Jeri Ryan had issues with Star Trek: Voyager's presentation of her almost immediately
By Chad Porto
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To many people, Jeri Ryan is Seven of Nine. The former Borg drone that Kathryn Janeway and the crew of the USS Voyager saved from a life of Borg-servitude. The character was a smash hit and millions of fans tuned in to Voyager week in and week out to see her and the crew attempt to reach home. More fans would later see Ryan reprise her role of Seven of Nine on Star Trek: Picard, though a bit differently.
No longer is the character static and monotone, speaking more like a fancy robot than a human person. Now, she's more natural in her cadence. More human. It was an evolution that some enjoyed, an evolution that rarely happened.
According to ScreenRant, Ryan was not exactly a fan of the earliest scripts she received. They found an old interview in a TV Zone magazine, where Ryan talks about being unhappy with the start of her run on Star Trek. One of the first scenes she was given to audition with was a segment from the fifth episode of season four, Revulsion. In that scene, Harry Kim tries to make a move on Seven and she in turn, rather matter-of-factly, agrees and orders Kim to undress so they could...get it on. The abrupt manner turns Kim off and the interaction ends.
As that was one of the tryout scenes they gave her, it nearly made Ryan walk away from the role, as she goes on to say;
""It was not one of my favorites, I personally found it terribly predictable and a bit cheesy. If it had been that scene alone there wouldn't have been a question in my mind; I would have never done the audition.""
Thankfully she didn't walk away from the role, as she added a much-needed shot to the arm. The complicated coupling of Neelix and Kes left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths and moving on from the problematic pairing was a key reason why the show reached new heights in seasons three and four.
The scene in question is a memorable one, however. As it depicts Seven of Nine as not being sexual but more curious about the human experience and all that it includes. The concept of flirtation or emotional feelings is so beyond her at the moment, that it doesn't register that what she's doing is out of the norm. It clearly shows that her character, while brilliant and capable is lacking in areas where most adults her age would not be.
It's far from distasteful, in my opinion, and considering how other shows like Picard, Discovery, and Lower Decks pushed the edge in other avenues, like gore and mutilation, it feels like this scene is tame in comparison to where the franchise has since gone.
Maybe that's not a good thing, though.
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