Nerd Girl of Note #27

Now, I was not always a Star Trek fan. I liked The Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered Country, but as far as TV goes I was not interested. Then one day I was watching VH1 (back when they played some videos and did music news) and there was this hot chick in a bikini walking on the beach as a guest VJ. "Who is this Jeri Ryan?" I asked myself. An internet search later and I was a Voyager fan. Now, T&A aside, Voyager is one of the better series, and I still watch it when a rerun comes along. I now prefer Enterprise.

While I am a fan, I am no Trekkie. There is a world of stuff I know nothing about Star Trek-wise. I do remember a lot of complaints about Voyager becoming the "Seven of Nine Show" and thought I'd mention some thoughts here.

Voyager had a big cast of characters, and like The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, they tried avoiding the old Kirk/Spock/McCoy style of stories and include everyone. For a while it worked. Chakotay and Torres had an interesting story as former rebels who were now part of Star Fleet, but the majority were pretty run of the mill.

Harry Kim: Young rookie thrust into a perilous situation.
Tom Paris: Daddy issues.
Katheryn Janeway: Woman in a man's world.
Tuvok: Formerly human hating Vulcan coming to love our upstart people.

Meh.

Now, prior to 7 of 9, there was The Doctor, who was interesting. There was Neelix and Kes, who were really the core relationship for a long time (the unrequited love angle always plays well). Frankly, I think they were running out of ideas. They brought in 7 of 9 and changed that.

Many of the stories played up The Doctor and 7 of 9. Here was something they could get some mileage out of. On one hand you have a human who became a machine (well, Borg), and was trying to become human again. On the other you have a machine (well, hologram) who was all too human. The two played off each other well, and the awkwardness of their positions and polar opposition made a classic styled relationship with loads of possibilities. This is, in fact, the oldest storytelling relationship we know of; Gilgamesh was half god, Enkidu was half animal, and together they both became human.

So, in my book, it did not become the "7 of 9 Show" rather the "7 of 9 & The Doctor Show"—and with good reason.

Oh, and check out Dracula 2000 sometime. She's in that too :-)