The Raven

DVD, Voyager S4 (The Raven)

Although Seven of Nine has been heavily featured in the episodes of Season 4 so far (aside from her absence in 'Nemesis' - side note: she was planned to appear in the film of the same name and didn't, so maybe Jeri Ryan was against being in productions of that name!), it hadn't become 'Star Trek: Seven' just yet - while she's either been at the forefront, or a regular focus of the B-story, this episode is actually the first wholly Seven of Nine slot. We've seen her interact with a number of the main cast, and here we get more, with Tuvok and Neelix getting key scenes, not to mention the beginnings of Janeway's mentoring that would become so prevalent as the series progressed. I had felt Tuvok an ideal person to deal with the former Borg drone - not in the obvious fact that he's not human and shares her outsider perspective, but because he resembles much of what she is: an emotional being with strong feelings, but kept under control; an emphasis on relevance and paring things down to the necessary, not focusing on the relaxation, social interaction and unclear boundaries outside of the distinct bounds of duty and routine tasks. So I was very pleased when I saw Tuvok selected as the man to go after Seven when she does a Data and is 'activated' by a beacon that leads her 'home.' Such things would become the purview of Janeway who took on personal responsibility, sometimes ahead of her ship (such as when she would rescue Seven from the Borg in subsequent seasons), but Tuvok's role as Security Chief hadn't yet been forgotten.

He's a reassuring presence, and while he is strict and doesn't tend to take into consideration his crew-mates' feelings in his actions, that rock-solid dependability is what gives the security of the ship its soundness. He's open to the daring course of action, though always for the logical reason, not for some faux-heroic daredevil-may-care swashbuckling. So when he beams aboard the stolen shuttlecraft with the Doctor's hypospray in order to subdue his quarry and bring her back to Voyager, he does it out of duty and care, his only flaw being that he underestimates the deviousness of the former Borg and loses the one thing in his favour, the element of surprise. Perhaps he still considered her an automaton, reacting, not planning, but far from Data's automatic recall in 'Brothers,' Seven is fully cognisant, talks normally, but is conflicted with the strongest urge to reach the location of the Borg beacon. It's a really cool moment when we see the powerful Vulcan subdued by the slight, but intense exoskeletal force of Seven, in the most humiliating way possible: with the equivalent of a Vulcan Nerve Pinch! We're reminded beyond doubt just how dangerous Seven is, in case we'd forgotten thanks to the slow, but steady integration she'd shown, with things at a stage where she's discussing recreation on the Holodeck with the Captain.

The sequence where Janeway shows her round the da Vinci program for a 3D Photoshop lesson experimenting with clay (though a human head might have been a little ambitious for her first lesson - even Kira, when she went back to her family's caste system to become an artist, began with birds!), and suggesting that designing a holoprogram might be a good use of her leisure time is a bit of a jump from being accepted aboard and allowed to contribute to the Engineering section. Her development is happening in leaps and bounds compared with the much slower pace of the Doctor's own gaining of rights and learning to live, not just existing for the purpose he was constructed. At least she'd been granted the freedom from her constricting silver catsuit, with a much less showy and more respectable brown outfit (to match the clay she was working on - at least if she got any on her clothing it wouldn't matter…). Crafting a holoprogram was an interesting idea, something Tom Paris would have been happy to teach considering how he was always the holo-maestro (with Tuvok a close second, though his designs were functional, not recreational). It's not something I ever recall Seven doing, but then she never really found art to be her interest: plotting stellar phenomenon and doing something with a purpose would become her thing, rather than art for art's sake.

Pleasure and leisure were still beyond her understanding and outside of a slowly widening comfort zone. Just as Neelix performed admirably when cheering up B'Elanna in 'Day of Honour,' he's happy to take on the challenge of the ex-Borg when she's sent to him to begin taking food and drink - as with Dejaren's view last episode, I can sympathise with the position that consuming nutrients through the mouth and stomach does sound quite disgusting when you think about it. I'm sure Seven was more prepared for the beginning of the process than the end… A bit like Deanna Troi's crashing of both Enterprises-D and -E, it wasn't really the Talaxian's fault that tasting his food for the first time triggered her violent escape run, to steal a shuttle, exit the ship and fly away as fast as she could! It's a good joke, but in reality he was at his best, remaining sunny and welcoming in spite of her blunt order of food, fielding suggestive comments about the ease with which his race was assimilated, used as if she's testing his patience, like a teenager sent to do something she doesn't want to and finding a way of getting back at authority. You can tell Neelix is slightly rattled inside, but doesn't take offence - you think back to all the people he lost and how he reacted in 'Jetrel,' but he's come a long way through forgiveness and generosity, and has become a far better person on Voyager, able to withstand such minor attacks in good grace. Neelix must be one of the most inspiring characters of Trek when you realise all he's been through and that he's not all that skilful, but he's carved out a niche doing whatever he can to the best of his ability and with a cheerful heart. Again, an ideal person for Seven to learn from (including sitting which she does for the first time!).

Unfortunately for him, he becomes the next person to be 'bowled over' by Seven's 'charm' (read: knocked to the floor when she goes crazy), after the Harry Kim incident where she took her freedom and ran with it (though I think the embarrassment of Kim's attachment to her caused him more trouble, with B'Elanna teasing him about it here, and Janeway discussing it with him when they're forced to examine Seven's personal logs for clues to her radical departure). It was nobody's fault, however, but a latent in-built instinct to follow a Borg signal that causes her to leave in such an ignominious manner, complete with walking through forcefields and using her own Borg shield to withstand phaser fire, which was a surprise to see - I sort of imagined they needed a lot of onboard hardware to generate the famous adaptive shielding, but it appears a few nanoprobes can do the job (the effect of the implant bursting through the skin wasn't quite as realistic as the ones in 'First Contact'). It makes me think they should have made it so she could still pull that party trick in future as it would be an ideal defence on an Away Team: "Everyone stand behind Seven!" Dream imagery is always effective in Trek, whether it's the nightmares of Androids (Data very much a model for Seven's experiences, it would seem), or Orb visions, they never fail to add mystery and suspense to a story as, like the unexplored reaches of the Delta Quadrant, the mind is still the greatest source of exploration, and most identifiable for human viewers, that Trek can address (as Q hinted in the 'TNG' finale).

While Levar Burton as Director isn't shabby with the action, there were moments where it wasn't entirely satisfying (such as when Seven exits the Turbolift, which could have been a lot more dramatic), but the important, meaningful stuff is where he excels: the strange dreams of Borg coming for Seven, a screeching black bird, and the warning cries of her human name, Annika, give the episode its atmosphere. It's not quite one of dread and portent, but it is a strong motivator to get us to where we need to go: Seven's childhood home of the SS Raven, a Starfleet vessel used by her parents. How did the ship end up there, so far not only from the Federation, but also Borg space, deep in B'omar territory, a secretive and highly guarded race - they also look a bit silly with their wire face guards, like some kind of baseball helmet, and coloured plastic - it's good to be reminded that not every weekly alien was a winner, and some, like the Dosi of 'DS9,' were more interesting for being ridiculous than for aesthetic achievement, though it only added to the B'omar's idiotic mien and made it easier for us to accept Janeway's defiance of their wishes, to rescue her crewmembers! And why was there a beacon on the Raven? Both questions can be answered smoothly by its Borgification - it could be standard practice to leave an active homing signal for wayward drones, and if it's been used by the Borg it could end up anywhere in the Galaxy since they can travel vast distances. It may even have drifted into B'omar space and crashed of its own accord, though with that race's penchant for detecting every little thing that crossed their borders, it does seem a little unlikely to have escaped their attention, just as it was for Paris' shuttle to glide over the border without detection!

It's not the technical details and plot we're questioning during the episode, though, and that's the mark of good writing (another one from Bryan Fuller…). What I cared about was that this is the first indication of Seven's life pre-Borg, one of the reasons the story was so involving when I first saw it, because we're learning snippets about her as we go and this was certainly the biggest examination of her past so far. And yet, there is some loss of tension in the way Janeway tells Seven that information on her parents is available in the Starfleet database and she can read it at any time. At the moment she's not ready to do that digging into her personal life, but it's an artificial way of stringing out our knowledge of her life to give the writers plenty of time to come up with more, or more detailed stories in future. It would have been better if almost nothing was known about them, if their lives, and how they got hold of a Starfleet ship had been a mystery - Section 31 could have been involved, maybe they were operatives tasked with finding the source of rumours about cybernetic creatures? At the time it was enough to get to see a flashback of her parents as they get dragged away, and it is a great moment when Janeway solves the puzzle and realises what the bird represents in Seven's hallucinations, but nowadays I can't imagine they'd wait so long before uncovering the mystery.

In a way, that's a shame, because although 'Voyager' had become a lot less serialised compared to parts of the first three seasons, it was still planned to last a few years and to be around long enough to discover more, eke out the information and developments rather than rush headlong to setup constant mysteries that have to be quickly revealed in order to hold the short attention spans of many of today's viewers. That's something that could well be the case with the new Trek series to come, and is a good reminder of why I like the 90s Trek, because it does give you so much time to experience and live in that world. It's not like 'Battlestar Galactica' where it's a constant battle to survive and so many things need to be serviced, setup and resolved. In 'Voyager' we get to see the characters grow, we experience so much more of their lives and what it's like to live on such a ship because we're given the time. So although we only really learn that Annika was assimilated aboard the Raven with her parents, and that they were unconventional, I couldn't say it was unsatisfying. Partly because I know the full story, and also because it was so early in Seven's run that we learn something so momentous for her, and I could have imagined them keeping it back for much longer. Maybe back then in the late-90s they were already trying to keep viewers coming back by dangling the possibility of learning more about this intriguing new character?

We're not even told her parents' names at this stage, and it's a shame they didn't get the same actors back to reprise the important retrospective roles, as they did with Kira's Father on 'DS9' - such a small role, but they went to the trouble. They were seen in flashback in 'Scorpion, Part II,' but not even recorded in the uncredited costars section on Memory Alpha, so I couldn't say if it's the same people in this one, though for later appearances they were different actors entirely. It's a shocking moment when we see the small child hiding under the console, and Seven relives the terrifying ordeal. At least Tuvok was there to bring her back to reality, and it was also useful that they were both stronger than the average humanoid to be able to move the wreckage of the broken ship and escape. It was difficult to see the design of the vessel, but it had the look of a Runabout, though less sophisticated, and it would have been nice if they could have brought up a schematic or an image on a monitor so we could see it in its full glory. With the dismantling of the Raven it's like the last vestiges of her past have fallen away from Seven. As traumatic as it was, the experiences were important to aid in her recovery of her true nature, providing us with an exciting journey and enjoyable interactions between her and more of the crew. Janeway's eagerness for the project of Seven's regeneration is most apparent here, and the great facets of her character and abilities are showcased in some of the coolest ways. Seven continues to inject a vibrancy and added depth to the series that makes you hope for more episodes that deal with her.

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