It’s been a rough season for Jeri Ryan’s Seven of Nine.
Viewers learned at the beginning of “Picard” Season 3 that she was assigned to the U.S.S. Titan under a commanding officer who distrusts her so much he calls her by her human name Annika Hansen instead of Seven of Nine.
That captain, Liam Shaw (Todd Stashwick) even throws Seven under the bus when Starfleet Intelligence comes on board, claiming she helped Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Riker (Jonathan Frakes) steal a shuttlecraft.
Over the course of the season, Shaw slowly learns to trust his first officer, but sadly, he is killed in the penultimate episode helping Picard and company flee the Titan after it is assimilated.
With his dying breath, Shaw tells her “You have the conn, Seven of Nine,” finally calling her by her preferred name. With that, she takes command of the Titan, even though the ship, like the rest of Starfleet, is under Borg control.
Warning, the rest of this post contains spoilers from Episode 10 of “Star Trek: Picard” titled “The Last Generation.” Proceed with caution.
Seven, Raffi and a ragtag group of survivors, including the Titan’s cook, manage to retake the bridge. They improvise a way to disable their assimilated crewmates without killing them by “tagging” them with their phasers and beaming them to a locked transporter room.
Realizing they’re the only thing standing between the assimilated fleet and an undefended Earth, Seven steps up and makes a very captain-esque speech:
“I’m asking you not to give your lives for nothing,” she says, recognizing the insurmountable odds. “I’m asking you to fight for what’s below. Your families. Your children. The Borg have taken our crew. Taken our captain. But in this moment, here and now, we are all that is left of Starfleet.”
Using cloaking technology, the Titan is able to disable several ships and delay Starfleet’s attack on Earth as well as buy time for Picard to destroy the Borg cube broadcasting the orders. But in the end, the Titan is incapacitated. Fortunately, Picard’s mission is successful. The cube is destroyed and Earth is saved.
After the dust settles, Seven meets with Tuvok (Tim Russ), her former Voyager crewmate. Believing she isn’t Starfleet material, she offers her resignation. But Tuvok won’t hear of it and plays Shaw’s officer review where he recommends her promotion. Tuvok formally grants Seven a promotion to captain.
“It was so nice. And getting to play with him again, it was great,” Ryan told TheWrap at the “Picard” finale screening on Wednesday, where she carefully danced around spoilers. “And I think it was so fitting that it was Tuvok that does the thing in the scene that we’re not talking about yet. Because of the relationship that they had on Voyager, I thought it was really lovely.”
Tuvok and Seven became very close on “Voyager” as both approached situations logically. Tuvok even helped stabilize Seven after her neural net failed in the Season 5 episode “Infinite Regress” — an easter egg brought up in Episode 7 of “Picard.”
Fast forward one year, and Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers) gets his posting aboard the U.S.S. Titan. Or the ship formerly known as the Titan. It’s been rechristened as the U.S.S. Enterprise G, with Captain Seven of Nine as its commanding officer.
“It was pretty cool,” Ryan said about taking command of the Enterprise. “I mean, that’s “That’s a legendary position to be in on a legendary ship. So that was a pretty cool moment.”
Will we see the Enterprise G with Captain Seven in future “Trek” shows?
“It’s amazing,” Ryan says of viewers who have called on a “Legacy” show with Seven in command. “The fan support has been phenomenal. The outpouring of love on social media has been amazing. It always is with Star Trek fans, but this has been particularly nice.”
Even if “Legacy” doesn’t materialize, Ryan says she’s still grateful for being able to reprise and evolve a character she originated 20 years ago.
“I think it is the absolute best imaginable send-off for all of these characters that they’ve loved for so long,” she reflected. “We’ve been — as we have been all season — in the absolute best hands with [showrunner] Terry Matalas. He so lovingly and so respectfully shepherded this franchise and these characters and this world through this entire season. And because he genuinely is a fan himself.”
All episodes of “Star Trek: Picard” are streaming on Paramount+.