Why we need a Seven of Nine spin-off of CBS’s Star Trek: Picard

Jeri Ryan returned as everyone’s favorite ex-Borg badass, Seven of Nine, for Star Trek: Picard and her appearance has left us wanting more.

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Star Trek: Picard season 1.

Star Trek: Picard, the latest Star Trek series to land on CBS’s All Access streaming service, had plenty of nostalgic moments throughout it’s first 10-episode season. The storylines played into both fan service as well as building upon established Stark Trek mythology.  The series picks up some twenty years after the events of 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis, the last film of the franchise to feature the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast, and finds Picard leaving retirement behind for a new galaxy-spanning adventure.

The series features an array of new characters, but brings back old TNG favorites Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) and Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes), along with Star Trek: Voyager‘s Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan). While it’s nice to see how Troi and Riker are adjusting to life after Starfleet, it’s Ryan’s Seven who is a constant scene-stealer in every episode she appears in. And we want more.

The women of Star Trek have a long history of being examples of remarkable sci-fi feminist characters, beginning with one of the first African-American female actresses to star as a series regular on television.  On a personal level, the women of Star Trek: The Next Generation were the first representations of onscreen feminism I can remember seeing portrayed. Deanna Troi, Dr. Beverly Crusher, Tasha Yar, and Guinan were strong characters who were treated as equals among their male counterparts.

Troi was sensitive and caring, but also strong-willed. Dr. Crusher was smart and sassy, but also thoughtful and maternal. Yar was brave and bold, but loyal and a peacemaker. Subsequent iterations of Star Trek would feature many more feminist icons, like our first female ship captain, Kathryn Janeway, in 1995’s Star Trek: Voyager. However, none really resonated with audiences quite as strongly as Seven of Nine.

Originally named Annika Hansen by her parents, she was assimilated into the Borg hive with the rest of her family when she was only seven. As a young adult, she becomes a refugee on the U.S.S. Voyager following the destruction of her Borg cube. Despite being somewhat antagonistic in the beginning since she was unaccustomed to human interaction, Capt. Janeway takes Seven under her wing and helps her adjust to her new role alongside humanity. Seven is a survivor who fought to find her own identity in the face of losing everything. She would eventually gain a family in the crew of the Voyager, evening having a romantic relationship with fellow crew member Chakotay, and winning the hearts of fans everywhere in the process.

Following the end of Voyager in 2001, fans assumed that we would never see her on our screens again. Then Picard comes along, and Ryan reprises her role of Seven, though this time Seven has a more human demeanor after spending almost two decades on Earth. She even speaks more humanly, but she’s still a badass who isn’t afraid to throw down or temporarily become a Borg queen to get the bad guys.

Seeing Ryan as Seven again reminded me how much I had missed her character and strength, but also had me wondering what Seven has been up to for the past twenty years? Although it looks like she will be sticking around for season two (yay!), we would love a spin-off that fills in the blanks on how Seven got to be who she when we pick her story back up on Picard.

Do you want more Seven of Nine? Let us know in the comments section below.