Seven of Nine in my opinion is a terrible character

[Qonundrum]

I know all you voyager fanboys (I love voyager too dont get me wrong) are obsessed with seven.

But for the same reasons?

Everyone seems to think Jeri Ryan is a great actress

She is. To play convincingly a character that, loosely phrased, is an "autistic archetype", is not easy. Unless one is like that in real life, in which case one probably isn't acting at that point.

(she's really not)

She is. Look up "Boston Public". Great show, too.

, people love the character Seven when in reality shes so annoying and off putting especially during interpersonal or romantic situations. She's always quick to anger and get upset unlike Belanna who's just that way just because. The way she speaks almost as if its so forced and she never seems relaxed is annoying. Furthermore, I dont understand how people find her attractive. She's a 6 at best and her personality brings her down to a 2.

In-universe, she was robbed of her identity and humanity by beings that use drugs and technology to screw up one's brain. And was that way for years. She's not going to become Mary Poppins by the next morning.

She's also had less of a romantic life than, say, me - which is an impressive feat in of itself. Yes, she's going to be awkward. I'm sorry she's not sufficiently whatever.

Not sure why she's so beloved. She has absolutely no personality and on top her over the top speech format where she tries to sound logical and speak as if she's superior and intelligent is also annoying.

I've hinted at some of it already. The fact the crew work with a fellow being - she's loved because she brings out the best in people and working with people who in turn want to work with them, despite her moments early on of wanting to go back to the Collective.

Is shew perfect? No, she still has that Borg stuff programmed into her and not all the implants could be removed.

Matter of fact people hate Neelix but Neelix is the better character in Voyager. Remember Living Witness? If Neelix was a tactical officer in an alternate reality he'd be a badass. Anyhow, I just find Seven annoying.

I doesn't help that I'm one of the three fans that appreciate Neelix's character as well.

And "Living Witness" is one of the all-time greats, which TOS, TNG, or DS9 would have been able to do as convincingly.

I think people love blondes thats why they love her.

Wow.

I'm married to a beautiful blonde with blue eyes

Unless she had her soul raped by the Borg, you're comparing apples to giraffes.

and I understand people prefer blondes

Stereotyping is so cool!

but to be with someone because of their looks and tolerate that ridiculous personality I just couldnt handle.

At least you didn't resort to the most cliched "blonde" stereotypes.

If you are attractive but your character and personality sucks and the way you talk is annoying and quickly get angry, upset, and dont understand social interactions Former Borg Drone or not is not my cup of tea.

IDIC prevailing, not everybody is going to like every character or how every episode is written. But you seemed to focus less on re-integration into human society and the concept behind 7 and kept on and on about what amounts to physical looks.

 

[Qonundrum]

She’s a machine. And a foil for every non machine biped on the show.
From time to time, in nuances, she makes an incursion towards her human side. And then, a leap or two.

Sci-fi fanboys like me are big supporters of the machine-becomes-human trope.

When the producers give Ryan a character break, and she plays the comedic side, she delivers.

Just give her a replicator, and cheesecake.

But not Steamed Chadrekab.

I forgot about the comedic slant. She's good. The episode where somehow she and the EMH change personalities (it's a bit too high concept that was shoehorned in), but Ryan and Picardo both sell it so well that it's worth overlooking the absurdity (and the episode did seem tailor made for these actors' strengths, comedy isn't easy to pull off either). And that's saying something in a series that not only is fly by night with anything hologramatic (the less said about "Message in a Bottle" in some ways is so much the better), the same show also prefers using "technical explanation" over "brainless magic" when possible (replicator notwithstanding), but before I get to the tangent where VOY did start the ball rolling of altering technobabble so loosely and conveniently at times that some episodes may as well have whipped out a magic wand half a dozen times per episode...

 

[at Quark's]

Frankly, I didn't like the character 7 of 9 that much as well. For me it felt as 'yet another character who has to discover what it means to have emotions, to be human, and such', a bit of a tired cliché after watching several Trek series with it. Also I didn't like how they inserted her in the tightest costumes they could think of to show off her body.

However, I feel that (1) perhaps my appraisal of the character may not be entirely fair -she may be fresh from the perspective of someone who was introduced to Trek by Voyager-, and (2) I think that the actress did very well with with the role and dialog she was given.

 

[Herbert]

So what happened to Dave?

And Seven most annoying character? More annoying than Neelix? Yeah, that's BS right there

 

[RunningValkyrie]

Voyager was really good before Seven of Nine appeared but it got a lot more interesting with her on board. The dynamics among the crew changed in a way I liked. I never liked the catsuit aspect but the character was great.

 

[Jedi_Master]

I like Seven of Nine, didn't at first, but she grew on me. To be honest, if she didn't come on the show, Voyager probably would not have made it seven seasons.

 

[HugeLobes]

Seven of Nine wasn’t created to be a good character. She was created to be a popular character.

It’s hard to deny her success. From what I’ve read, she probably saved VOY from cancellation. At the same time, Borg crew member who happened to be a stunning blonde in a catsuit? Let’s not deny that’s a damned cheap way to bring in ratings.

Personally, I don’t think Seven was a great character, but I do think Jeri Ryan’s take on her was fantastic. Think it was her acting rather than the writing or character design that helped make the character more than sex in spandex.

 

[Lynx]

I like Seven of Nine, didn't at first, but she grew on me. To be honest, if she didn't come on the show, Voyager probably would not have made it seven seasons.

For me, Voyager had three seasons and the spin-off "Star Trek Seven Of Nine" had four seasons.

Honestly, there were never any plans to cancel Voyager. If they had focused on good stories and character development, they would have had the same development as DS9. Voyager's original characters were great and had so much potential which could have been developed. Not to mention the premise with a ship lost in space. Lots of opportunities there.

"Enterprise" was cancelled after three seasons but that series never had the potentieal Voyager had and the characters were downright boring. Not to mention that Berman and his gang had lost all inspiration to come up with anything and made an even worse job with Enterprise than they made with Voyager.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I’m not sure I know your opinion, you should post it in every sub forum.

Seven stole the spotlight too much but without her Voyager doesn’t last seven seasons. She was attractive but that has nothing to do with why she worked. She was a human having to learn how to be human.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

For me, Voyager had three seasons and the spin-off "Star Trek Seven Of Nine" had four seasons.

Honestly, there were never any plans to cancel Voyager. If they had focused on good stories and character development, they would have had the same development as DS9. Voyager's original characters were great and had so much potential which could have been developed. Not to mention the premise with a ship lost in space. Lots of opportunities there.

"Enterprise" was cancelled after three seasons but that series never had the potentieal Voyager had and the characters were downright boring. Not to mention that Berman and his gang had lost all inspiration to come up with anything and made an even worse job with Enterprise than they made with Voyager.

If Enerprise started right after TNG it might have lasted seven seasons.

Yeah, it’s a shame they didn’t figure out how to write Enterprise until everyone had already stopped watching.

 

[Kilana2]

"Enterprise" was cancelled after three seasons but that series never had the potentieal Voyager had and the characters were downright boring. Not to mention that Berman and his gang had lost all inspiration to come up with anything and made an even worse job with Enterprise than they made with Voyager.

I guess that's why I never got into Enterprise. I tried to watch it, but I gave up after a few episodes....

 

[STEPhon IT]

I actually agree with Dave here.

OK, I'm a bit biased due to the "Kes case". I must admit that I really hated Seven some years ago, mostly because she replaced Kes but also because I saw her joining the series as some sort of cheap "sex sells" thing and not necessary at all when it comes to making good stories.

In later years, I've become more tolerant when it comes to the character. Since so many people seem to like her, the character must have something, I thought. I also think that Jeri Ryan is an excellent actress. I've seen her in some other roles where she has impressed me more than she did as Seven.

However, I haven't watched Voyager's seasons 4-6 since the beginning of the century and never watched season 7. But I did buy season 4 on DVD a while ago and recently watched all episodes in that season.

Even if I'm more accepting nowasays when it comes to the character and can see some good sides with the character as well, I still can't understand why the character is so popular. In most of the episodes I've watched recently of season 4 I find her very annoying, sometimes downright obnoxious in her relations to her crewmates. I must also admit that I still don't like the over-focus on the character. OK, it was her first season and that might be a reason to give her most of the spotlight but it became actually too much, like when the camera stays more seconds than necessary on her and the habit of showing her up from all possible angles in situations when it wasn't necessary.

Not to mention the catsuit! Was that really necessary?

Voyager fans might like the catsuit but she actually were a laughing stock among fans to other Star Trek series. I remember a friend of mine back then, an ardent TOS and TNG fan who said: "They must really be in trouble when they bring in a character like that."

I see no reason to suddenly make her the star of the show which she remained to the end, other than the concept "sex sells".

The sad thing is that Voyager as a series suffered from that. It became "Star Trek Seven Of Nine" instead of "Star Trek Voyager". Seven became the main star with The Doctor and Janeway as co-stars while the other characters were shoved in the background. That was really a waste of the good characters Voyager had and I do understand why Beltran and Wang were so p***ed off and why Mulgrew was so annoyed of her character being reduced to a second rate character.

I thought Seven's involvement clogged the opportunities for other characters like Chakotay, Torres, Tuvok, and Kim where the limited talented writers should've jumped at the chance to broad on. The canvas should be large enough to write for these characters including the wonderful Kes, but these idiots were in TNG bandwagon and I felt those writers really, really, really wanted to write those Data-type episodes which had most of the Paramount poll love. So we got all of those Data wannabe episodes with the Doctor and Seven taking the place of the Data role. They were all clunky stories including the predictable plot, but no matter, at least the fans couldn't see through that blatant form of plagiarism.

 

[chris of nine]

It’s not the character as much as what Ryan does with the character.
And what she doesn’t do. For one, she doesn’t play the adult right out of the gate, when she gets hair and a catsuit. She plays arrested development, having been assimilated young, and with the innocence of the human girl mixed with rage of the machine in her. She grows up. Becomes the student. Uses her intellect to become a valuable crew member with the addition of the Astrometrics Lab. She does not play sex kitten. Uses her smarts to do things that other crew members either didn’t do or couldn’t do before.

See now, in that paragraph, I’ve accidentally merged the actor with the character. Maybe that’s no accident. Another actor might have screwed this up.

Case in point: Genevieve Bujold. Her screen test for Janeway is downright awful. Here is a big star who just phoned it in. Maybe she was sick that day.

After watching Mulgrew all this time, and then seeing this?



I’ll have to find it again.

But I can’t imagine anyone else playing Seven. Ryan invented the part. Owned it. And.......

Oh, yeah....that ocular implant is hot.

 

[Tuvix5675]

I know all you voyager fanboys (I love voyager too dont get me wrong) are obsessed with seven. Everyone seems to think Jeri Ryan is a great actress (she's really not), people love the character Seven when in reality shes so annoying and off putting especially during interpersonal or romantic situations. She's always quick to anger and get upset unlike Belanna who's just that way just because. The way she speaks almost as if its so forced and she never seems relaxed is annoying. Furthermore, I dont understand how people find her attractive. She's a 6 at best and her personality brings her down to a 2.

Not sure why she's so beloved. She has absolutely no personality and on top her over the top speech format where she tries to sound logical and speak as if she's superior and intelligent is also annoying. Matter of fact people hate Neelix but Neelix is the better character in Voyager. Remember Living Witness? If Neelix was a tactical officer in an alternate reality he'd be a badass. Anyhow, I just find Seven annoying.

I think people love blondes thats why they love her. I'm married to a beautiful blonde with blue eyes and I understand people prefer blondes but to be with someone because of their looks and tolerate that ridiculous personality I just couldnt handle. If you are attractive but your character and personality sucks and the way you talk is annoying and quickly get angry, upset, and dont understand social interactions Former Borg Drone or not is not my cup of tea.

I don't think you make a good case for why the character is a bad character, you just point out that she annoys you, you're not impressed with her looks, and you don't think Jeri Ryan is a good actress. If you want to make a good case you're going to have to explain it in terms of how the character was utilized, the character dynamics with the rest of the crew, etc. Okay, you did do that somewhat, in the beginning the character was learning to be human so she didn't know how to do things like eat or dance and she had to be babied along, maybe you found this boring, not a good use of screen-time, or the character, and slowing down the development of the plot, I understand, this is a somewhat legit point though made in isolation from how the character contributed to the series as a whole.

 

[SolarisOne]

Jeri Ryan took what could have very easily been a pure fanservice character and did a fantastic job of making her three-dimensional.

 

[Tuvix5675]

For me, Voyager had three seasons and the spin-off "Star Trek Seven Of Nine" had four seasons.

Honestly, there were never any plans to cancel Voyager. If they had focused on good stories and character development, they would have had the same development as DS9. Voyager's original characters were great and had so much potential which could have been developed. Not to mention the premise with a ship lost in space. Lots of opportunities there.

"Enterprise" was cancelled after three seasons but that series never had the potentieal Voyager had and the characters were downright boring. Not to mention that Berman and his gang had lost all inspiration to come up with anything and made an even worse job with Enterprise than they made with Voyager.

Not to turn this into an ENT thread, but ENT was personally working for me up to the Xindi arc, I lost interest in the series shortly into Season 3, I know others think ENT got good beginning with the Xindi arc, but for me it was the opposite. ENT didn't start getting good again until after that arc was completed with the Augments storyline and many of the other S4 episodes that people liked like Mirror Universe, etc. I don't blame Berman, he did a good job giving us 18 years of continuous Trek (he pretty much took over beginning in S1 of TNG as showrunner). The Xindi arc temporarily caused me to loose interest in ENT, but it was itself a reaction to declining ratings and an attempt to do for ENT what was done to DS9. But as Scott Bakula said, the decision to cancel ENT was really the decision of the head of Paramount at the time, no one else is to blame, though many factors contributed such as ratings, cost of the show, etc.

 

[STEPhon IT]

See now, in that paragraph, I’ve accidentally merged the actor with the character. Maybe that’s no accident. Another actor might have screwed this up.

Case in point: Genevieve Bujold. Her screen test for Janeway is downright awful. Here is a big star who just phoned it in. Maybe she was sick that day.

Disagree with you wholeheartedly, the difference between Bujold's performance and Mulgrew's was it seemed Bujold understood the premise of the show. It was clear as day the producers was jerking the chain when they made that premise... a premise they had no intention of following through. It was TNG 2.0! Saying Bujold phoned it in is disingenuous because you've seen and used to the immortal Kathryn Janeway, Mulgrew IMO gave the impression she was completely obtuse of her surroundings and acted as if she was in the comfort zone of the Alpha Quadrant.

 

[Lynx]

Not to turn this into an ENT thread, but ENT was personally working for me up to the Xindi arc, I lost interest in the series shortly into Season 3, I know others think ENT got good beginning with the Xindi arc, but for me it was the opposite. ENT didn't start getting good again until after that arc was completed with the Augments storyline and many of the other S4 episodes that people liked like Mirror Universe, etc. I don't blame Berman, he did a good job giving us 18 years of continuous Trek (he pretty much took over beginning in S1 of TNG as showrunner). The Xindi arc temporarily caused me to loose interest in ENT, but it was itself a reaction to declining ratings and an attempt to do for ENT what was done to DS9. But as Scott Bakula said, the decision to cancel ENT was really the decision of the head of Paramount at the time, no one else is to blame, though many factors contributed such as ratings, cost of the show, etc.

I must admit that I had my doubts about Enterprise even before it started.
First of all, I was against a retro show. I remember that some years before Enterprise was presented, there were suggestions for the next series in some article att startrek,.com. There were four or five suggestions, among them a series about some crew from Starfleet Academy and also for a retro series. My immediatle thoughts abou a retro series was: "No, not that one".

Imagine how annoyed I was when they did choose the retro series for next project! My reaction then was: "NOOOOOOO! NOT THAT ONE!!!"
I knew that they were going to mess up established Star Trek history and that it would be a bleak parody of TOS.

My second doubt was about Berman and Braga. I stopped definitely watching Voyager after that episode in season 6. I only watched "Endgame" after that and it was also a horrible episode, a sad end to a series which started so incredibly good. After that, I couldn't stand seeing Berman's, Braga's or Fuller's name on the screen without getting a strong urge to kick the TV.

However, I did watch the three first episodes but I gave up after that. The characters were so incredibly lame, the only one I liked was Trip. T'Pol was a lousy copy of Seven and Archer was just wooden and boring. I like Scott Bakula and I enjoyed his performance in NCIS New Orleans which was a great series before going down the drain in season 3 but I was never impressed with Archer.

Another thing that annoyed me was that it didn't look like TOS. If they are doing a retro pre-TOS series, it should look like TOS or even more primitive. The interior and exterior of Enterprise looked more like Voyager than any TOS.

In recent years I've watched a few episodes from the series on TV re-runs but it still doesn't impress me or make me wanna see more of it.

 

[Lynx]

Disagree with you wholeheartedly, the difference between Bujold's performance and Mulgrew's was it seemed Bujold understood the premise of the show. It was clear as day the producers was jerking the chain when they made that premise... a premise they had no intention of following through. It was TNG 2.0! Saying Bujold phoned it in is disingenuous because you've seen and used to the immortal Kathryn Janeway, Mulgrew IMO gave the impression she was completely obtuse of her surroundings and acted as if she was in the comfort zone of the Alpha Quadrant.

I must admit that I found Bujold as Janeway terrible. To this day, I can't even imagine what would have happened if she had became Janeway in the series. She makes the character look very wooden and boring, almost like a robot.

I haven't seen Bujold in any other roles so I can't judge her performance as an actress. She might be great but I wasn't impressed with her as Janeway.

Or maybe Mulgrew's acting is so great in the series that I can't imagine another Janeway.

However, she inspired me to write a text on the Kes Website on the page "Voyager's mysteries-and how to solve them" which I will quote here:


Nicole Janeway

Nicole Janeway, who can be found on some Youtube clips instead of Kathryn Janeway is actually Kathryn Janeway's aunt. A sister to Kathryn's father Edward Janeway.

Contrary to most members of the Janeway family, Nicole Janeway weren't interested at all in Starfleet and space exploring. She always considered her brother Edward a crazy fool who should have chosen another career instead of Starfleet.

"Man doesn't belong into space", she often said. "It's utter foolishness to travel around in those metal boxes in such dangerous environment".

When Edwards daughter Kathryn decided to join Starfleet, Nicole was furious. "You are a hopeless, reckless fool", she told Edward Janeway. "But worse is that you have raised your daughter to become one hopeless, reckless fool too", she said. And added, "This will end up in a disaster, believe me!"

Nicole Janeway often expressed her compassion for Kathryn's mother Gretchen. "I really feel sorry for her, marrying my stupid brother" but expressed sympathy for Kathryn's sister Phoebe who had chosen to become an artist instead.

When tragedy actually struck and Edward Janeway was killed during an exploring mission, together with Kathryn's fiancée Justin Tighe while Kathryn survived the accident, Nicole Janeway pestered everybody who wanted to listen with comments about "well, what did I say". Finally Phoebe Janeway got tired of hearing her aunt's complaints, lost her temper and told Nicole Janeway where to go.

When Voyager dissapeared in the Badlands, Nicole Janeway continued to tell everyone (except Gretchen and Phoebe Janeway who had broken all contacts with her) that Kathryn only had herself to blame for being as foolish as her father. Due to her not too diplomatic comments about certain family members, Nicole Janeway became rather isolated from the rest of the family. She continued to live on her ostrich farm in Colorado while keeping her negative opinion about space exploring.

The scene with Nicole Janeway as captain on Voyager was actually a nighmare Kathryn Janeway had two nights after Voyager left Ocampa, heading for the distant home. Only in a nightmare could Kathryn Janeway imagine her aunt as the captain on her ship.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I thought seasons one and two of Enterprise were worthless. You think Voyager didn’t respect the premise, Enterprise established a show in the 22nd century then they immediately meet a race that has a holodeck. The pool of stories was basically the same as Voyager’s only they based the main conflict on the Temporal Cold War which was over the top and confusing. Time travel only works when you use it sparingly. The hostility between the humans and Vulcans left a consistent bad taste. They went back and forth between horribly executed attempts to introduce known concepts like Dear Doctor and poorly executed attempts to make the humans seem folksy by having conflicts arise by dog urination.

Then they’d just have insulting nonsense like villagers standing down Klingon raiders by learning how to duck twice and roll away. Or Hoshi figuring out an alien language in five minutes by listening to it spoken.

And again, if you think Seven was exploited for sex, Enterprise has ‘Decon’. And when Trip got headaches Phlox prescribed erotic massages.

Everything Voyager did wrong, early Enterprise did more wrong.