to some misadventure we did not see, that fart got squeezed and condensed back into a tiny little girl again. Seven did say that a version of her still existed in the Collective. It does make you wonder if supplying drone meat is the ticket you pay to ascend into the Hive mind and become perfect. What happens if you lose your "ticket"? Do you lose status or power inside the collective? But once your conciousness is removed, or constantly broadcasted out of the Drone, what the hell does the disembodied intellect care for it's body? Drones are not slaves because they are not sentient. Although Seven did say that she saw her entire life as a Drone, and that it sucked. The back up conciousness left behind in the meat of the drones brain is obviously an autopilot for in case of if the Drone becomes disconnected from the hive. The woman we know as Seven of Nine is a black box at best compared to the version of Seven of Nine living inside the Collective now far, far too large to ever completely fit back into her body.
Wait a minute, let me rethink my earlier reply to this statement. Are you saying Seven would be topless, Janeway would be topless, or both of them would be topless? With a ready room scene over coffee, no doubt.
7 does not care if other people are topless. Modesty is irrelevant. So no, Janeway would not be topless or in any specific state of dress to make 7 feel at home, but yes 7 might have felt just as at home with nothing on top as with the catsuit.
What was she doing when... Sometimes you do need a smock or an apron. Everyone eventually learns the hard way that we shouldn't fry bacon in the nude.
Here's the problem with that. No matter what, you have to act cool. There's boobs right there in the open and you have act like it's not a big deal, or you're a pig. That sounds exhausting!
You'd get used to it if it was the norm. Though it would only be the norm in the summer so you might have to re-get used to it every late spring. There would have to be an official day when everyone went topless from that point on so that it was like immersion therapy.