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Seven Of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct Of Unimatrix Zero One, We Hardly Knew You.
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00:00She's easily one of the most recognizable characters in all of Star Trek, with that eyepiece, that semi-glove, and that very severe bun.
00:08But who is Seven of Nine, and what do we really know about her?
00:12I'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 for your support.
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00:35So thank you so much again, and let's get to it.
00:37Number 10, Susan Gibney was turned down for the part.
00:41Susan Gibney is best known to Star Trek fans for one of two roles.
00:44Dr. Leah Brahms, one of the original designers of the Enterprise D, and complicated love interest of Geordi La Forge.
00:49She is also recognizable as Captain Erica Bentine of the USS Lakota from Deep Space Nine.
00:54She also auditioned for the part of Captain Janeway, receiving a screen test after Genevieve Bourgeault left the role.
01:00Though she would lose out on the part to Kate Mulgrew, with Gibney deemed too young to lead a show, she was invited back to audition for the part of Seven.
01:07Unfortunately, her youth once again went against her.
01:10Though she has only appeared on screen in four episodes of Star Trek to date, her character may yet see a return in Star Trek Picard.
01:16She 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 the show exists in,
01:25there's still an outside chance of Gibney returning to the show alongside Jerry Ryan's Seven as well.
01:30Number 9, Seven of Nine is a fashion icon.
01:33While the various costumes that Seven wears may have caused issues for Jerry Ryan herself,
01:38in both terms of comfort and the ability to breathe, there is no denying that they were instantly become iconic.
01:44Whether it was the silvery catsuit, the brown catsuit, the blue catsuit, the grey... well, look, you get the drift.
01:50Seven may be the one character in Star Trek who doesn't wear a Starfleet uniform, who is more easily recognisable than any other.
01:57The design of Seven has carried over into the other entries in the franchise.
02:00In fact, Gersha Phillips, costume designer of Star Trek Discovery,
02:03had her outfits front and centre when planning the party scene in Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad.
02:09Kayla Detmer is outfitted with form-fitting pants and platformed high heels.
02:13Her top, though clearly less body-hugging than anything Jerry Ryan was given to wear,
02:16was inspired by the material that was often used to make Seven's clothes.
02:20Though the overall result is less catsuit and more inspired by,
02:23the design of the character remains as iconic with his later era of Star Trek as it did in the 90s.
02:29Number 8, The Borg Babe.
02:31Brandon Braga recalled that after the idea for a Borg crewman sprang into his head,
02:35he called Joe Manosky to workshop the idea.
02:37Feeling that he was onto something, Braga then called Rick Berman.
02:40In Braga's words, it was Berman who said,
02:42Make it a Borg Babe.
02:43Executive 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.
02:54She certainly did agree, however, that the full story behind the character was workshopped by all of them.
02:59With the falling ratings for Star Trek Voyager throughout the third season,
03:02and the looming departure slash firing of Jennifer Lien,
03:04there was room for another female member of the ensemble.
03:07There was little mystery as to why she was given such form-hugging outfits,
03:10nor why it was Lien who got the chop.
03:12Garrett Wang only survived the season 3 cull,
03:15as he had been voted one of the world's sexiest people that summer.
03:18Having received no such lofty honour, Lien was out,
03:21Wang got to keep his job,
03:22and the search for Seven's performer began.
03:24Number 7, Seven of Nine vs. Perra.
03:27The initial casting sheets for Seven of Nine actually referred to the character as Perra.
03:30This iteration of Seven would have ended up as a very different character from the one the audiences eventually received.
03:36Perra had been witness to the slaughter of all of her friends and family while located on Kelta Prime.
03:41After this event, she claimed that her humanity died.
03:44Unable to deal with the torment of losing everyone she had ever known,
03:47she found comfort in the collective consciousness of the Borg.
03:50This goes away toward explaining some of her reluctance to leave when she is liberated by Captain Janeway.
03:55In 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.
04:02Annika Hansen, as the character was later renamed,
04:05was captured as a young girl when her parents vastly underestimated the collective.
04:09Raised 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?
04:21Number 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.
04:30Despite its iconic status, it only appeared in further two episodes, Revulsion and Day of Honor.
04:35The material that was used to construct it, while designed to be form-fitting, did its job a little too well.
04:40Jerry Ryan struggled to breathe in it, especially while sitting,
04:42which became a problem in the long shoots in high heels.
04:46A new version was constructed, this one a brown colour, though ostensibly the same design.
04:50This appeared in The Raven, going through a revision for its debut in Scientific Method.
04:53The costume would change several more times throughout the show's fourth to seventh seasons,
04:57peppered with returns of the Borg outfit, a Starfleet uniform in two episodes,
05:01and several appearances as Annika rather than Seven.
05:04Ryan never doubted the reasoning behind the wardrobe.
05:07She freely admitted to knowing she was cast for sex appeal,
05:09an obvious attempt by the producers to bolster failing ratings.
05:13The 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.
05:21According to him, she would have sacrificed herself in an attempt to get her found family home,
05:26dying a hero along the way.
05:28The showrunners at the time, Ken Biller and Rick Berman, were having none of it.
05:32Though death tends to mean very little on Star Trek,
05:34with the notable exception of Jadzia Dax on Star Trek Deep Space Nine,
05:37they stepped in to ensure that Seven was not killed off.
05:40That suited Jerry Ryan perfectly, as it ensured a little more job security,
05:43but it also paved the way for many of Voyager's stronger episodes from season 4 onward.
05:47That is not to say, however, that Braga didn't get his wish from time to time.
05:51Seven died in Timeless, Relativity, Course Oblivion, sort of, and Endgame.
05:56Considering that Braga and Ryan were dating for much of her stint on Star Trek Voyager,
06:00one has to wonder what exactly was the psychology behind having one's lover killed frequently on screen,
06:05though perhaps some questions are best left unanswered.
06:08Number 4, Seven was the wild child in Branham Braga's eyes.
06:12The emergency medical hologram had started life as the stand-in for Data or Spock character on Star Trek Voyager,
06:18Tuvok notwithstanding as the Vulcan on board.
06:20However, for Branham Braga, the character simply wasn't compelling enough to honour a legacy of the strive to become more human.
06:26He looked to the true story of Victor of Aveyron, or the wild child,
06:30that 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.
06:40Victor was a young boy who had been raised by wolves from a young age,
06:44discovered again by humans, and reintroduced to society.
06:47He struggled initially, unable to communicate verbally, never having learned to speak French.
06:51However, under the care of Itard, he learned to function around humans again,
06:55though it took quite a while.
06:57It was from this that Seven sprang, removed from the collective after spending most of her life with them.
07:02She needs to learn how to communicate as an individual,
07:04while also attempting to understand what it means to be a part of the crew.
07:07Both Seven and Victor need time to adjust, though, through the patient tutelage of a mentor, they both flourished.
07:13Number 3. She was named after Catwoman and Friday's Child.
07:16Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, Star Trek crossed over with a DC Comics property.
07:21In this case, Seven of Nine was inspired, in part, by Catwoman.
07:25Judy Newmar, who had appeared in the Adam West Batman television series,
07:29also appeared in the original series episode Friday's Child.
07:32Here, she played Aline, the heavily pregnant inhabitant of Capella 4.
07:36Newmar had also appeared in a short-lived sitcom named My Living Doll.
07:41The show, which ran for 25 episodes between 1964 and 1965,
07:45focused on Dr. Bob MacDonald and Rhoda, a lifelike android played by Newmar.
07:50She had the sub-designation of AF-709.
07:54Rhoda was to be a project by Bob in how to make the perfect woman who doesn't talk back.
07:59The show was billed as a comedy, though ratings were poor.
08:02Bob Cummings, who played MacDonald, asked to be written out halfway through the season,
08:06exiting in the 21st episode, Newmar received praise for her comedic timing.
08:10In Star Trek, Rhoda is also said to be the inspiration behind the character Data.
08:14My Living Doll has also been credited as being responsible for making the phrase
08:18does not compute popular in media.
08:20Though Seven of Nine is quite far removed from the docile, man-pleasing Rhoda,
08:24both characters are projects of a sort.
08:26Rhoda is MacDonald's pet project, while Seven would become Janeway's.
08:30Number 2. Ryan vs. Mulgrew
08:32It is now well known that Kate Mulgrew and Jerry Ryan did not get along
08:36during their first few years together on the show.
08:39Both have opened up about their experiences,
08:41with Ryan speaking about how unsettled, upset and nauseous it made her,
08:45having to deal with the wall of dislike that faced her day by day when filming with Mulgrew.
08:50However, while Mulgrew's treatment of Ryan was undoubtedly unfair and unprofessional,
08:54she was dealing with a complete turnaround of what the show was, in her opinion, supposed to be
09:00about. From the beginning, the shadow of Bujol hung over her. The executives from Paramount spent the
09:04first few months watching her act, unsure as they were now that Bujol had walked off. In defiance to
09:10this, but also to highlight the importance of a strong female lead, Mulgrew was adamant that she
09:14would not be their sex symbol to hang the marketing on. In several interviews given during the
09:18first year, Mulgrew championed the writing, stating clearly that Janeway was being written and
09:22portrayed as a captain first and as a woman second. Then, Seven of Nine appeared. This deeply frustrated
09:29Mulgrew, who felt that the character represented everything that she had been railing against in
09:33the first three years. Now, she admitted later that it was wrong to have focused this frustration
09:37on Jerry Ryan, with both actors, long since, thankfully, seeming to have buried the hatchet.
09:41Number one, she's become a beacon for survivors of cults to rally behind.
09:45The Borg are nothing if not a metaphor for cults in society. They draw you in. They take over your
09:51mind and body. There is no hope of escape. Resistance is, in fact, futile. Then, along
09:56comes Seven of Nine to prove that no, in fact, it most certainly is not. Twitter user StarSpider
10:01penned a piece for Vice in which they detailed their path to recovery after escaping a cult.
10:05They had spent much of their twenties as a member of, then prisoner too, this group that did all it could
10:10to erase their individuality. After escaping, they realized that they were now completely unable to
10:13function as an individual. This is reflected in the use of language that Seven uses during
10:19her removal from the Collective. Throughout the events of Scorpion, she predominantly uses
10:23We to identify herself, while from the gift onwards she starts using the singular I as she regains
10:29a measure of individuality. Through years of therapy, they identified with the journey that Seven
10:34goes through after her liberation from the Collective. First there is anger, then a dubious attempt to
10:39endure this individuality. Later comes regret before acceptance. In Seven, they were able to see
10:44many elements of their own journey leading them toward, if not total recovery, then at least a
10:50place much further along than where they had been when they left. In Star Trek Picard, Seven asks Jean-Luc
10:55if he truly feels like he has recovered from his assimilation. He confesses he doesn't. Together,
11:00they acknowledge the need to keep on fighting to regain that semblance of self, as fitting a message for
11:06anyone to rally behind, as there can be. Thank you very much everyone who enjoyed our list today. If
11:10you reckon there's anything else that we should have included, please drop it into the comments below.
11:14Please, as I said, don't forget to like, share and subscribe. Remember that you can catch us over
11:18on Twitter at TrekCulture, you can catch myself at SeanFerrick on Twitter as well. Check out my podcast
11:22at You'reOnCrackMate on Twitter, you can catch it on Spotify and the usuals as well. You look after
11:27yourselves everyone till I see you again, you look after your friends and family, you live long and prosper. Thanks very much.
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