Picard - 10 Essential Seven Of Nine Star Trek Episodes
9. Fighting To Survive - Tsunkatse
Seven's struggle to become a part of Voyager's crew had its ups and downs and is something that will continue to feature on this list. In the season six episode Tsunkatse, Seven is forced to fight in an arena for the entertainment of her captors.
The episode goes beyond the usual tropes of fish out of water and shows us instead the things that make Seven tick and turn them on their head. She is initially certain of her Borg superiority, feeling confident enough to tell The Rock that resistence is futile. The Rock disagrees.
The episode was a tie-in between Star Trek Voyager and then-titled WWF SmackDown!, both owned by UPN. While it could have easily fallen into gimmicky schlock where the blonde learns to fight the big guys, it is the polar opposite - Seven is shown to grow to respect the rules of the fight, working alongside her Hirogen trainer (played by the ever-welcome J.G. Hertzler).
By the end of the episode, Seven comes close to killing her mentor in the heat of the fight after he finds her perfect foil. He taunts her, claiming that she is not perfect after all. Seven, while free from the collective for years, still sees perfection as the ultimate goal. This episode showed just how far she was willing to go to ensure she attained it.