Interesting character, but way overused. To me she suffered from the "Data Effect" - I grew to despise watching both those characters. Towards the end of Voyager, I'd check the TV guide thingy to see what the new episode was about. If it was yet another variation on "Seven discovers her humanity" more often than not I'd do something more interesting - like wash my hair. Exactly the same thing I did in Data-centric episodes towards the end of TNG.
Seven of Nine
- Thread starter Praetor
- Start date
That's why Bones & Spock argued about the same things over & over again in every other ep. or why Jack Bauer makes the same choices again & again despite the personally damaging out come.
I'd argue that Bones and Spock argue about the same thing constantly because their arguments are never really settled. It's ongoing. One never really trumps the other. Since they were meant to represent the fight of emotion vs. reason, this makes sense.
Similarly (although I'm not that familiar with 24) I'll go out on a limb and guess Bauer does what he does out of a sense of personal duty over consideration for himself. That's what heroes do.
Tuvok and Neelix's relationship was meant to evoke the Bones/Spock relationship but ended up being more along the lines of Tuvok belittling Neelix for being a 'rube' rather than the contrast of 'order/discipline' and 'chaos/non-convention' that they seemed to be going for.
How this has anything to do with Seven of Nine?
Oh, right, the reset button.
Similarly (although I'm not that familiar with 24) I'll go out on a limb and guess Bauer does what he does out of a sense of personal duty over consideration for himself. That's what heroes do.
Tuvok and Neelix's relationship was meant to evoke the Bones/Spock relationship but ended up being more along the lines of Tuvok belittling Neelix for being a 'rube' rather than the contrast of 'order/discipline' and 'chaos/non-convention' that they seemed to be going for.
How this has anything to do with Seven of Nine?
Oh, right, the reset button.
How this has anything to do with Seven of Nine?
Oh, right, the reset button.
What also drove me nuts was the reset button in terms of the crew's reaction to her.
In one episode, B'Elanna's giving her props for stunning the Hirogen. Over a year later, B'Elanna's saying "She was never a part of this family." Huh?
In one episode, Chakotay's saying that Janeway was right, Seven has proved herself. In a later episode, he doesn't trust her again.
Early on, Paris is sympathetic to Seven. Later, he's cracking jokes about mindless drones.
The inconsistency issue wasn't just in Janeway's character, or in Seven's reset button. It was across the board on Voyager.
QFT.
The only question remains: was this a part of the production team's 'prime directive' to maintain a 'weekly' show rather than arcs, or was this just lazy character continuity? It's one thing to 'tweak' a character for a particular story, but it's another to completely eject the evolution of a familial relationship from week to week while still telling us that there is one every now and then.
It's like no one writer knew what the others were doing.
Most shows have a story editor and a continuity person to take care of this.
QFT.
The only question remains: was this a part of the production team's 'prime directive' to maintain a 'weekly' show rather than arcs, or was this just lazy character continuity? It's one thing to 'tweak' a character for a particular story, but it's another to completely eject the evolution of a familial relationship from week to week while still telling us that there is one every now and then.
It's like no one writer knew what the others were doing.
Most shows have a story editor and a continuity person to take care of this.
I'd love to blame it on the episodic nature of the series, but there's an element of incompetence as well.
Last night I was watching "Real Life"--and the ending had me a bit confoozled. It made me flash on Natasha Richardson's untimely death from a brain injury this week. And then I thought about Chekov's head injury in ST IV. And the many times over multiple series that they've been able to surgically cure arterial ruptures in the brain.
But in "Real Life," that was beyond them, the Doc says to his holographic family that the brain is still a mysterious organ.
WTF? In the Trek universe, they could surgically cure what Belle had back in Kirk's day.
They really needed a nitpicking script editor on that show.
I actually saw a Voyager companion book (can't remember which one) but instead of a continuity section for each episode they had one called "Continuity or Lack There Of", which made me giggle.
Um, something I posted in a Janeway thread the other day seems to relate to this recent discussion about continuity and how characters behave from one episode to another (if you'll allow me to quote myself):
And I think that's the case for much of Voyager's writing. They'd come up with a story they wanted to tell, but find that it didn't really work with their characters - and instead of rewriting the story or discarding it (or developing the characters in ways that would set up the story later in the show's run), they just jammed the characters into it, which is why characters were often completely different from one episode to the next. I think maybe Seven & The Doctor weren't as harmed by this as the other characters because those 2 were simply more malleable; the Doctor because of the nature of his existance, and Seven because her late introduction into the series meant she had less backstory to get wrong (plus we all know that Borg nanoprobes can do anything).
The show is filled with 'Fake Continuity'. There's an episode (don't remember which one) where Chakotay says to Janeway that he knows she's going to do something, and when she asks how he knows, he says it's because of some gesture that always tips him off - which would have been a nice continuity point - if she'd ever fricking made the gesture in the past. But if you're just a casual fan you might think they were being truthful with the audience, when as a serious fan (with a memory) it came off as the BS plot contrivance that it really was. Things like that really annoyed me.
But as noted, Seven was able to escape a certain amount of that. It was the other character around her that came off as bad in her episodes because they often made no sense given things that they'd said or done in past episodes.
Um, something I posted in a Janeway thread the other day seems to relate to this recent discussion about continuity and how characters behave from one episode to another (if you'll allow me to quote myself):
And I think that's the case for much of Voyager's writing. They'd come up with a story they wanted to tell, but find that it didn't really work with their characters - and instead of rewriting the story or discarding it (or developing the characters in ways that would set up the story later in the show's run), they just jammed the characters into it, which is why characters were often completely different from one episode to the next. I think maybe Seven & The Doctor weren't as harmed by this as the other characters because those 2 were simply more malleable; the Doctor because of the nature of his existance, and Seven because her late introduction into the series meant she had less backstory to get wrong (plus we all know that Borg nanoprobes can do anything).
The show is filled with 'Fake Continuity'. There's an episode (don't remember which one) where Chakotay says to Janeway that he knows she's going to do something, and when she asks how he knows, he says it's because of some gesture that always tips him off - which would have been a nice continuity point - if she'd ever fricking made the gesture in the past. But if you're just a casual fan you might think they were being truthful with the audience, when as a serious fan (with a memory) it came off as the BS plot contrivance that it really was. Things like that really annoyed me.
But as noted, Seven was able to escape a certain amount of that. It was the other character around her that came off as bad in her episodes because they often made no sense given things that they'd said or done in past episodes.
Spot on! It was wiggling her commbadge. He said she always did it when she was 'about to drop a bombshell.' I don't remember which episode it was but I remember the line/situation, and it was a cute moment and all, but I was thinking 'Uh, no, she doesn't. She's never done that before.'
Well said.
I believe it was when she fiddled with her combadge which she never did before or after that episode. ("Dark Frontier").
I said that already.
Sorry about that. No more post-party posting for me!
Now try saying "post-party posting" 10x fast.
Yes. "Dark Frontier" - thanks guys.
Speaking of which... "Dark Frontier" looks amazing - and is very 7of9 centric. And is really good, if you take it all on it's own terms. But it annoyed me a lot the first time I watched it.
Speaking of which... "Dark Frontier" looks amazing - and is very 7of9 centric. And is really good, if you take it all on it's own terms. But it annoyed me a lot the first time I watched it.
Well aside from that horrible Fake Continuity moment that we've already discussed (I think I screamed at the tv), I didn't like that the Borg Queen was made even more petty than she seemed in "First Contact". She lies, about stupid things; didn't Seven once say something about the Borg not lying? Or maybe that doesn't mean much. And then the scene of Janeway in the Queen's lair was such a rip off of Aliens that I almost sprained my eyeballs I rolled them so hard; it was just soooo blatant; it didn't even pretend to be original. I hate that Janeway thinks she can use tech against the Borg that the Hansen's developed, even though she knows that the Borg had assimilated them - and then the tech did work for awhile -which hurt my head. Wouldn't the Borg have adapted to such tech if they'd assimilated the Hansons back in the day? And even if they hadn't - why would Janeway assume they hadn't? Nobody even brings that up, and it seemed glaringly obvious to me. I'm sure there's more; that's just off the top of my head.
Oh. And the Hansens backstory (which is set around 2356) also means they were studying the Borg years before Q introduced the Enteprise to them in "Q Who?" (which is set in 2365), but I'm not sure that's all that big of a deal. The Federation might have known about the Borg on some level before the Enterprise encountered them. I mean, the Enterprise B met the El-Aurians after their home had been destroyed by the Borg (in 2293). And there might have been some record of Archer's encounter with them (even though they weren't referred to as Borg in the episode - in 2152). There might have been something on record from Zephram Cochran as well (in 2063). But at the time it was produced, the idea that the Borg were known by the Federation before Q introduced them really pissed me off.
But production wise, it looks amazing. And the performances are great.
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All valid points. In general, I think you may find yourself happier with re-viewing the episodes with the Borg Queen if you equate her as the combined 'personality' of the Collective rather than its leader (writers' intent be damned), a reflected will of all of the individuals and expression of their emotions all rolled up in one person, and also acknowledge that 'she' has the personality of a spoiled little girl - not unlike a certain V'Ger from 'TMP' eh?
If you think about it, this personality actually makes some sense. The Collective is rather used to getting what it wants.
I really despised her until someone suggested that in the 'General' thread about the Queen and since then my problems with her have faded away for the most part. Ah, happy-world-land.
Yeah, that bugged the hell out of me too. I think I started out assuming Seven would know based on her experience in the Collective which technologies that the Borg would have adapted to - and yet, for some reason, she apparently didn't and Janeway wasn't smart enough to realize it.
Yeah, that little piece of continuity bothered me way more than anything. (Don't get me started on 'Regeneration.') I think if the Federation did know about the 'cybernetic boogeymen' from the El-Aurians they might not have chalked it up to much, but if they had the evidence from 'Regeneration' they might have been a bit more proactive than they appeared to be. Everything on 'TNG' seemed to suggest the Borg surprise caught them with their pants down..
Yeah, at least it's enjoyable.
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I was editing my previous post, while you were writing your response Praetor, so might have missed some stuff. Sorry.
I want to respond to your response, but I have friends coming over and I have to get dressed. lol
I want to respond to your response, but I have friends coming over and I have to get dressed. lol
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