Picard - 10 Essential Seven Of Nine Star Trek Episodes
7. Seven Of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct Of Unimatrix Zero One - Scorpion, Part 2
One of the better character introductions that Star Trek Voyager offered us, the sight of this drone being freed from the tubing and regeneration alcove was a striking shot. Bang, bang, bang - and Seven of Nine enters the show.
As the show was going to be dealing with the Borg, it made perfect sense to create a single mouthpiece for the Collective rather than try to speak to the many voices all the time. The idea had originated with The Best of Both Worlds and Picard's assimilation into Locutus, but of course for the show to continue they couldn't sustain such a radical change to Jean Luc Picard.
On Star Trek Voyager, they had no such limitations and thus Seven, while regaining her humanity, remained the ever-efficient human Borg. She is played as deceptive and cold in her freshman outing. Though we see other drones on the cube, none of them matter when all eyes are on Seven.
As already discussed, Jeri Ryan elevated the character so that she was not simply eye candy for the ratings. Watching her betray the Voyager crew after the destruction of the Species 8472 ships, while not unexpected, added to the menace of this new character. She was both unpredictable and exactly what you wanted from a Borg drone. The ominous ending showing Seven lying on the bio-bed, all lights flicking on and off, teased the new direction Voyager was heading in.