I thought it was quite a lovely way of Kes leaving, especially with The Gift at the end. I thought it was very in-character for her. Jennifer Lien was done a disservice most of the time with her storyline and script, but when she got a good script, she was excellent. I don't know the circumstances of why she left, but with the introduction of a new female character, we were very nearly in danger of having too many women in the cast for 90s Trek male fandom comfort.
I like it as it is, and the only thing that spoils it is the episode Fury. If you take her exit as is it is quite good if a little rushed. I think they could have strung out her raptures for a few episodes... to really show that it's a problem not just a mild inconvenience that she tips her life upside down for.
Yeah, the high heals were a bit much. The doctor could've at least given her a more practical pair of boots that would've still gone well with that silver body stocking.
Seven wakes up, in a world she doesn't know. is told she can't return. everyone blames her for being a Borg "Looking at you here B'Lanna" who demands an apology from Seven, who you know was turned into a Borg as a young child, and is a victim in all of this. No wonder Seven was desperate to go home to the Collective since almost everyone treated her like everything was her fault.
One of the most emotional lines of the entire show is in this episode when Janeway calls to the bridge and tells them: "... Kes is leaving us." Kes really was a gift to the show, even though ten years really isn't safely beyond Borg space. Not when the Borg have transwarp.
It is a missed opportunity that 7's transformation from Borg to independent human did not take the entirety of season 4. This includes the slow removal of her implants over the season. Imagine the writing opportunities! But s*x sells... Also sad was Kes's departure. The writers could have had a simmering antagonism between Kes and 7 for a couple seasons until a "Great Event" caused them to work together, reconcile and begin a deep friendship. Also Kes looks better with short hair.
I didn't mind Kes and it's a shame she was taken out of the show just as she got interesting. seven is an interesting addition to the crew. And I think they could have handled her adjustments to her new reality while still staying episodic. Shows do it all the time now, and started doing that in the late 90s where you'd have episodic stories that would still contain character progression. I shutter to mention Buffy but it is an example of a show that did that. Still points for starting out without the reset button being hit for once. It's certainly a rarity in this series.
@@SatanRompsProducers were mulling killing off his character, until Garret Wang was (in a very unlikely bit of luck) names something like 1 of the 100 sexiest actors in TV, or some other nebulous ranking by some magazine. So, the actor was saved from the axe. With all due respect to Mr. Wang, he wasn't exactly an amazing actor - although much of the blame there has to go on writers not being great - and, looks wise, well... Compare him to, say, Manny Jacinto today. I'll say no more.
Episode furry made no sense to her character, but what bothers me is where was she all that time and how did she catch up to them years and light years later? And what happened to the ship she was on and where did she get the new one, so many questions that never needed to be asked.
@@Soul-cry1 I thought this episode implied that she would not get old and would be like Q or at least like though people of her species in Cold Fire who are 14 and still healthy.
My job as "crewmember in charge of making sure nobody in a skirt goes on the top level of engineering because the Holodeck Safety Designer Guy made the bloody thing out of glass." [assigned stardate S2E15] just got so much easier with Seven and her highly sexualized catsuit outfit with integrated high heels, corset, front and back push up made by the holo pervert. I mean the outfit "balanced between functionality and aesthetics in a pleasing enough manner" designed by The Doctor.
All in all it was decent send off to Kes, it could have been worse. While 7 suffers the reset button to get the next episode underway but I feel like that crisis you mentioned will be trickled into episodes come. Which is why I’m sure Voyager became the 7 of 9 show as the writers finally had some material to work with even if it just had to be sprinkled on top of the reset button.
Short, sweet, innocent good girl with incredible psychic powers is replaced by tall, edgy, sexpot bad girl with … does Seven of Nine have any powers besides the ability to get safely around a spaceship in that porno suit? I mentioned the height difference because I am short myself, and us tiny cute girls (okay, I am not cute now, but I still was when Voyager was on the air) rarely get to be impressive. Say what you will, Kes’s psychic shenanigans were impressive. Women with overwhelming powers always have to be eliminated.
We're lucky we got Borg-Seven in "The Gift". According to the DVD Special Features, the network wanted her completely de-borgified by the end of Scorpion, but the producers told them it was impossible. I guess this was the compromise. They pushed for a more reasonable transition but where still under pressure from the network so I limited the transformation to 1 episode. If it's any consolation, this isn't the last time we will see Seven trying to rejoin the collective, so this isn't a closed thread just yet.
Seven's high heels were emblematic of how little the producers cared about presenting a coherent world in Voyager. In fact, they must have been a sop to someone's personal fetish, because I can't think of a single reason why they existed. It's not like the form-fitting lycra suit didn't already pointlessly sexualize her to begin with. What were the boots supposed to add?
Janeway: Just save the robot chick. I wanna torture her some more Doctor: But Captain, what if she would prefer to die? Janeway: She can just off herself later then, I guess. I don't know. Why are you bothering me? I haven't had coffee in almost an hour Doctor: Captain, I implore you to consider the ethical implications... Janeway: Oh my god, just do it! If she wants to take herself out she can just eat some of Neelix's cooking. Or Torres can show her some weirdo Klingon death ritual or whatever those people are into Doctor: Captain, that's racist Janeway: Well then maybe Chakotay's tribe has some kind of hippie crap. Some spirit quest BS with their stupid... Doctor: Okay, Captain! I prescribe twelve hours rest. Immediately! Janeway: I prescribe deleting your backtalk subroutines! Now get to work before I relegate you to scrubbing toilets with a toothbrush, you holographic quack! WHERE IS MY COFFEE?! ...And, scene
3:01 Good thing that the Federation database contains literally every known fact and piece of minutiae that’s ever happened so Janeway can look up the flight plan of a random ship that disappeared 20 years ago. This information, that no one could possibly have predicted would be needed, was deemed more vital for Voyager to have access to for its mission to the Badlands than a ship’s counsellor was! 5:38 Nice that even with 24th century medical science, the best the Doctor could up with for bandages was gaffer tape… 6:02 “Letting a former enemy fiddle with Voyager’s gubbins” You mean like making a former terrorist with anger issues the Chief Engineer!? 10:00 Seven isn’t alone in the brig. She’s got Ensign/Lt Ayala to talk to… a man who says about 10 words in 7 years, but it’s a start! 11:36 Well that’s certainly a novel way of losing a shuttle… death by alien ascension instead of crashing. Couldn’t they have given her one of the crappy TNG style shuttles instead of a good one? Those things aren’t infinitely replaceable you know… Couldn’t Kes have thrown Voyager all the way back to Earth? There’ll be several crew deaths in future episodes, which could have been avoided.
Poor Kes. I did rather like her being the voice of empathy at times, an untrained Deanna of sorts that had to find her way with limited (Tuvok tries) help. I did enjoy a lot of Seven of Nine content that follows but Kes is symbolic of 'missed opportunity the show' because for the longest time all I could remember about her, before rewatching the show, was 'she had gross Neelix relationship stuff'. Part of that is of course that I was watching much younger and watching like 30 other shows off and on at the time... But now I really do think she was the character 'we'll develop next episode' that had the can kicked down so long that they got bored of her. Oh well, Seven turned out better than I'm sure people at the time may have feared.
This episode was how do install sex appeal while we fire Jenifer Lien. Berman didnt care about the story but just wanted Space Barbie to save the series from cancellation. It worked .
I feel Seven's change should have taken longer, perhaps with less Borg stuff as time goes by. Sadly it was not to be. As for Kes? Pity she couldn't have done a bit more face melting before she went. I think, considering the constraints they were under, her departure was as good as they could do. Would have preferred it if it had been Harry turned into soup mind you.
love your voice, love your British accent, and I love your deep analysis of my favorite Star Trek show lol "There is nothing beyond the subatomic." interesting how our science has progressed since the 90's. though, barely lol. i don't know how they could've done it (swirly-whirly-clownshow level) better, as they would've either needed to know future science, or make shit up, but I think they were trying to imply that consciousness is based on "quantum-level" subatomic mechanics (which they've done before, say, on DS9) which is fascinating if you're one of those people that ponders how consciousness physically works.
It always annoyed me when Tuvok said "There is nothing beyond the subatomic" because that's just bad science (something the Vulcans are meant to be good at). Just because you don't believe there's anything there doesn't mean there isn't - surely it should have earned a "Fascinating!" and a raised eyebrow?
I hated this episode so much. They ruined Kes in my opinion. And I hated Seven. Her entire addition was for Berman’s fetishes. Even as a child watching this, I could see that. Her eventual “development” later on in the show didn’t really make me like her any more and did nothing to repair the damage she did to the show.
Finally getting into some of the really good ones. Seven is one of the most interesting characters in the entire franchise and one of my personal favorites.
I was sad to see Kes go, even if it was at the will of her actress. I never quite accepted Seven despite all her attention… but she’s not awful. Still, I wished Kes could’ve stuck around.
Question: if the Hansons were the first human Borg and everything, how were they able to know about the Borg Queen? Yes this is just “maybe data node this”, but they seem to know way more about the Borg that was never revealed to humanity until much later (since the writers hadn’t thought about it yet)
How neat would it be if they created a simulation of the Borg voices to connect to Seven via the computer or holodeck? She could interface with the ship and use the voices generated by the ship to help her acclimate to the new environment, then maybe try to slowly ween her off it? Or maybe she's better with those voices, idk.
In the same episode, the Doctor talked about replacing them. I imagine that the could clone replacement organs fairly easily, if not replicate them outright
I never understood why episodic equaled disconnected. I mean there is no reason why you couldn't have threads running through episodes for things like personal situations etc. Seven is a prime example of that, there would have been more of her having to deal with the separation and integration. Nothing big, no full episodes dedicated to her for it, but little things that get passed episode to episode.
I think your interpretation of the closing scene with Seven of Nine isn't entirely fair. I always interpreted it as resignation given their distance from Borg space but she was anything but fine.
But given that Harry was treated like a total nothing for the next four years, deleting him instead was the prudent course of action. If he'd died while his rank still made sense, who would have noticed?
Today's thought experiment: How would you have improved the dearture of Kes?
At least let the old character and her replacement interact for more than a single episode. Then it wouldn't feel like a jarring replacement.
I thought it was quite a lovely way of Kes leaving, especially with The Gift at the end. I thought it was very in-character for her. Jennifer Lien was done a disservice most of the time with her storyline and script, but when she got a good script, she was excellent. I don't know the circumstances of why she left, but with the introduction of a new female character, we were very nearly in danger of having too many women in the cast for 90s Trek male fandom comfort.
Have Kess say it's "It's Kessening time!" and then she's Kesseses harder on the Voyager.
Have her throw Voyager all the way home, thus avoiding episodes like “Nemesis” and “Unimatrix Zero”.
Or have her take Harry with her at least.
I like it as it is, and the only thing that spoils it is the episode Fury. If you take her exit as is it is quite good if a little rushed. I think they could have strung out her raptures for a few episodes... to really show that it's a problem not just a mild inconvenience that she tips her life upside down for.
Yeah, the high heals were a bit much. The doctor could've at least given her a more practical pair of boots that would've still gone well with that silver body stocking.
Seven wakes up, in a world she doesn't know. is told she can't return. everyone blames her for being a Borg "Looking at you here B'Lanna" who demands an apology from Seven, who you know was turned into a Borg as a young child, and is a victim in all of this. No wonder Seven was desperate to go home to the Collective since almost everyone treated her like everything was her fault.
One of the most emotional lines of the entire show is in this episode when Janeway calls to the bridge and tells them: "... Kes is leaving us." Kes really was a gift to the show, even though ten years really isn't safely beyond Borg space. Not when the Borg have transwarp.
This is actually a great episode, I'm impressed at how much they didn't just reset everything for once.
It is a missed opportunity that 7's transformation from Borg to independent human did not take the entirety of season 4. This includes the slow removal of her implants over the season.
Imagine the writing opportunities! But s*x sells...
Also sad was Kes's departure.
The writers could have had a simmering antagonism between Kes and 7 for a couple seasons until a "Great Event" caused them to work together, reconcile and begin a deep friendship.
Also Kes looks better with short hair.
I didn't mind Kes and it's a shame she was taken out of the show just as she got interesting. seven is an interesting addition to the crew. And I think they could have handled her adjustments to her new reality while still staying episodic. Shows do it all the time now, and started doing that in the late 90s where you'd have episodic stories that would still contain character progression. I shutter to mention Buffy but it is an example of a show that did that. Still points for starting out without the reset button being hit for once. It's certainly a rarity in this series.
After all these years, I'm still angry they saved "Harry Kim" based on ONE magazine article. My Lord...
Wait, what? They were what?
@@SatanRompsProducers were mulling killing off his character, until Garret Wang was (in a very unlikely bit of luck) names something like 1 of the 100 sexiest actors in TV, or some other nebulous ranking by some magazine. So, the actor was saved from the axe.
With all due respect to Mr. Wang, he wasn't exactly an amazing actor - although much of the blame there has to go on writers not being great - and, looks wise, well... Compare him to, say, Manny Jacinto today. I'll say no more.
better than the chomo jennifer lien
They gave Kes a great send-off. I sure hope they don't bring her back and completely destroy everything they did
But 👏 wait 👏 there's 👏 more. 🤣😂
Episode furry made no sense to her character, but what bothers me is where was she all that time and how did she catch up to them years and light years later? And what happened to the ship she was on and where did she get the new one, so many questions that never needed to be asked.
She went off to further develop her abilities with the Emissary in "American History X"
@@Soul-cry1 I thought this episode implied that she would not get old and would be like Q or at least like though people of her species in Cold Fire who are 14 and still healthy.
@@nicoleackerman205 it still doesn't answer how she managed to find and catch up with them years later.
Destroyed me with removing more of Sevins chrome. 😂
I've heard that this episode is known as "Borgy and Kes"
My job as "crewmember in charge of making sure nobody in a skirt goes on the top level of engineering because the Holodeck Safety Designer Guy made the bloody thing out of glass." [assigned stardate S2E15] just got so much easier with Seven and her highly sexualized catsuit outfit with integrated high heels, corset, front and back push up made by the holo pervert. I mean the outfit "balanced between functionality and aesthetics in a pleasing enough manner" designed by The Doctor.
Probably a good thing you wasn’t assigned TNG season 1 😂
Is the doc sexist or indulging vicariously all the more? 🤔🤔🤔
All in all it was decent send off to Kes, it could have been worse. While 7 suffers the reset button to get the next episode underway but I feel like that crisis you mentioned will be trickled into episodes come. Which is why I’m sure Voyager became the 7 of 9 show as the writers finally had some material to work with even if it just had to be sprinkled on top of the reset button.
Short, sweet, innocent good girl with incredible psychic powers is replaced by tall, edgy, sexpot bad girl with … does Seven of Nine have any powers besides the ability to get safely around a spaceship in that porno suit?
I mentioned the height difference because I am short myself, and us tiny cute girls (okay, I am not cute now, but I still was when Voyager was on the air) rarely get to be impressive. Say what you will, Kes’s psychic shenanigans were impressive. Women with overwhelming powers always have to be eliminated.
We're lucky we got Borg-Seven in "The Gift". According to the DVD Special Features, the network wanted her completely de-borgified by the end of Scorpion, but the producers told them it was impossible. I guess this was the compromise. They pushed for a more reasonable transition but where still under pressure from the network so I limited the transformation to 1 episode. If it's any consolation, this isn't the last time we will see Seven trying to rejoin the collective, so this isn't a closed thread just yet.
Seven's high heels were emblematic of how little the producers cared about presenting a coherent world in Voyager. In fact, they must have been a sop to someone's personal fetish, because I can't think of a single reason why they existed. It's not like the form-fitting lycra suit didn't already pointlessly sexualize her to begin with. What were the boots supposed to add?
Janeway: Just save the robot chick. I wanna torture her some more
Doctor: But Captain, what if she would prefer to die?
Janeway: She can just off herself later then, I guess. I don't know. Why are you bothering me? I haven't had coffee in almost an hour
Doctor: Captain, I implore you to consider the ethical implications...
Janeway: Oh my god, just do it! If she wants to take herself out she can just eat some of Neelix's cooking. Or Torres can show her some weirdo Klingon death ritual or whatever those people are into
Doctor: Captain, that's racist
Janeway: Well then maybe Chakotay's tribe has some kind of hippie crap. Some spirit quest BS with their stupid...
Doctor: Okay, Captain! I prescribe twelve hours rest. Immediately!
Janeway: I prescribe deleting your backtalk subroutines! Now get to work before I relegate you to scrubbing toilets with a toothbrush, you holographic quack! WHERE IS MY COFFEE?!
...And, scene
3:01 Good thing that the Federation database contains literally every known fact and piece of minutiae that’s ever happened so Janeway can look up the flight plan of a random ship that disappeared 20 years ago. This information, that no one could possibly have predicted would be needed, was deemed more vital for Voyager to have access to for its mission to the Badlands than a ship’s counsellor was!
5:38 Nice that even with 24th century medical science, the best the Doctor could up with for bandages was gaffer tape…
6:02 “Letting a former enemy fiddle with Voyager’s gubbins” You mean like making a former terrorist with anger issues the Chief Engineer!?
10:00 Seven isn’t alone in the brig. She’s got Ensign/Lt Ayala to talk to… a man who says about 10 words in 7 years, but it’s a start!
11:36 Well that’s certainly a novel way of losing a shuttle… death by alien ascension instead of crashing. Couldn’t they have given her one of the crappy TNG style shuttles instead of a good one? Those things aren’t infinitely replaceable you know…
Couldn’t Kes have thrown Voyager all the way back to Earth? There’ll be several crew deaths in future episodes, which could have been avoided.
YES DAY EVEN BETTER!
You should have said that seven dominoed kim onto other security yellow shirt. Because watching that scene in slow motion is just hilarious.
Poor Kes. I did rather like her being the voice of empathy at times, an untrained Deanna of sorts that had to find her way with limited (Tuvok tries) help.
I did enjoy a lot of Seven of Nine content that follows but Kes is symbolic of 'missed opportunity the show' because for the longest time all I could remember about her, before rewatching the show, was 'she had gross Neelix relationship stuff'. Part of that is of course that I was watching much younger and watching like 30 other shows off and on at the time... But now I really do think she was the character 'we'll develop next episode' that had the can kicked down so long that they got bored of her.
Oh well, Seven turned out better than I'm sure people at the time may have feared.
Mentioning Psicorp means I now want to see PsiCop Kes-ter (she must be well beyond a P12)
I loled 😂 But I don't want to see Walter Koenig in a catsuit 😂
@@lmoore3567
🤣🤣
The physical change in Seven should have happened more slowly, at least 3-4 episodes. The mental one did continue into the next few seasons.
9:06 - Can we have Neelix?
We have Neelix at home.
Neelix at home:
Borg taking full advantage of those Qi wireless chargers they assemelated
This episode was how do install sex appeal while we fire Jenifer Lien. Berman didnt care about the story but just wanted Space Barbie to save the series from cancellation. It worked .
It worked. And she turned into one of the most developed characters on the show. And I don't mean it "that" way
@@HappyBeezerStudios that because The fantastic actor Mulgrew told off Berman and insisted that she not just be fan boy service
Tits-of-Ass or Shaven-Of-Loin...whatever you want...
Two-Of-Breasts
Well she is basically a prisoner of war in the beginning. And they need her expertise to deal with all the stuff left behind by the borg.
Hey now I stay for more than just the space dog
Yeah, but you're thinking about him the whole time.
I feel Seven's change should have taken longer, perhaps with less Borg stuff as time goes by. Sadly it was not to be.
As for Kes? Pity she couldn't have done a bit more face melting before she went. I think, considering the constraints they were under, her departure was as good as they could do. Would have preferred it if it had been Harry turned into soup mind you.
Haven't even finished the video but getting a thumbs up for "silly buggers"
More power
love your voice, love your British accent, and I love your deep analysis of my favorite Star Trek show lol
"There is nothing beyond the subatomic." interesting how our science has progressed since the 90's. though, barely lol.
i don't know how they could've done it (swirly-whirly-clownshow level) better, as they would've either needed to know future science, or make shit up, but I think they were trying to imply that consciousness is based on "quantum-level" subatomic mechanics (which they've done before, say, on DS9) which is fascinating if you're one of those people that ponders how consciousness physically works.
It always annoyed me when Tuvok said "There is nothing beyond the subatomic" because that's just bad science (something the Vulcans are meant to be good at). Just because you don't believe there's anything there doesn't mean there isn't - surely it should have earned a "Fascinating!" and a raised eyebrow?
Yup! Believing there's nothing before it's disproven is an act of faith, just as much as believing there's something before it's proven.
I hated this episode so much.
They ruined Kes in my opinion.
And I hated Seven. Her entire addition was for Berman’s fetishes. Even as a child watching this, I could see that.
Her eventual “development” later on in the show didn’t really make me like her any more and did nothing to repair the damage she did to the show.
At the end of the vid, kind of reminded me of a Judas Priest trial I once watched.
Finally getting into some of the really good ones. Seven is one of the most interesting characters in the entire franchise and one of my personal favorites.
I was sad to see Kes go, even if it was at the will of her actress. I never quite accepted Seven despite all her attention… but she’s not awful. Still, I wished Kes could’ve stuck around.
Yes, it's too bad that the transition of Seven wasn't taken more gradually. Jeri Ryan would certainly have done that transition dramatic justice.
Good stuff
Question: if the Hansons were the first human Borg and everything, how were they able to know about the Borg Queen?
Yes this is just “maybe data node this”, but they seem to know way more about the Borg that was never revealed to humanity until much later (since the writers hadn’t thought about it yet)
How neat would it be if they created a simulation of the Borg voices to connect to Seven via the computer or holodeck? She could interface with the ship and use the voices generated by the ship to help her acclimate to the new environment, then maybe try to slowly ween her off it? Or maybe she's better with those voices, idk.
And Kes does an Ironheart, unfortunately without mirror universe Chekov.
Is that the Changeling cure at the end? ;)
how did it take Annika's parent only 20 years to get to the Delta Quad and the BOrg????
I'm still trying to work out how Seven regrew her eye and hair. Was it spontaneous through sheer effort of will?
In the same episode, the Doctor talked about replacing them.
I imagine that the could clone replacement organs fairly easily, if not replicate them outright
One eye is a replacement implant, which Doc parades around in the episode.
I never understood why episodic equaled disconnected. I mean there is no reason why you couldn't have threads running through episodes for things like personal situations etc. Seven is a prime example of that, there would have been more of her having to deal with the separation and integration. Nothing big, no full episodes dedicated to her for it, but little things that get passed episode to episode.
Sadly Kes got more development in her send of episode, rather then in the previous three seasons.
I think your interpretation of the closing scene with Seven of Nine isn't entirely fair. I always interpreted it as resignation given their distance from Borg space but she was anything but fine.
Sub-subatomic or Quantum level
Sevens shoes are ridiculous... but still I'd trade Neelix and two of Kes for her any day 😁👍great review thanks you are appreciated 💚🌹💚
But given that Harry was treated like a total nothing for the next four years, deleting him instead was the prudent course of action. If he'd died while his rank still made sense, who would have noticed?
Your wrap up didn’t mention Kes at all? Ok then…