Perfect Seven She's held our Collective attention, but will she ever completely accept being an INDIVIDUAL? Consider, if you will, 1997.  By the end of Voyager's third season, the show had found its own voice after a sizable segment of the fandom had seemed to have all but given up.  What to do?  By the beginning of the fourth season, the creative shake-ups at the end of the third had been given a, uh, "human", face in Jeri Ryan: the enthusiastic new recruit tapped to play Seven of Nine, the Borg drone that Janeway and crew saved from the Collective at the end of the turning point two-parter "Scorpion". Charming and, well gosh, let's admit it: beautiful, Ryan's addition to the show brought a level of media attention and excitement that Trek hadn't seen in

Promising to explore her emerging individuality, Seven-themed episodes in the fourth and fifth season each took her one more calculated step closer to finding her humanity.  From "The Gift" to "The Raven", from "Prey" to "Retrospect" to "Omega Directive", from "One" to "Hope and Fear" in the fourth season alone, most Seven-themed episodes took her one step closer to, if not realizing completely what it meant to be an individual, at least coming to terms with the fact that she no longer existed in a unitary Collective any longer.  The fifth season's "Drone" to "Dark Frontier" to "Someone to Watch Over Me" saw Seven develop the unique human personality Janeway had always hoped she would cultivate.  Who says Voyager doesn't have any story arcs?

Now, having raised a bunch of Borg tykes and realizing the existence of a fully developed human personality (and romance) existing within the dream-like state of Unimatrix Zero, what will be the end result of the birth of Seven's human existence?

"I think that Seven is going to be becoming more of a tragic figure as we end the series, which I think is an interesting choice," Jeri Ryan said.

Tragic!

So much for the optimistic outlook that rescuing the wild child from the wolf pack would turn out all right in the long run.  Well, maybe not.  But the clues that Seven's progress might take several steps back haven't been hard to find.  Promptly losing a romance she had just come to accept in "Unimatrix Zero" and in "Imperfection" telling Janeway how she had, to her own point of view, failed in her task of rearing the individual submerged within Seven's psyche, it's looking possible that Seven in the long run might not be able to, well, adapt to being an individual.

When Ryan hints that the latter half of the season will see Seven "do some kind of experiments with her humanity and her sexuality, and trying to re-experience the emotions that she felt for the first time in Unimatrix Zero at the beginning of the season," it seems possible that these experiments, including the fantasy life she will delve into later this season might have some unforseen, negative impacts.  These impacts might convince her that Earth represents elements of her humanity that have no place in her life.  If Seven is going to become a tragic character, as Ryan suggests, it might be in that she decides that Earth, which has never exactly been a goal of hers to reach, might fall further away from her interest.  Not reaching that final level of acceptance in her humanity might be the tragedy that Ryan is suggesting we should expect.

Let's not expect something completely dour-- after all, a dark end for Seven would be a sign that Janeway's secondary, but ever present task over the past four years has been a failure.  And certainly no one would expect Seven to paint the town upon reaching Earth, if she does at all.  That such a journey would be marked with difficulties and challenges wouldn't be a tragic ending to the character, but an affirmation of her character's strength and resolve to struggle with difficult challenges since leaving the Collective.  The journey for Seven might have been difficult, but as Voyager's journey home suggest, most journeys worth taking are rarely easy.
 

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If there is a post series future for Voyager, its hard to believe that Seven could not be involved.  Undoubtedly, Seven has been one of the most visible elements of Trek in mainstream culture over the past few years.  Why get rid of that?

Brannon Braga once said that if Seven did have a romance, it would most likely be with the Doctor.  So much for that-- Seven and Axum said they'd find each other in the season premiere, even though it seems like the lust remains on the Doctor's part.  But if something was going to happen, why didn't it in "Body and Soul"?  Wasn't that the perfect time for Seven to realize the Doctor's long suppressed attraction to her?

Still, on Voyager story lines have a tendency of taking on new life when you least expect them.  At this point, it would seem negligent if this weren't addressed by the end of the series, but that, of course, hardly means that a relationship that could amount to a clash of the egos will necessarily work between them.  Mutual self-love can be a good foundation for a relationship, can't it?