- 9 hours ago
Seven Of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct Of Unimatrix Zero One, We Hardly Knew You.
Category
đ„
Short filmTranscript
00:00She's easily one of the most recognizable characters in all of Star Trek with that eyepiece,
00:04that semi-glove and that very severe bun. But who is Seven of Nine and what do we really know about
00:11her? I'm Sean Ferrick for Trek Culture and here are 10 things you never knew about Seven of Nine.
00:18Before we get into the video as a whole I just want to take a second to say thank you so much
00:21for your support. Please don't forget to like, share and subscribe. You've helped us seriously
00:25grow this channel. We are aiming for 200,000 subscribers by summer of 2022 and you can help us
00:32get there just by hitting that subscribe button if you haven't already. So thank you so much again
00:36and let's get to it. Number 10, Susan Gibney was turned down for the part. Susan Gibney is best
00:42known to Star Trek fans for one of two roles. Dr. Leah Brahms, one of the original designers of
00:46the Enterprise D and complicated love interest of Geordi La Forge. She is also recognizable as Captain
00:51Erika Bentine of the USS Lakota from Deep Space Nine. She also auditioned for the part of Captain
00:56Janeway, receiving a screen test after Genevieve Beaujold left the role. Though she would lose out
01:01on the part to Kate Mulgrew, with Gibney deemed too young to lead a show, she was invited back to
01:05audition for the part of Seven. Unfortunately, her youth once again went against her. Though she has
01:10only appeared on screen in four episodes of Star Trek to date, her character may yet see a return in
01:15Star Trek Picard. She is said to be working at the Daystrom Institute, the workplace of Dr. Agnes Jurati.
01:19In at least one possible future, La Forge has married Dr. Brahms, so depending on which timeline
01:24the show exists in, there is still an outside chance of Gibney returning to the show alongside
01:28Jerry Ryan Seven as well. Number 9, Seven of Nine is a fashion icon. While the various costumes that Seven
01:35wears may have caused issues for Jerry Ryan herself, in both terms of comfort and the ability to breathe,
01:40there is no denying that they were instantly become iconic. Whether it was the silvery catsuit,
01:45the brown catsuit, the blue catsuit, the grey... well look you get the drift. Seven may be the one
01:51character in Star Trek who doesn't wear a Starfleet uniform, who is more easily recognisable than any
01:56other. The design of Seven has carried over into the other entries in the franchise. In fact, Gersha
02:01Phillips, costume designer of Star Trek Discovery, had her outfits front and centre when planning the
02:06party scene in Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad. Kayla Detmer is outfitted with form-fitting pants and
02:11platformed high heels. Her top, though clearly less body hugging than anything Jerry Ryan was given to
02:16wear, was inspired by the material that was often used to make Seven's clothes. Though the overall
02:20result is less catsuit and more inspired by, the design of the character remains as iconic with his
02:26later era of Star Trek as it did in the 90s. Number 8, The Borg Babe. Brandon Braga recalled that after
02:32the idea for a Borg crewman sprang into his head, he called Joe Manoski to workshop the idea. Feeling that
02:37he was onto something, Braga then called Rick Berman. In Braga's words, it was Berman who said,
02:42Make it a Borg Babe. Executive producer Jerry Taylor is less certain that it was purely Berman's idea.
02:47She later said that the idea of a female Borg crewman was an idea that came about quickly,
02:52though she credited Braga with the idea. She certainly did agree, however, that the full story
02:56behind the character was workshopped by all of them. With the falling ratings for Star Trek Voyager
03:00throughout the third season and the looming departure slash firing of Jennifer Lien, there was room for
03:05another female member of the ensemble. There was little mystery as to why she was given such form
03:09hugging outfits, nor why it was Lien who got the chop. Garrett Wang only survived the season 3 cull
03:14as he had been voted one of the world's sexiest people that summer. Having received no such lofty
03:19honour, Lien was out, Wang got to keep his job and the search for Seven's performer began.
03:24Number 7, Seven of Nine vs Perra. The initial casting sheets for Seven of Nine actually referred to the
03:29character as Perra. This iteration of Seven would have ended up as a very different character from the one
03:34the audience's eventually received. Perra had been witness to the slaughter of all of her friends
03:39and family while located on Kelta Prime. After this event, she claimed that her humanity died.
03:44Unable to deal with the torment of losing everyone she had ever known, she found comfort in the
03:48collective consciousness of the Borg. This goes away toward explaining some of her reluctance to leave
03:53when she is liberated by Captain Janeway. In The Gift, it is explained that she was assimilated as a child,
03:58but the circumstances of her assimilation aren't truly explored until Dark Frontier. Annika Hansen,
04:03as the character was later renamed, was captured as a young girl when her parents
04:07vastly underestimated the collective. Raised as Borg, this would explain her resistance to humanity.
04:12While certainly traumatic, it is oddly a less bloody introduction to the Borg for the young girl,
04:17so in a way this is closer to a happier beginning for her? Number 6, Jerry Ryan and Those Costumes.
04:24Seven is instantly recognisable in the silvery catsuit that made its debut in the closing scene of The Gift.
04:29Despite its iconic status, it only appeared in further two episodes, Revulsion and Day of Honour.
04:34The material that was used to construct it, while designed to be form-fitting, did its job a little
04:39too well. Jerry Ryan struggled to breathe in it, especially while sitting, which became a problem
04:43in the long shoots in high heels. A new version was constructed, this one a brown colour, though
04:48ostensibly the same design. This appeared in The Raven, going through a revision for its debut in
04:52Scientific Method. The costume would change several more times throughout the show's fourth to seventh
04:57seasons, peppered with returns of the Borg outfit, a Starfleet uniform in two episodes,
05:01and several appearances as Annika rather than Seven. Ryan never doubted the reasoning behind
05:06the wardrobe. She freely admitted to knowing she was cast for Sex Appeal, an obvious attempt by
05:10the producers to bolster failing ratings. The strategy paid off.
05:14Number 5, if Branham Braga had been in charge, Seven of Nine would have died.
05:18Braga had envisioned Seven as a character who would not belong for the franchise. According to him,
05:22she would have sacrificed herself in an attempt to get her found family home, dying a hero along
05:27the way. The showrunners at the time, Ken Biller and Rick Berman, were having none of it. Though
05:32death tends to mean very little on Star Trek, with the notable exception of Jadzia Dax on Star Trek Deep
05:36Space Nine, they stepped in to ensure that Seven was not killed off. That suited Jerry Ryan perfectly,
05:41as it ensured a little more job security, but it also paved the way for many of Voyager's stronger
05:45episodes from Season 4 onward. That is not to say, however, that Braga didn't get his wish from time to
05:50time. Seven died in Timeless, Relativity, Course Oblivion, sort of, and Endgame. Considering that
05:56Braga and Ryan were dating for much of her stint on Star Trek Voyager, one has to wonder what exactly
06:01was the psychology behind having one's lover killed frequently on screen, though perhaps some questions
06:06are best left unanswered. Number 4, Seven was the wild child in Branham Braga's eyes. The emergency
06:12medical hologram had started life as the stand-in for Data or Spock character on Star Trek Voyager, Tuvok
06:18notwithstanding as the Vulcan on board. However, for Branham Braga, the character simply wasn't
06:22compelling enough to honour a legacy of the strive to become more human. He looked to the true story
06:28of Victor of Aveyron, or the wild child, that had been depicted on film in 1970 by Francois Tuffaut,
06:34which in turn was based on the study by Dr Jean-Marc-Gaspar Redard in 18th century France. Victor was a
06:40young boy who had been raised by wolves from a young age, discovered again by humans and reintroduced to
06:46society. He struggled initially, unable to communicate verbally, never having learned to
06:50speak French. However, under the care of Ytard, he learned to function around humans again,
06:55though it took quite a while. It was from this that Seven sprang, removed from the collective
07:00after spending most of her life with them. She needs to learn how to communicate as an individual,
07:03while also attempting to understand what it means to be a part of the crew. Both Seven and Victor need
07:08time to adjust, though, through the patient tutelage of a mentor, they both flourished. Number 3,
07:13she was named after Catwoman and Friday's Child. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the
07:18last, Star Trek crossed over with a DC Comics property. In this case, Seven of Nine was inspired,
07:24in part, by Catwoman. Judy Newmar, who had appeared in the Adam West Batman television series, also
07:29appeared in the original series episode Friday's Child. Here, she played Aline, the heavily pregnant
07:34inhabitant of Capella 4. Newmar had also appeared in a short-lived sitcom named My Living Doll. The show,
07:41which ran for 25 episodes between 1964 and 1965, focused on Dr. Bob McDonald and Rhoda,
07:47a lifelike android played by Newmar. She had the sub-designation of AF-709. Rhoda was to be a
07:55project by Bob in how to make the perfect woman who doesn't talk back. The show was billed as a comedy,
08:01though ratings were poor. Bob Cummings, who played McDonald, asked to be written out halfway through
08:05the season, exiting in the 21st episode, Newmar received praise for her comedic timing. In Star Trek,
08:10Rhoda is also said to be the inspiration behind the character Data. My Living Doll has also been
08:15credited as being responsible for making the phrase, does not compute, popular in media.
08:20Though Seven of Nine is quite far removed from the docile, man-pleasing Rhoda, both characters are
08:25projects of a sort. Rhoda is McDonald's pet project, while Seven would become Janeway's.
08:30Number 2. Ryan vs. Mulgrew. It is now well known that Kate Mulgrew and Jerry Ryan did not get along
08:36during their first few years together on the show. Both have opened up about their experiences,
08:41with Ryan speaking about how unsettled, upset and nauseous it made her, having to deal with
08:45the wall of dislike that faced her day by day when filming with Mulgrew. However, while Mulgrew's
08:51treatment of Ryan was undoubtedly unfair and unprofessional, she was dealing with a complete
08:56turnaround of what the show was, in her opinion, supposed to be about. From the beginning, the shadow of
09:01Bujol hung over her. The executives from Paramount spent the first few months watching her act,
09:06unsure as they were now that Bujol had walked off. In defiance to this, but also to highlight the
09:11importance of a strong female lead, Mulgrew was adamant that she would not be their sex symbol to
09:16hang the marketing on. In several interviews given during the first year, Mulgrew championed the writing,
09:20stating clearly that Janeway was being written and portrayed as a captain first and as a woman second.
09:25Then Seven of Nine appeared. This deeply frustrated Mulgrew, who felt that the character represented
09:31everything that she had been railing against in the first three years. She admitted later that it
09:35was wrong to have focused this frustration on Jerry Ryan, with both actors, long since,
09:39thankfully, seeming to have buried the hatchet. Number one, she's become a beacon for survivors
09:44of cults to rally behind. The Borg are nothing if not a metaphor for cults in society. They draw you
09:49in. They take over your mind and body. There is no hope of escape. Resistance is, in fact, futile. Then,
09:56along comes Seven of Nine to prove that no, in fact, it most certainly is not.
10:00Twitter user StarSpider penned a piece for Vice in which they detailed their path to recovery after
10:04escaping a cult. They had spent much of their twenties as a member of, then prisoner too,
10:09this group that did all it could to erase their individuality. After escaping, they realized that
10:13they were now completely unable to function as an individual. This is reflected in the use of language
10:18that Seven uses during her removal from the Collective. Throughout the events of Scorpion,
10:22she predominantly uses We to identify herself, while from the gift onwards, she starts using
10:27the singular I as she regains a measure of individuality. Through years of therapy,
10:31they identified with the journey that Seven goes through after her liberation from the Collective.
10:36First there is anger, then a dubious attempt to endure this individuality. Later comes regret
10:42before acceptance. In Seven, they were able to see many elements of their own journey leading them
10:47toward, if not total recovery, then at least a place much further along than where they had been
10:52when they left. In Star Trek Picard, Seven asks Jean-Luc if he truly feels like he has recovered from
10:57his assimilation. He confesses he doesn't. Together, they acknowledge the need to keep on fighting to
11:03regain that semblance of self, as fitting a message for anyone to rally behind, as there can be.
11:08Thank you very much everyone who enjoyed our list today. If you reckon there's anything else that we
11:12should have included, please drop it into the comments below. Please, as I said, don't forget to like,
11:15share and subscribe. Remember that you can catch us over on Twitter at TrekCulture. You can catch
11:19myself at SeanFerrick on Twitter as well. Check out my podcast at You'reOnCrackMate on Twitter. You
11:24can catch it on Spotify and the usuals as well. You look after yourselves everyone,
11:27till I see you again. You look after your friends and family. You live long and prosper. Thanks very much.
Be the first to comment