“Borg Babe” Boost: More Than Sex Appeal – Seven of Nine’s Impact on Star Trek: Voyager
Much like Deep Space Nine had done with introducing Worf for its fourth season, to pump new life into the show and hopefully rebound viewership, producers introduced a new main character for Voyager’s fourth season… this one with sex appeal to allegedly attract young males.
That character, of course, was Seven of Nine – Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One, played by actress Jeri Ryan. Usually truncated to just “Seven,” the character would become a fan favorite – and among the most recognizable to non-Trek fans.
The depiction of Seven of Nine, especially in early episodes and promotions, played heavily into sex appeal. If sex appeal was all the producers and studio were aiming for, they got much more. Turns out, Seven of Nine is a complex, rich character presented as intelligent and strong-willed on the surface, but deeply wounded and innocent just beneath. Her humanity ripped away from her as a young girl – being assimilated along with her parents by the Borg at age 5 and growing up as Borg. She’s brilliantly played by actress Jeri Ryan who can depict this mix of strength and trauma, and she was able to perform it that way because of how the character was written. Seven is brash, or as Torres would define… “rude,” but that brashness is somewhat of a coping mechanism to conceal her inner turmoil as she tries to find order in disorder, find her humanity, and deal with her trauma.
“Borg babe”
The intention to add Seven of Nine only to add sex appeal isn’t entirely accurate, however. The character’s main intention was to be a foil to Janeway, to create tension between the two characters. And boy did it – both onscreen and off, much the same way as a parent dealing with a rebellious teenager. (SCENE: You have just crossed the line, Hunters I believe).
When first conceived by Brannon Braga, the character was assumingly a male character, as is typical for Borg drones. It was Rick Berman who suggested, quite early on, to “make it a Borg babe.” Even so, there was still some uncertainty if Kes or Kim would be written out of the show and the decision to cast off Kim may have changed things to keep a proper male/female balance of cast. It was probably Berman’s insistence on a “Borg babe” that spearheaded her status as a sex symbol.
Ironically, the character herself was oblivious to sex appeal, seeing physical appearance as completely irrelevant. This helped establish Seven of Nine as more than just eye candy. She was a Borg babe only at first glance.
One of Star Trek’s greatest strengths is having an outside character – an alien with an opposing perspective, often one with a logical, rational point of view. Spock for the original series, Data for TNG, and Odo for DS9. Voyager sort of had that with The Doctor, and a little bit with Tuvok, but Seven of Nine is the character that best succeeded in that role for Voyager. And, similar to Data, she was on a quest – albeit reluctantly at first – to become more human. The character clashed with everyone, creating internal conflict better than anything seen in Trek previously – both on- and off-camera.
Reception
The addition of Seven of Nine was overwhelmingly positive – at least among fans. There were some complaints that the character, and Borg in general, received too much focus at the expense of other characters. While it’s certainly true Seven is a primary focus moving forward, that’s only because she’s an interesting character and her role aboard ship forces interaction with all characters in a way no else besides Janeway would. So, it’s natural she’d get a lot of screen time. Besides, let’s face it – most of the characters didn’t get much screentime and interesting content before, especially Chakotay and Kim. So they didn’t lose much by adding Seven of Nine.
The addition of a new character caused some conflict amongst the existing cast members, especially as Seven of Nine began stealing the spotlight in both stories and publicity. This was especially true for Kate Mulgrew, who felt slighted as she had to share the spotlight. Mulgrew also didn’t like how demeaning they portrayed the character physically – in her tight catsuit.
Showrunner Jeri Taylor, who ironically advocated to get Troi out of her skintight catsuits in TNG, didn’t have a problem with Seven of Nine’s catsuit, stating that the character’s sex appeal might get people to tune in but the quality of the character will keep them coming back. And this decision seemed to fit the character well – a character not at all concerned about trivial natures like physical appearance. It did evolve into something less revealing, with more color variations as well, but I admit it would have been nice to have Seven of Nine eventually wear a uniform.
This internal conflict is unfortunate because the addition of Seven of Nine offered new acting opportunities for the cast to play off. The dynamic between Janeway and Seven on-screen is fantastic, creating what I feel is the strongest interpersonal conflict amongst any Trek characters especially during Season Four and some great Janeway moments. The Doctor’s interactions with Seven are charming as well.
The Seven Boost
The addition of Seven of Nine was very much a ploy to increase publicity and viewership, but did it help? Meh!
Seven of Nine definitely drew publicity – some bad, but attention none the less. This shifted attention away from Captain Janeway – who gained progressive advancement as the franchise’s first female series lead without playing into her femininity. It caused some resentment from Janeway actress Kate Mulgrew and friction between the actresses – something Mulgrew, to her credit, acknowledges was unjustified. Ironically, this off-screen conflict probably played well into each character on-screen as they butted heads as part of the script.
It’s a public perception that Seven of Nine “saved the show” with a huge boost. I think most will agree that the quality of episodes improved greatly around the same time as Seven’s introduction, whether by coincide or a direct correlation. Ratings for Seven’s debut in the highly regarded fourth season opener “Scorpion, Part II” were higher than the preceding season’s premiere – but only barely, and the viewership bump was short lived. With the exception of “Nemesis,” the first seven (ironically) episodes of the season did achieve higher ratings than the same episode set the season prior, but that’s when ratings started to slip. Surprisingly, this season-over-season lead changed with the well-regarded “Year of Hell,” with the two-parter pair achieving a 4.7 and 5.2 rating compared to Season 3’s “Future’s End” two-parter averaging 5.6 and 5.8. Later into Season Four, Voyager saw new lows with episodes like “Waking Moments” and “Vis-à-vis.” With further ratings erosion yet to come. As a whole, Season Four averaged a 4.3 Nielsen rating against Season Three’s 4.8 – so slightly lower.
Keep in mind that viewership and ratings are not the same thing. Viewership can increase while ratings decrease. That’s because ratings are a percentage of TV households, which grow with time. A show must increase viewership at a faster rate than growing TV households for both to grow. So it’s very possible Voyager had higher viewership, but taking a smaller portion of the total pie.
Borg… Borg… Borg!
With the inclusion of Seven of Nine, the Borg certainly are an underlying theme, and maybe that’s where the perception arises, but as a central focus, I think assertions that the Borg were overly used are greatly exaggerated.
In the fourth season, only four episodes feature the Borg as a primary focus, and only one of those are they the primary plot driver of the episode. In “Hope and Fear” the Borg serve as the motivation of the episode’s antagonist and make a brief appearance at the end, but they are certainly not the episode’s main plot point. It’s a plot about revenge. “The Gift” and “The Raven” are Seven establishing episodes so they’re more about the character than they are the Borg.
The Hirogen have just as much exposure in the fourth season as the Borg directly, featured in five episodes, although “Message in a Bottle” is a bit of a stretch.
The fifth season only features the two-hour long feature “Dark Frontier” and two other Borg-focused episodes. The sixth season features four and the final season only has a single episode aside from the series finale featuring the Borg as a primary plot point.
The list of Seven-focused episodes is certainly greater but the Borg themselves as the central focus is not as heavily focused as some make it sound.
The one criticism I can agree with is that Voyager somewhat defanged The Borg by making them seem easy to defeat, but overcoming your antagonist is the nature of things. And Borg nanaprobes seemed like a magical fix for just about anything. So in that sense, yeah, those specific elements wore out their welcome. But more broadly speaking I don’t think the Borg are as heavily featured as some suggest.
