Though Marvel’s Phase 4 announcement was the talk of the San Diego Comic-Con last month, they weren’t the only franchise to have a series of surprises for fans. A trailer for Star Trek: Picard premiered to the delight of Trekkies the world over, but there was one character in the teaser that caught them all off guard: Jeri Ryan’s Seven of Nine.
It was quite the shock because Seven and Picard hadn’t previously been linked in any way. They originated on separate shows, Seven on Star Trek: Voyager and Jean-Luc Picard as the Captain of the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Ryan even had the chance to reprise what is, arguably, her most famous role as a part of Star Trek: Nemesis, but chose not to as, again, her character had nothing to do with those in the aforementioned film.
The new trailer, however, shows that the pair are not only aware of each other, but have formed a relationship in the years since their series ended. As a part of a promotional video from CBS, Ryan talked about her return to the Star Trek universe, and how it all came about, saying:
Seven’s struggle was fun for me, and I missed sharing that with her and watching her learn how to be human again. I thought that journey was over. People asked at conventions are you going to do another one, another movie. No! We told her story. That was done. Are we going to see her on Earth becoming a housewife? I don’t want to see that. And then when I learned what they has planned for Seven in this new world, you can’t turn it down. It was too rich again, and too full of new adventures and new struggles and new discoveries.
It’s clear that this is far more than a one-off cameo appearance and that Seven of Nine is set to have a significant role on the series. It’ll be interesting to see how she’s incorporated into the show, and how she behaves with Picard, especially given their respective histories with the villainous Borg. Whatever’s in store for them, fans can only speculate, as Star Trek: Picard isn’t set to debut until sometime in 2020.