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Seized Opportunities
Like the Doctor, we also got a full season's worth of Seven-centric episodes, but she arrived a full three seasons after he did. I'm not surprised - the concept of a character who has been freed from the hive mind of the Borg also presents a cornucopia of dramatic potential. In the simplest sense, there were two major directions in which the writers could develop her character. The first stems from the fact that she was assimilated at such a young age that she had spent most of her life as a member of the collective. As such, she could act as a voice for the Borg in a way that Locutus never could; she could be someone who genuinely believes in the benefits that the Borg grant a person. Alternately, she could be on a quest for the humanity that she barely had in the first place. The writers decided that they could have it both ways.
For her first couple of seasons, they took the "voice of the Borg" path. This led the constant clashing between her and Janeway, and while Seven was always given weak arguments, Janeway's were weaker yet the scripts always took her side. As you can imagine, nothing could have been more effective at making me sympathetic towards Seven. While that may not have been the intended goal of those stories, I'll still count that in the win column for Seven. This version of Seven is probably best exemplified in The Omega Directive.
Dark Frontier started a slow metamorphasis of Seven's character into the former Borg with a personal quest to regain her individuality. I cannot express to you how much more compelling to me a personal quest to become human was as opposed to a quest imposed upon her by Janeway. While Dark Frontier was disappointing to me on the whole, I do appreciate what it meant for Seven in the long run. Without this change in direction, her choice to treat the hive mind as a fate worse than death in Survival Instinct might not have been as potent.
One aspect of early-Seven that was played up effectively was the fearful reactions of various crew members and random aliens to a former Borg drone. While those reactions were somewhat diminished by her decidedly un-Borg appearance, the contrast between their fears and her own surprise that anyone would blame her gave some interesting food for thought. Seven can hardly be personally responsible for her actions as a Borg, but as an advocate for the Borg she would need to somehow justify her beliefs in light of the fear she inspires. I'd have liked for that cognitive dissonance to have been the catalyst for the change in her direction as a character, but I can't have everything I want, now can I?
Being the two most important characters of the latter four seasons of Voyager, and both characters with similar goals and capabilities, it is little wonder that Seven and the Doctor formed such an effective partnership. I'm okay with their romance failing - well, I'd have been even more okay with their romance never forming in the first place - largely because it wasn't necessary to make them a good team. In fact, we got a couple subtly poignant moments because they didn't work out, and I'll count that as a win too.
Missed Opportunities
Her outfits were ridiculous. The Maquis crew were put in Starfleet uniforms on day one, she could at least have had one of those. See, Seven was an interesting character, but keeping her in that ludicrous form-fitting suit only served to distract from that, and make it so that any defense of her as an interesting character also needs to spend a full paragraph on how ridiculous her outfits were. Maybe the writers didn't know what a story goldmine they had in her, and felt they needed something else to make her more compelling. But really, that sort of excuses maybe one season of awful uniforms, not four. True, it took Troi seven years to wind up in a real uniform, but the same people who put her in a uniform were still in charge for Voyager.
Well, okay, according to memory alpha, that was Ronald D. Moore's idea... I guess if I had a dollar for every time I wished that Voyager had done something the way RDM would have, I would be able to buy a season or two on DVD.
Anyways, I do consider it to be a grave disservice to the character to have not effectively used the "voice of the Borg" character path. In fact, the most thoughtful evaluation of the benefits of a hive mind came from Unity, an episode that happened half a season before Seven would even show up. Once she was there, there was no more discussion of how nice it would be to have no racism, no pain, and no unfulfilled desires. Probably the closest we got was her choice in Human Error to not allow the Doctor to fix her implant that prevented her from feeling any too-intense emotion. That counts as a missed opportunity in itself though, as it is never mentioned again until the finale, when Seven just asks to have it fixed.
Tuvok had largely faded into the background after Seven's arrival, but the two made a very interesting team in both The Raven and Tsunkatse. Having both on the same show is kind of like having Spock and Data around at the same time - Tuvok's primary goal in life is to overcome his emotions, while Seven's goal is to regain her individuality. A more prominent friendship between the two could have led to some interesting debates, and would have filled a void in Tuvok's character that had been there since Kes left.
The Actress
Jeri Ryan can act. I didn't believe it at first. They'd hired a model, and I was not surprised that she could keep a dour expression on her face. However, any time the writers gave her an opportunity to play some other character, she knocked it out of the park. As she regained her individuality, bit by bit, Ryan was strong enough to slowly work that change into her performance. I'm sure she was hired just because she could fill out the catsuit, but they got more than they bargained for.
Final Thoughts
I was predisposed to dislike Seven. As someone who hated Voyager without having watched most of it, she became a symbol to me of everything that had gone wrong with it. I saw her as this cynical grab for young male viewers, and, to be perfectly fair, she was. To make matters worse, on this watch through, I greatly enjoyed Kes, so I really didn't want to like Seven. It took me a while to warm up to her, largely because of Janeway's antics when Seven was around. Once she had an opportunity to break away from Janeway as a character, I became much more impressed with her, and with the places the writers were going with her.
People's assumptions of Seven of Nine and Jeri Ryan because of the T&A factor speaks volumes of their own prejudices
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