Cutting-and-pasting a post of mine from 2021 that was quoting another post of mine from 2020, because it's relevant to where we are in this thread.
News - "Star Trek’s Jeri Ryan Enjoyed Playing Seven of Nine On Picard More Than Voyager" | Page 2 | The Trek BBS
-- Cutting and pasting --
Me at 18 in the summer of 1998, mowing the lawn. There you go. I had the T-shirt and everything.
But here's a more substantive post I typed up a little while ago, on
April 2nd, 2020.
-- Cutting and pasting. --
I think in the future, people will wear whatever they want. It's the only way to explain the horrible costuming in TNG. I thought it got better from the DS9/VOY years and on. If they were trying to convey "This is a sci-fi character!" it worked. But I never thought much about it. I was more interested in Seven's character arc during the fourth season.
From the fifth season on, I think she was running in place most of the time but there's only so much you can do once everything's a monotonous routine and you have two people like The Doctor and Janeway breathing down your neck constantly making note of if you so much as even move a muscle differently. Sadly, I can relate to this. I didn't "fit in" until I found my own niche in college, I wasn't interested in conforming to the norm or doing what I was "supposed to do", and I did NOT like having parents who were trying to watch me so closely or wouldn't let me do anything to the point where I had to start doing things behind their back just to get out from underneath their eye. So I don't blame Seven for also wanting to have a secret little double-life in "Human Error". I completely understand it.
So I didn't really give a shit about the catsuit. I was more focused on the character. This was someone I could identify with. Otherwise, I wasn't much of a fan of VOY. She's the reason I watched as long as I did. Otherwise, I would've stopped watching sooner since (unlike a lot of
other people here) I don't stick around watching things I'm not a fan of. I mean, sure, Spock was half-Human and half-Vulcan and I could identify being of two cultures, being half-American and half-Iranian, but Seven wasn't like anyone else and didn't appreciate being forced to be like anyone else. And that's what I identify with more (then and now). It's not what you are, it's who you are.