Jeri Ryan Defends Seven of Nine’s Star Trek: Voyager Costume

As much as we all love ’90s Star Trek, there is one thing that’s hard to defend. Each of the four series produced in the era features one female cast member who wears a skin-tight cat suit instead of the uniform: Troi on The Next Generation, Major Kira on Deep Space Nine, T’Pol in Enterprise, and Seven of Nine in Voyager. As galling as the look can be for viewer, one of the actors who had to wear it defends the suffocating costume, or at least her decision to wear it.

Speaking at the ST: CHI convention in Chicago (via TrekMovie), Voyager star Jeri Ryan explained her role in creating the character and her look. “I was involved in all the costume fittings, all of the discussions. I knew what this was. And I was okay with the costume,” she revealed. “I knew it was sexy. I knew what they were going for. I was okay with that because the way the character was written.”

As most Trekkies remember, Ryan joined the Voyager cast at the end of the show’s third season, replacing original cast member Kes, played by Jennifer Lien. A human woman who had been part of the Borg collective since childhood, Seven of Nine allowed Voyager to explore one of Trek’s favorite tropes, in which an outsider discovers what it means to be human.

Of course, Seven of Nine was also designed to insert sex appeal into the series, which has always been a part of the show since the days Uhura wearing a miniskirt and Kirk taking off his shirt. And for her part, Ryan accepted that aspect of the character. “The character was added to break Star Trek into the mainstream media. That was the publicity angle of the character,” she said of Seven’s look. “And they made no bones about that. They were very clear about that from the beginning, with me.”

Yet, as comfortable as she was with Seven’s look, Ryan refused to see her character as just an object to ogle, which explained her own interest in playing the former Borg. “Because the way the character was written, she was the complete antithesis of [being a sex object],” Ryan explained. “She was not that [catsuit]. So because of how she was written, and because it was so opposed to way the physical appearance of the character was, I was all right with it.”

But as much as Ryan understands the character’s role in the 1990s, she does consider that type of character push to be appropriate today. When asked if she would take a similar role today, Ryan had a blunt answer: “No, I wouldn’t. But then, whatever.”

So it makes sense that when she reprised the role of Seven of Nine for Star Trek: Picard, Ryan wore regular clothes, just like everyone else. And when Seven rejoined Starfleet and became first officer aboard the USS Titan, she was indeed in a Starfleet uniform, breaking the ’90s cycle.