Picard - 10 Essential Seven Of Nine Star Trek Episodes
8. Individuality - The Gift
The Gift is the first episode where we see the character we would come to better know as Seven of Nine - freed from the collective, beginning to lose her Borg implants and furious with the Voyager crew for what they have done to her. With the more technology her body begins to reject, the more fear and loathing we begin to see in her.
Jeri Ryan was delivered a tall order on joining the show. Her initial episode (which we will get to next) was the easier plot to play - she had to be menacing, cold and detached. For this follow up episode, that coldness had to slip. For a character that was barely in the door, this was a task in itself.
That she was there to replace the love-or-hate character Kes was another element to fulfill - this wasn't to be a guest spot nor even a recurring role. Seven of Nine was going to be bumped right up to starring credit from the off, something that benefited the show.
In The Gift, there are a number of scenes that allow the display of what we would come to expect - but it is the scene in the brig where she confronts Janeway that is the most memorable. She does not look on the Voyager crew as rescuers. To her, they are jailers and she has been kidnapped. This was not the reaction we were expecting from a former Borg drone.