A Love Letter for Seven of Nine and The Doctor of the Starship Voyager

Voyager is an often criticized Star Trek show, and I don’t believe it really deserves most of that denigration.  I found it to be very rich and imaginative!  It seems to me some of the best shows were those that focused on Seven of Nine and the Doctor, two of my favorite characters from that show who weren’t quite human, but displayed some of the best humanity had to offer in their quest to grow and to be more than they were.

A favorite of mine from the fifth season, for instance, was “Drone,” the one where a Borg from the future was created when parts of Seven of Nine’s Borg implants wound up fusing with the Doctor’s holo-emitter and a crewmember’s DNA.  When the drone tried to extract information from Seven at the beginning of the episode, Seven commanded him to stop and that it was hurting her.  When he sacrificed himself for the crew, Seven told him the exact same thing, showing how much she cared for him and didn’t want him to die!  That’s clever writing.  

Another classic, “Timeless,” had Voyager being destroyed with only Ensign Kim and Commander Chakotay surviving.  Twenty years later, they used a time traveling device, along with remnants of Seven of Nine’s Borg implants and the Doctor’s holo-emitter together in an attempt to change Voyager’s fate; and it worked… barely!  And then there was “Latent Image” in which the holographic Doctor began to have what appeared to be a nervous break-down, and was shocked to discover that Captain Janeway had erased some of his memory files before, when he had begun experiencing the same breakdown. 

Janeway later explained to Seven of Nine that the Doctor had more in common with a replicator than with a man.  But Seven stuck up for him, and pointed out that she had just as much in common with the Doctor as she did with a human, and causing Janeway to reconsider.  In the end, Janeway decided that by allowing the Doctor to grow and change and explore his own existence over the years, they had given him more than just some personality sub-routines for a friendlier bedside manner; somehow, the Doctor developed a soul, or the equivalent of one.  Previously, she had simply erased his memories, denying him the time a human would have had to search his soul and experience some of the more haunting complexities of life.  This time, however, with Seven’s wisdom and insight leading her, she realized that, in a way, she was responsible for the Doctor and his development, whatever that may mean, and finally allowed him the time to work through his thoughts, as every man should have the freedom to do.  “I think, therefore I am.”  Like the Star Trek shows that came before it, I find Voyager to be highly inventive, colorful, and intelligent – a step above normal television in my eyes.