Strongest
This goes to the Doctor. The character was written with an inherent need to change and grow. He started out as this hostile, caustic, limited program and he became a lot more than that
over time. He wasn't suddenly Mr. Nice Guy in episode 2. He changed as experiences seasoned him
like a well fleshed out character should. That's to mention nothing of the actual actor who was pretty funny in the role. The Doctor was the character that let me know what the other characters
could have been. They knew how to write decent characters and he is the evidence.
Weakest
A lot of people will go with Harry, Chakotay, Tuvok, Paris or Kim as the weakest characters since they never moved all that much in terms of development but, as annoying as that was, I think
improperly developed characters are worse than characters who just remain wallpaper for seven seasons. So I'm giving it up to Seven of Nine.
She went from "Put me back" to "Voyager is my collective now" in like... a handful of episodes. They wrote her as both advancing away from being a drone
and something of a Borg patriot at the same time. One minute she'd be talking to Janeway about the merits of individuality and the next minute she'd be shouting "I am Borg!" It's like they didn't want to totally eliminate what made her special but at the same time had to in order to advance the character. Her switch between the two gave me whiplash.
This was compounded by the fact that she was supposed to be
arousing. I can't roll my eyes hard enough at that. Those Catsuits were...ridiculous. Jeri Ryan is sexy as all hell. Seven of Nine was
not. I thought the Borg Queen was more arousing but that could just be because my mother didn't hug me enough as a child or something. Either way I didn't think they hit the target they were aiming at with her addition of sex appeal. They didn't in my case personally anyway. And it wasn't the casting- it was the costuming and the writing.
My final annoyance is that the show essentially focused on her after her addition at the expense of everyone else. Sure, the other actors got screen time, but their story lines seemed like after thoughts in comparisons to the ones that focused on Seven. And they
still didn't do it very well (as mentioned above.)
So yeah, probably going to be in the minority on this one, but considering how much attention they gave her, the necessity of her advancement as a character and their inability to realistically pull that off in conjunction with the fact that it detracted from other characters I think Seven of Nine was the shows weakest character.
-Withers-
Seriously, could they have made this character any more sugary-sweet?! I felt like I needed an insulin shot after each of his scenes. And if an episode actually focused on him, it was screwed! He's the only character I wished would be killed off, so he wins for that reason alone.
