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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,
00:04that semi-glove and that very severe bun. But who is Seven of Nine and what do we really know
00:11about
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
00:21so 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 the
00:46Enterprise D and complicated love interest of Geordi LaForge, she is also recognizable as Captain
00:51Ericka 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 Bourgeault left the role. Though she would lose
01:01out on the part to Kate Mulgrew, with Gibney deemed too young to lead a show, she was invited back
01:05to
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
01:15Trek Picard. She is said to be working at the Daystrom Institute, the workplace of Dr. Agnes Jurati. In at
01:20least one
01:20possible future, LaForge has married Dr. Brahms, so depending on which timeline the show exists in,
01:25there is 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. While the various costumes that Seven wears may have caused
01:36issues for Jerry Ryan herself in both terms of comfort and the ability to breathe, there is no denying that
01:41they were instantly become iconic. Whether it was the silvery catsuit, the brown catsuit, the blue catsuit,
01:47the grey... well look you get the drift. Seven may be the one character in Star Trek who doesn't wear
01:53a
01:53Starfleet uniform, who is more easily recognisable than any other. The design of Seven has carried
01:58over into the other entries in the franchise. In fact, Gersha Phillips, costume designer of Star Trek
02:02Discovery, had her outfits front and centre when planning the party scene in Magic to Make the
02:07Sainest Man Go Mad. Kayla Detmer is outfitted with form-fitting pants and platformed high heels.
02:12Her top, though clearly less body-hugging than anything Jerry Ryan was given to wear, was inspired
02:17by the material that was often used to make Seven's clothes. Though the overall result is less catsuit
02:22and more inspired by, the design of the character remains as iconic with his later era of Star Trek
02:27as it did in the 90s. Number 8. The Borg Babe.
02:30Brandon Braga recalled that after the idea for a Borg crewman sprang into his head, he called Joe
02:35Manoski to workshop the idea. Feeling that he was onto something, Braga then called Rick Berman.
02:40In Braga's words, it was Berman who said, make it a Borg babe. Executive producer Jerry
02:44Taylor is less certain that it was purely Berman's idea. She later said that the idea of a female
02:49Borg crewman was an idea that came about quickly, though she credited Braga with the idea. She
02:54certainly 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, and the looming
03:02departure slash firing of Jennifer Lien, there was room for another female member of the ensemble.
03:07There was little mystery as to why she was given such form-hugging outfits, nor why it was Lien
03:11who got the chop. Garrett Wang only survived the season 3 cull as he had been voted one of the
03:16world's sexiest people that summer. Having received no such lofty honour, Lien was out,
03:21Wang got to keep his job, and 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
03:34audiences 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
03:57child, but 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?
04:21Number 6. Jerry Ryan and Those Costumes. Seven is instantly recognisable in the silvery catsuit that
04:27made its debut in the closing scene of The Gift. Despite its iconic status, it only appeared in a further
04:32two episodes, Revulsion and Day of Honour. The material that was used to construct it, while designed to be
04:37form-fitting, did its job a little too well. Jerry Ryan struggled to breathe in it, especially while sitting,
04:42which became a problem in the long shoots in high heels. A new version was constructed, this one a brown
04:48colour,
04:48though ostensibly the same design. This appeared in The Raven, going through a revision for its debut
04:52in Scientific Method. The 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, and several
05:01appearances as Annika rather than Seven. Ryan never doubted the reasoning behind the wardrobe.
05:06She freely admitted to knowing she was cast for Sex Appeal, an obvious attempt by the producers to
05:11bolster failing ratings. The strategy paid off. Number 5. If Branham Braga had been in charge,
05:17Seven of Nine would have died. Braga had envisioned Seven as a character who would not be long for the
05:21franchise. According to him, she would have sacrificed herself in an attempt to get her found family home,
05:27the way. The showrunners at the time, Ken Miller and Rick Berman, were having none of it. Though death
05:32tends 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
05:51time. 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,
06:18Tuvok notwithstanding as the Vulcan on board. However, for Branham Braga, the character simply wasn't
06:23compelling enough to honour a legacy of the strive to become more human. He looked to the true story of
06:28Victor 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 Attard in 18th century France.
06:40Victor was a young boy who had been raised by wolves from a young age, discovered again by humans and
06:45reintroduced to society. 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, though
06:55it took quite a while. It was from this that Seven sprang, removed from the collective after spending
07:00most of her life with them. She needs to learn how to communicate as an individual, while also
07:04attempting to understand what it means to be a part of the crew. Both Seven and Victor need time to
07:09adjust, though through the patient tutelage of a mentor, they both flourished. Number 3. She was named
07:14after Catwoman and Friday's Child. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, Star Trek crossed over
07:20with a DC Comics property. In this case, Seven of Nine was inspired in part by Catwoman. Judy Newmar,
07:26who had appeared in the Adam West Batman television series, also appeared in the original series
07:31episode Friday's Child. Here, she played Aline, the heavily pregnant inhabitant of Capella 4.
07:36Newmar had also appeared in a short-lived sitcom named My Living Doll. The show, which ran for 25
07:42episodes between 1964 and 1965, focused on Dr Bob MacDonald and Rhoda, a lifelike android played by
07:49Newmar. She had the sub-designation of AF 709. Rhoda was to be a project by Bob in how to
07:57make the
07:57perfect woman who doesn't talk back. The show was billed as a comedy, though ratings were poor. Bob
08:02Cummings, who played MacDonald, asked to be written out halfway through the season, exiting in the 21st
08:07episode. Newmar received praise for her comedic timing. In Star Trek, Rhoda is also said to be the
08:12inspiration behind the character Data. My Living Doll has also been credited as being responsible for making
08:17the phrase, does not compute, popular in media. Though Seven of Nine is quite far removed from the
08:22docile, man-pleasing Rhoda, both characters are projects of a sort. Rhoda is MacDonald's pet project,
08:28while Seven would become Janeway's. Number 2, Ryan vs. Mulgrew. It is now well known that Kate
08:34Mulgrew and Jerry Ryan did not get along during their first few years together on the show. Both have
08:39opened up about their experiences, with 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,
08:55she was dealing with a complete turnaround of what the show was, in her opinion, supposed to be about.
09:00From the beginning, the shadow of Bujol hung over her. The executives from Paramount spent the first
09:04few months watching her act, unsure as they were now that Bujol had walked off. In defiance to this,
09:10but also to highlight the importance of a strong female lead, Mulgrew was adamant that she would
09:14not be their sex symbol to hang the marketing on. In several interviews given during the first year,
09:19Mulgrew championed the writing, stating clearly that Janeway was being written and portrayed as
09:23a captain first and as a woman second. Then Seven of Nine appeared. This deeply frustrated Mulgrew,
09:29who felt that the character represented everything that she had been railing against in the first three
09:33years. She admitted later that it was wrong to have focused this frustration on Jerry Ryan,
09:38with both actors, long since, thankfully, seeming to have buried the hatchet. Number 1, she's become a beacon for
09:43survivors of cults to rally behind. The Borg are nothing if not a metaphor for cults in society.
09:49They draw you in. They take over your mind and body. There is no hope of escape. Resistance is,
09:54in fact, futile. Then, along 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, this group that
10:10did
10:10all it could to erase their individuality. After escaping, they realised that they were now completely
10:14unable to function as an individual. This is reflected in the use of language that Seven uses
10:19during her 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 a
10:29measure of individuality. Through years of therapy, they identified with the journey that Seven goes
10:34through 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 place
10:50much further along than where they had been when they left. In Star Trek Picard, Seven asks Jean-Luc if
10:56he
10:56truly feels like he has recovered from his assimilation. He confesses he doesn't. Together, they acknowledge the
11:01need to keep on fighting to regain that semblance of self, as fitting a message for anyone to rally
11:07behind, as there can be. Thank you very much everyone who enjoyed our list today. If you reckon there's
11:11anything else that we should have included, please drop it into the comments below. Please, as I said,
11:15don't forget to like, share and subscribe. Remember that you can catch us over on Twitter at
11:18TrekCulture. You can catch myself at SeanFerrick on Twitter as well. Check out my podcast at
11:23You'reOnCrackMate on Twitter. You can catch it on Spotify and the usual as well. You look after yourselves
11:27everyone till I see you again. You look after your friends and family. You live long and prosper. Thanks very
11:31much.
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